Caring for the environment is the most important thing a religious person can do

 ‘Caring for the environment is the most important thing a religious person can do’

In many religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism, it is said that God gave humans the responsibility to look after the world and care for the environment.  However, none of the creation stories say how important this duty is and what priority should it have.

On one hand, Christians and Jews would agree with this viewpoint as God gave humans this responsibility after creating humans.  Genesis 2:15 says “And the Lord God took the man, and put him in the Garden of Eden to dress it and keep it”.  This means that humans were given the responsibility of being “stewards” of the earth, and as this was one of the first commands God gave it can be seen as the most important one by some.  In Hinduism, the environment is also extremely important, and some would agree that caring for the environment has the highest priority and is the most important thing they can do.  In Hinduism, it is said that the creator Brahma used parts of himself to form the earth, and therefore harming earth would be harming Brahma himself too: “Arjuna, whatever you wished to see, behold at once in this body of mine! This universal form can show you whatever you now desire to see and whatever you may want to see in the future.  Everything, moving and non-moving-is here completely, in one place.” (Bhagavad Gita 11:7)   A famous figure of Hinduism, Mahatma Ghandi would ask for permission before stepping onto the ground and Ghandi expressed his views that eating plants would also count as being violent as he believed everything living had a soul. Some groups of people would hold onto trees to prevent them from being cut down.  This shows how important the environment is in Hinduism and so this view may be true to many Hindus, and to followers of other religions too such as Christianity and Judaism.