ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 brings into focus the singular importance of religion in the history, cultures, institutions, and societies of humans, as well as in the lives of individual human beings. This importance has both positive and negative sides. Religion has done much good in the world, but it has also been intimately involved in much evil. Dismissal of religion is dismissal of a powerful force for good. And overlooking its importance is overlooking the dangers it poses today and has always posed for the health and integrity of individual lives and for the prosperity, peace, and justice of human societies. The chapter provides examples of both tendencies of religion, on both the individual and the communal levels. The latter part of the chapter extends this analysis of the positive and negative potentialities of religious faith and religious institutions into examination of the effects of religious outlooks on human attitudes toward and treatments of the natural environment.
