Thoughts on Muir

“Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation?”

~John Muir

As a Christian, reading the background information on Muir hurt my heart. He is not the only one who has been abusively taught our religion, and for that I am so sad. It is understandable that he would no longer identify with the faith which his father beat into him. However, as someone who does believe the creation story it was interesting to read his take on it.

I do think that he makes a great point about ourselves as humans being incredibly arrogant and presumptuous about the resources this world has. We parade around as if it is all for the taking: land, animals, oil, diamonds, any natural resource you can think of. In fact, we abuse this world and oftentimes Christians do so under the guise that we are meant to “have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” (Genesis 1:26, ESV). 

Muir claims that Christian’s excuse that the Fall has caused tension between man and the earth is just that... nothing but an excuse for humans to abuse and use nature. Although I see where he is coming from, I think it IS important to remember the circumstances under which the Lord gave man dominion over everything. It was in a place where all creatures got along, where man was charged with caring for God’s creation. No animals were killed until after the Fall, and from what the Bible passages mention, it seems that nature was as it should be. Man did not take advantage of resources, and nature was not wasted for man’s gain. 

I do agree that now humans use this passage as a way to assert dominance and strip the earth of its many resources. It is sad to think that people misinterpret the Bible in such a way that they personally profit from what it has to say, at least in the form of monetary gains. As for how we allocate, preserve, and carefully use what is left in a way that honors what God intended in his charge to us, I wish I had a clear answer. But we must stop using the Bible as our excuse for dynamiting mountains, mass-slaughtering animals, and polluting nature.