Religion and the Environment PDF

The book analyses the whole interface between religion and the environment.

It discusses their interactions and reciprocal effects within the major world religions.

It then considers the importance of religion in moulding perceptions of the environment especially through views on the afterlife as expressed in culture and the arts. It discusses the influence of the environment on the practice of world religions, and the obverse: the ways in which religion moulds the human use of time, space, materials, transport and foods, the specific effects of particular occupations, and the differences between single-faith and multi-faith societies.

It then considers the effects of religious belief on basic demographic trends such as morbidity, mortality, the care of the disadvantaged, marital arrangements, conception and the disposal of the dead.

It gives special consideration to the effects of religion on the treatment of animals and on environmental management, and concludes with an overview.