Anthropocene Religion: Rethinking Nature, Humanity and Divinity Amid Climate Catastrophe

by Michael Barnes Norton

Overview

Anthropocene Religion argues that addressing a future, and present, shaped by worldwide catastrophic climate change involves not only radically rethinking the ideas of nature, and humanity’s place within it, inherited from Western modernity. It also demands a reconceptualization of the nature and role of religion. The advent of the Anthropocene simultaneously displaces the human from the centre of the world and erodes all sharp distinctions between the natural environment and the realm of human activity. Similarly, the Anthropocene renders untenable concepts of religion that rely on reference to realms, beings or forces that wholly transcend nature. It is, however, possible to understand both religion and its divine referents in worldly rather than transcendent terms, just as it is possible to understand nature as dynamic and creative. The Gaia hypothesis offers us a figure through which to approach these concepts in their interconnectedness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474425391
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	02/28/2025
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Michael Barnes Norton is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences, and Education at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Rethinking Religion in a New Climate

1. The Time of the Anthropocene
2. Nature’s Rough Edges
3. Nature and Gaia in the Anthropocene
4. What Religion Does
5. Religion in the Anthropocene
6. The Anthropocene Divine

Conclusion: Understanding Religion in the World Ahead

Bibliography