Earth Day Scriptures

[Galloglasses' Alt]

[quote name='LouisvilleFan' post='1844278' date='Apr 23 2009, 08:11 AM']I have no problem with lovin' the earth. Jesus was a tree hugger...[/quote]
took me a moment to get the joke, clever!

[Aloysius]

In traditional times, it was thought that all sin polluted the earth. Biblical language speaking of polluting the earth is not speaking merely of direct acts of exploitation, though it certainly encompasses that; biblical and Christian terminology considers every sin to be something which pollutes all of nature.

Hildegard of Bingen almost sounds like an environmentalist when she writes nature's complaint against humanity here:
"We can no longer do what God ordained us to do. We want to finish the journey He gave us, but we can’t. We would run like we were meant to, if we could. But humans mistreat us. They abuse us. That’s why we smell so horribly. That’s why we’re black with pollution and teeming with plagues."

but what is meant here is that nature is kept from doing what it ought to do because of the stain of human sin, because humans do not do what they ought. nature is complaining here because of all the vices that were just listed about humanity in The Book of Life's Merits... she goes through and lists each vice and its contrary virtue, and here she has nature complain because all vices, not just greed and outright exploitation of nature, but all vices are keeping nature stagnant and unable to do what God ordained it to do.

so, for example, lust damages nature too, not just littering