Religion and Ecology 2022

The philosophy professor in the small German town of Jena explained the idea that an individual’s self and nature are identical. This was an interesting concept that he explained to the public as previous philosophers always divided the world into mind and matter, making the mind separate from nature. I also liked this because it gives us a new way to think about ourselves and our relationship with nature. This ties back into our discussions from class as we frequently discussed how important our relationship is with nature and different ways to strengthen this bond. We discussed how we can learn so much more about ourselves by just going out into nature. 

New Zealands’s most well-known conservation story is about the two Chatham Island black robins that were able to save their species population. The population suffered a major decline when rats invaded the area and by 1976, there were only 7 birds left. Researchers moved the remaining birds to an island with no predators and the only breeding pair were later labeled as “Adam and Eve” for the robin population. However, scientists worried that this would cause an increase in robins with genetic defects, but data displayed that this was not the case. Studies also revealed that even though inbreeding among the robin population increased substantially, there was not an increase in the number of harmful mutations. What if the robin’s recovery stops, slows down, or reverses as more harmful mutations gather in the population? Scientists continue to study this remarkable conservation story and how the robins react to different threats.  https://theconversation.com/back-from-the-brink-how-ge...

   We spent a couple of class periods going over how we decided what we could eat versus what we couldn't. This sets us apart from animality because of how we look to decide what's okay to eat. Animals don't have a problem with going after food unless there's fear involved. If a hyena can steal the prey of predators, it will unless it decides the risk is not worth it. Some domestic dogs and cats will also hunt prey, even if they would rather them not. Humans, however, look more deeply into this question. We mention a bunch of examples in class. I think they were called the Jains(?), but they could only eat food that was given to them was freshly cooked and unplanned because they could have nothing to do with the killing of another organism. This includes plants and bacteria. Another one we mentioned is not eating animals with faces on them, which is common in the U.S. because food usually never looks like animals when we have them to eat. I was at a restaurant somewhere...

  During our discussion on November 17th, we brought up the diets. There are all kinds of diets, including fad diets and religious diets. Last semester, I was in Food and Culture, and we had a section on diets. My teacher mentioned that diets are used for change more than other actions because of how much easier it is to change up what you eat versus other parts of your life. This is also one of the reasons that there are a lot of psychological issues that cause either overeating or under-eating. Fad diets have been around for a long time as a way of 'quick and easy' actions for weight loss or what is the right diet for us. One example brought up was the paleo diet, which is where we are supposed to eat what our ancestors ate. However, that means there is no right paleo diet because many different earlier humans had very different diets depending on where they lived. A religious diet that we talked about in this class was called the Hallelujah diet. There are a lot more example...

   I found gift-giving to be one of the most interesting topics this semester because of just how much I've thought of it. Modern society has often turned gift-giving into an exchange. If we give a gift, the giver often expects something back, and the receiver often expects to have to give something in return. Not only in modern society but in the past too. In Ancient Greek, wealthy families had guest-friendship with people outside of their city-state. A family would offer hospitality for the other's stay, which began an alliance or network based on this guest-friendship. Guest-friendships would be expected to host the person or the family that had given they hospitality before. And the closest guest-friendships would be the places they ran off to if they were exiled from their original polis. Though true friendships might have been built, it doesn't change the fact that it was more of an exchange than it was true hospitality.  

    I really appreciated this class. It provided a kind of open discussion class where it was easy to share one's thoughts and feelings on different topics without it feeling forced. The laid-back atmosphere was also pleasant to be in, in comparison to some of my other classes where we were following a strict syllabus that we needed to make it through every class time. This hinders the time available for class discussion or students' questions sometimes. I did not know what I was really expecting when I started this class at the beginning of the semester. But I ended up enjoying the topics we went over a lot as well. I found the ones on food to be particularly interesting. However, this could possibly be because I just find topics centered around food to be engaging anyway. I was also really thankful for the food that our professor brought to class occasionally. It was a literal life-saver at some points. Otherwise, I did feel that this class seemed a bit more philosophical th...