The bishops of Brazil have pointed out that nature as a whole not only manifests God but is also a locus of his presence. The Spirit of life dwells in every living creature and calls us to enter into relationship with him.<\/span>[65]<\/a>Discovering this presence leads us to cultivate the \u201cecological virtues\u201d.<\/span>[66]<\/a>This is not to forget that there is an infinite distance between God and the things of this world, which do not possess his fullness. Otherwise, we would not be doing the creatures themselves any good either, for we would be failing to acknowledge their right and proper place. We would end up unduly demanding of them something which they, in their smallness, cannot give us.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
No small part of the sin of nature worship that is paganism is that it places demands on creatures to satisfy our desires for transcendence that creatures cannot possibly meet. \u00a0When the idol is a human being, the result can be seen in every burnt out pop star, crazy dictator, or feet of clay sinner who has broken the heart of his fans.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The bishops of Brazil have pointed out that nature as a whole not only manifests God but is also a locus of his presence. The Spirit of life dwells in every living creature and calls us to enter into relationship with him.[65]Discovering this presence leads us to cultivate the \u201cecological virtues\u201d.[66]This is not to forget […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[718,650],"class_list":["post-93021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-laudato-si","tag-na"],"yoast_head":"\n
Laudato Si on the Cruelty of the Idolator to the Idol<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The bishops of Brazil have pointed out that nature as a whole not only manifests God but is also a locus of his presence. The Spirit of life dwells in\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2015\/06\/laudato-si-on-the-cruelty-of-the-idolator-to-the-idol.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Laudato Si on the Cruelty of the Idolator to the Idol\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The bishops of Brazil have pointed out that nature as a whole not only manifests God but is also a locus of his presence. 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