You are talking about consumerism. Mostly that has it's origins in socialism. In the sixties/seventies the slogan of socialists in the Netherlands was for everybody to have a car, and a refrigerator. They didn't know that refrigerators at that time carried a product that destroyed the ozone layer, but they could have known about so many cars destroying the environment, and it is quite apparent to me that it is mainly socialism that is fanning the flames of consumerism ever higher. Conspicuously the socialists do not accept any responsibility for their errors whatsoever.
In general a religious lifestyle doesn't sit well with extreme luxury. The main criticism of religion seems to be that it leads to too much ascetism, I never hear about it leading to wallowing in luxury.
(edited to add: Incidentally some years ago I saw an evolutionist on BBC television saying that mass extinctions are a normal part of evolution, it is a natural phenomenon. It happened before, so there was no reason to worry about the current mass extinction. So the responsibility was simply abdicated under the pretext that nothing is of value, except for human beings, the plants and animals also only having "potential" value in respect to human beings. It is very tempting to think that anything only has value in respect to people, but I think such an environmental policy which doesn't recognize some kind of selfworth of what you seek to protect, must be ultimately doomed to fail because of stimulating selfishness. Are we really going to protect the rainforest just because we might find some medicine there? I think if environmentalists exclusively argue like that, then as a side-effect it becomes increasingly tempting to cut them down to use the timber, because the value of the forest is exclusively human exploitation.)
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu
This message has been edited by Syamsu, 12-29-2004 10:36 AM
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