I really enjoyed reading both White and Attfields arguments on Christianity and destruction to the Environment. Both authors made excellent points and defended their arguments with research and facts. After reading both articles I realized that although White draws an interesting conclusion that with the growth of Christianity came environmental destruction they are simply pointing out a correlation. As we all learned in statistics, correlation does not equal causation. They point out that the growth of Christianity and increased pollution and destruction happen at the same time. The conclusion they make is that because Christians believe they are made in the image of God they find less spirituality in the physical world than other religions such as Buddhism or Paganism.
At first, I really agreed with White. It makes sense that because the religion does not connect to nature in a spiritual way those following the religion would value nature less. However, what Attfield points out is that there are many cases in the Bible in which humans are instructed to take care of animals and nature that surrounds them. As explained by Attfield the devastation to the environment has mainly been caused by the industrial revolution which although all things can be related back to religion the one does did not cause the other. I think that it is incredibly important to take this thinking into all areas of History and remember that just because two things are correlated that does not mean there is causation.