On Can Religion Be the Answer to Climate Change: A group in Singapore explores the topic
Photo: Uploaded on November 8, 2009 by Reizz on flickr, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic
Faith and the Environment
As tempting as it was to sleep in on a rainy Saturday morning, there was something more exciting to get up for - a guided walk cum interfaith dialogue, conducted i n-situ at Chek Jawa. ... Among us were Hindus, Baha'is, Muslims and Christians....And oh, a Baha'i role-playing a Taoist (thanks P. !) to add diversity to the group....
Blog:http://canyouseame.blogspot.com/2009/11/faith-and-environment.html
As tempting as it was to sleep in on a rainy Saturday morning, there was something more exciting to get up for - a guided walk cum interfaith dialogue, conducted i n-situ at Chek Jawa. ... Among us were Hindus, Baha'is, Muslims and Christians....And oh, a Baha'i role-playing a Taoist (thanks P. !) to add diversity to the group....
Blog:http://canyouseame.blogspot.com/2009/11/faith-and-environment.html
Social networking sites may be hot, but blogs continue to be my favorite places to touch down on the Internet. The above entry is by a blogger who visits a wetlands in Singapore with a group of friends, posts some lovely pictures, and has this observation to make. -gw
I was really so fortunate to be able to meet with such a learned and expressive bunch of people, who shared their views openly and candidly. I couldn't have asked for a better bunch of people to share the day with. As it was my first time facilitating such a discussion, it was challenging to keep up with the range of views and the very quick twists in the conversations. Sometimes I felt the points raised were outside the topic we set out to explore, but it was difficult to interject when some participants clearly want to say something, and conversations were so animated. It was also difficult to truly listen deeply when replies come fast and furious. Free-flow conversations would probably work better for a brainstorm-type discussion rather than a dialogue-type setting. In truth, we discussed about a wide range of topics, but for some reason, I came away thinking that religion holds valuable lessons in how to live one with nature, but until we learn that we really need to mend our ways, it seems our shabby treatment of our own living space is set to continue. Human beings seem to only respond when it is something urgent, not something slow like climate change. The participants are already environmentally-conscious, but do they represent the majority? I don't know. Can religion be the answer? Maybe. Would it morph into yet another tool of control in a new domain such as the environment? I don't know.
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