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[av_heading heading=’VIEWPOINTS | Ecology’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY OSCAR CRUZ
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Wednesday, March 29, 2017
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“God… the Designer and Maker of the earth…not creating it to be a waste, but designing it to be lived in.” (Isaiah 45:15-25)
THE ABOVE-quoted biblical passage from the Old Testament written by the prophet Isaiah who lived in the year 740 before Christ already brings to fore that ecology was already then a markedly signal concern.
The main reminder-contents of the citation are plain yet profound in significance and implications. First, earth has nobody else as Maker and Designer than God Himself. Second, earth must thus be cared for, preserved not wasted, even but considering its Maker. Third, earth was specifically designed and made by God for man he also created, to live in with all his fellow human beings.
So it is that no less than some two thousand seven hundred and fifty five years ago, ecology was already a marked preoccupation as expressed by no less than Isaiah, a distinct Prophet. Yes, there were other men of God who saw, understood and wrote about truths in the supernal order – in the realm of the spiritual and in the sphere of the divine. Yet, ecology – which is basically about on-the-ground relationship between living beings and their environment and vice-versa, was already a well-perceived concern, a fundamental reality, a marked preoccupation.
And these are precisely the days and times that man seems to be bent in profiting from the earth while destroying its well-being, appears to be covetous of the wealth therein contained while indifferent to its integrity.
Ecology – what is that? Environment – who cares? Climate change – so what? It is such greed and nonchalance, such covetousness and indifference that in effect occasioned the recent issuance of nothing less than a Papal Encyclical on the “Care of Our Common Home.”
“Papal” because it is no less than Pope Francis himself who issued it. “Encyclical” because it is addressed to the world as a whole – considering that its content and spirit are worldwide not only in relevance but also in scope. Among many of its teachings and reminders, the following come to fore:
Many things have to change course, but it is the human beings themselves who need to change first in their value system in conjunction not only with their present but especially so in anticipation of their future.
The ecological system they are living in is already bad and it is becoming worse unless they change their value system particularly in relation to mother earth whose fruits and benefits are for all, not only for a chosen few.
The way people look at the wealth of the earth gives the pitiful impression that they have long since subscribed to the pitiful, shameful and truly egoistic principle of everyone for himself, let others take care of themselves.
What is more sad and saddening is that the three above observations are not but relevant to atheists, to practitioners of inhumanity to man but also to many so-called “Christians.” This is a pity. This is a disgrace./PN
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