The influence of the book of Genesis, which says that the Lord God said to go forth and multiply to Adam and Eve, and that the natural world is there for you to dominate, you have dominion over the animals and plants of the world. And that basic notion, that the world is there for us and that if it doesn't serve our proposes, it is dispensable, that has produced the devastation of vast areas of the world's surface... That is why we are in the situation that we're in. (3:28 - 4:27)
Of course this verse (Genesis 1:28) is marked green in the world's most dishonest book: The Green Bible.
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Joseph Campbell makes the point that Genesis encourages mismanagement of the Earth, too. People are conditioned to believe the Earth is corrupted by sin and will pass away and be replaced.
So, why bother?
Our children's children are going to so hate us for not recycling!
The truth is, as stated multiple times by lettered scientists, is that the earth, and millions of species that occupy it, actually have dominion over us! The way things are progressing, human beings are doomed to either destroy themselves via nuclear war or to overpopulate the planet and die out from starvation and pollution.
Having the above truth in our minds, the quoted Genesis passage only serves to demonstrate how ignorant and self-centered humans were around the time of the invention of bronze.
Well, hasn't humanity always been self-serving? We create a god to protect us and to make us feel better about ourselves, then harangue anybody who questions otherwise and condemn them to an eternity of (nonexistent) torture in the (nonexistent) afterlife.
Human beings tend to make decisions about consumption of resources selfishly.
When there's a petrol shortage coming, we fill up our cars. When a bank might not have enough money to pay all of its creditors, we queue up to take out our money before the bank runs out. When there's a planning application for a wind turbine in our area, we object and say that it has to be built elsewhere.
It's this selfishness that causes environmental devastation and that needs to be curbed to stop it, but I'm not convinced that it comes from Genesis 1:18; after all, atheists behave like this too.
I'm pretty sure that we'd be devastating the planet with or without the Bible.
Errancy, I agree to some extent. I don't think the Bible created humans' disregard for the planet. I do think the Bible perpetuates it, however.
Similarly, I don't think the writers of the Bible actually invented slavery, or that there would never have been slavery anywhere were it not for the Bible, but its verses were used to justify it in the US and elsewhere.
I'm sure some people actually thought God was okay with enslaving people, just as I'm sure some people today unfortunately feel we can use everything on Earth to our sole benefit because God put us in charge.
Most people don't care about religion, just about themselves and the genes that have been passed onto them or they've left behind. That's why the environment is suffering and their is all kinds of terrorism in the world. The idea of God has nothing to do with it.
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