premjan

Some religions are very overtly environmental in nature (e.g. the Jain habit of sweeping the ground before stepping on it to avoid squashing insects).

Some religions consider the world to have been given to man to use as he will, since man is superior to all the animals (and plants). I would guess that Christianity is like this. Israel seems fairly conservationist, though that might just be the constraint of geography. Some religions like Islam are more neutral; the Bedouins are certainly philosophical though not perhaps outright conservationists.

Hinduism is mostly pro-environmental in nature though there is some indifference to the environment in it also. However, having some animalistic Gods and the principle of karma does help people be mindful of their actions vis-a-vis future generations.

I would guess that Buddhism would encourage people to be mindful of the environment.

Some religions encourage vegetarianism, perhaps this is just a disguised "efficiency" argument.

What would be a consistent religious (or ethical) slant on environmentalism? Does it have any religious or ethical importance at all?

If Christianity had not predominated in Europe, might human exploitation of natural resources have proceeded at a very slow rate?

Evoken

Please, is there anything Christian about using the brains of cows for lipstiks? Or for cutting down massive amounts of threes for the Victoria Secret Catlogs? Or perhaps for fashion designers using dead birds and fur in their designs?

No, premjan. What you see is Capitalism gone mad, there is nothing religious about it. All that matters is money and the big companies will rather let th rivers dry to sell you a botle of water.

But since you asked, as far as Christiainty goes, anything that threatens humans is to be avoided and that includes the destruction of the enviroment.

sharon45

The earth could very well be seen as a god and has. Instead it is science in action.

premjan

I am not sure that capitalism is exactly to blame (though it might exacerbate the problem) since communism also had a very bad environmental track record (the difference being that there the environment was soiled right around where people lived since they didn't care much about what happened to people either).

I actually wonder about the use of toilet paper (which undoubtedly causes as many trees to be cut down as victoria's secret catalogs) which could easily be supplanted by e.g. bidets.

I actually do think that living in a barren ecological terrain like the Middle East caused those prophets to think little of any creatures but themselves.