re: #136 cliffster

You miss the point. Groundhogs affect nature when they dig tunnels through the plains. They are, nonetheless, subjects of nature, not its ruler.

So, if I read this right, you’re saying that we can’t affect nature because we are not it’s “ruler”. So that’s a deist view that only God can change the world? Do you believe in free will either?

How about this, what if we launched & detonated every nuclear warhead we have on this planet tomorrow. The effects would change the environment for years if not decades or centuries. No? That would be man changing our environment and making it less habitable. Nature would still exist but our life would suffer greatly because of our own actions that changed our environment.

You can say it’s splitting hairs, and you wouldn’t be the first to tell me that. But I think it’s an important distinction. The same attitude that makes us think we can somehow hurt nature is the one that makes us think that we can do whatever we want - it’s the attitude that we are the emperors of the world. We don’t hurt nature, nature will be fine. What we do to ourselves, though - that’s what we have to live with (or not live, as it were [did I just say “as it were”?])

I think these are completely opposite view points. The person who says we can do whatever we want is saying we have no affect on the world around us. The person who says we can harm nature is saying that we can affect the world around us.