HOW NATURE BECAME 'REAL'
To understand how a set of beliefs and values comes to be the worship of NATURE, I will start by exploring some ideas that come from Ancient Greek and Medieval philosophy. Doing this will not seem so strange once we realize that many of today's beliefs, including Nature Worship, are based on them. These philosophical ideas are concerned with the labels or descriptions that we give to groups or generalisations (the philosophers call them 'universals'). What meaning or validity do universals have? The possible answers to that question could be described by one of three labels:
• Nominalism
• Conceptualism
• Realism
Let's look at the uses of the word 'Nature' to illustrate these three labels.
Nominalism would say that Nature is just a name that we use in various different ways. It is not possible to discover any one specific property or criterion that links these all these ways together; so the word 'Nature' is just a name that doesn't represent anything separate from, or additional to, other things in the universe around us.
Ockham (left) was a Nominalist.
Conceptualism would say that Nature is not something that exists out there in the universe and independent of human perception or thought; but it is a consistent concept that our minds construct and use to help us understand the complex world around us.
Abelard (right) was a conceptualist.
Realism would say that Nature is something that actually exists independently of human perception or thought. It isn't just a concept for talking about trees, animals etc; it actually refers to a separate, self-
Duns Scotus (left) was a Realist.
So if Nature is a real thing that exists independently of us, defines who we are and to which we are subjest; then it has taken on the characteristics of a God. It is then only a small step for it to creep into our very being as something to be respected and worshiped . . .
