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Articles

Heaven and Earth: An Awkward History

Mary Midgley on our changing views of our own planet, and the story they tell about the changing nature of rationality.

People in our civilization have viewed their planet in a huge variety of ways. Sometimes they have worshipped it, thought of it as their mother, felt awe and gratitude towards it for the gifts it gave them. At other times, however, they have despised and feared it. They have seen it chiefly as the opposite of heaven – as a mean and degraded realm that is likely to entrap them and stop them fulfilling their true destiny. Thus, the Oxford Dictionary gives as the meaning of earthy – “Heavy, gross, material, coarse, dull, unrefined …… characteristic of earthly as opposed to heavenly existence…”

Until very lately, this more hostile view has been much the more prevalent of the two in our culture, not only in religious thinking but also in the sciences.

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