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Religion and the Order of Nature (Cadbury Lectures)
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$ 69.60
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| Item Number |
160273 |
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Item Description...
The current ecological crisis is a matter of urgent global concern, with solutions being sought on many fronts. In this book, Seyyed Hossein Nasr argues that the devastation of our world has been exacerbated, if not actually caused, by the reductionist view of nature that has been advanced by modern secular science. What is needed, he believes, is the recovery of the truth to which the great, enduring religions all attest; namely that nature is sacred.
Nasr traces the historical process through which Western civilization moved away from the idea of nature as sacred and embraced a world view which sees humans as alienated from nature and nature itself as a machine to be dominated and manipulated by humans. His goal is to negate the totalitarian claims of modern science and to re-open the way to the religious view of the order of nature, developed over centuries in the cosmologies and sacred sciences of the great traditions. Each tradition, Nasr shows, has a wealth of knowledge and experience concerning the order of nature. The resuscitation of this knowledge, he argues, would allow religions all over the globe to enrich each other and cooperate to heal the wounds inflicted upon the Earth. |
Item Specifications...
Pages 320
Dimensions: Length: 9.19" Width: 6.08" Height: 0.86"
Weight: 1 lbs.
Binding Softcover
Publisher Oxford University Press
ISBN 019510823X
EAN 9780195108231
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Availability 100 units.
Availability accurate as of May 26, 2012 05:26.
Usually ships within one to two business days from La Vergne, TN.
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | Intriguing, but flawed May 13, 2005 |
Nasr's basic premise in this book is that the current ecological crisis stems from the fact that, about the time of the Renaissance, a large portion of humanity abandoned its traditional religion-based view of nature as a living and sacred creation of God, in favor of the view that nature is a dead machine that humans may manipulate however they choose.
Already, at this point, the reader may feel a bit uneasy--justifiably so, in my opinion. Nasr's reductionism leaves him reluctant to point out the substantial differences in the views of nature held by what he considers traditional religions. His stance is that all these religions (such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism) sprang from a common source and were appropriate for those times and places in which they manifested themselves. He believes that only by a mass return to the perennial philosophy embodied in these religions can the planet be saved. Not surprisingly, although he displays a broad and thorough knowledge of many of these traditions, his favorite is his own, Islam, which he considers superior.
Anyway . . .Nasr has some sound notions about ecology and philosophy, but his prejudices are pretty evident. His work is made a little less accessible than it might be for me personally by his references to himself as one of the top authorities in his field, and by his consistent use of the editorial "we" and "our" to refer to himself and his work. (Or is that the royal "we"? With him, it's a little hard to tell . . .)
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