Environmental Ethics

Author(s): S M Jain
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

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persisting, the religious scriptures are full of instructions about good code of conduct, and examples of consequences of good and bad deeds. People read these scriptures, listen to sermons yet act differently. There are laws, rules and systems of punishment. All this is contradictory because if all that is happening is as desired by God, then there is no need for scriptures prescribing good conduct and laws to punish law breakers. To attribute to God the creation of universe and all objects including human beings is another fallacy propagated by many religions. God is described as kind, merciful and impartial and yet he created the world full of cruelties, miseries, disease, earth-quakes, floods, droughts, wars, violence and disparities. Slavery and atrocities on slaves were common till recent past. Poor and deprived have suffered through out ages and their sufferings are continuing unabated. Such is the regime of benevolent God. Therefore he is not at all kind and merciful or he is not at all the creator. God is supposed to be omnipotent and perfect architect and yet created such a imperfect world. A good chemist or an architect could have done better. According to the renowned cosmologist Stepheon Hawking only those who are deficient in mathematics believe in God. It is argued that there has to be some creator or maker of things as we see in every day life. So there has to be a creator of the world. The question then arises that their should be creator of God also and there is no answer. If God can exist for all time then why not the matter, energy, space and time that constitute the universe. These constituents have inherent capabilities and mentation to join, break, rejoin, assemble, reassemble, react, interact and manifest in myriad phenomena and there is no need for any creator or controller.
Surrogatory in religious practices :
Wily people take advantage of this confused psyche and offer spurious solutions. There is practice of offering penance by these on behalf of wrong doers on payment of proportionate sum of money assuming that this will absolve the incalcitrants from their
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