The Judeo-Christian Ethic is Ruining Our Environment Essay

The Judeo-Christian Ethic is Ruining Our Environment - Essay Example Another part of the damaging equation lies in the Christian belief that we are to go forth and multiply, therefore there is ban on contraceptives instituted by the Catholic church. This is another part of the Judeo-Christian belief that is damaging to our environment, and this belief is perhaps most damaging at all. This essay will examine the man-made causes of global warming, and the effects of global warming. This essay will also examine the way that we treat our animals, which is a part of the equation that would be inherent in White's essay. Finally, this essay will look at the effects of overpopulation, which, if it gets much more out of hand, will be the effective end of environment. All of these problems can be directly traced to Christian ethos of dominion over the environment, animals, and the command for the human race to go forth and multiply. The Bible and Animals White's argument centered around the fact that the Bible has been used by humans to justify treating nature and our environment in a way that shows that animals and natural resources were put on this earth simply to save man. He approved of the way that St. Francis of Assisi saw the animals – St. Francis of Assisi thought of the animals as being God's creatures, with souls, and that they were put on this earth not to serve man, but because God created them the same way that he created us. This meant that St. Francis respected the animals as sentient beings with souls. This is clearly not the way that man thinks of animals, if one considers factory farms. For instance, the ethicist Peter Singer, who believes the way that St. Francis did, that animals were not put on this earth to serve us, but they were created in their own right, details how humans treat animals. For instance, he states, in his book The Meat and Milk Factories: The Ethics of How We Eat (2006) that pigs are kept in a crate that is so small that they cannot turn around. Without even hay to sleep on, this is all these pigs know – this tiny crate. The breeding sows are kept in tiny crates that are only a foot longer than their bodies, while being forced to have litter after litter. Male pigs are castrated with an anesthetic. Cows are not treated much better. For instance, the veal cow is put into a dark crate for 16 weeks. During this time, it has a tied neck and is basically starved of iron, so that it becomes anemic. Therefore, it is certain that man believes that animals are simply on this earth to be exploited by humans. Otherwise, there would be a greater outcry about how our animals are treated. Instead, the issue is mostly swept under the rug. In the recent United States Presidential election, the issue of animal rights and factory farms did not come up. Once. That is because of the belief that man has dominion over the animals. Because animals do not have soul, and because man is supposed to have dominion over them, that means that we can treat them any way that we want to treat th em, and forget that they have feelings and can sense pain and fear. But the fact that factory farms are cruel is just one part of the equation. The other part is that they are bad for the environment. Thus, the factory farming lends credence to Smith's overall thesis, which is that the Judeo-Christian ethic is bad for the environment. Michael Pollan explains why this is so. According to Pollan (2008), factory farms harm the environment because the animal waste is in such abundance, because meat in general is in such abundance, that it is no longer fertilizer, but a pollutant. The reason for this is because the