Nature, God, Human and then?
---------An Asian’s view-------By
Seiichi Kondo
English translation edited by Anne Brewer
Mount Fuji in Japan, which lost its once-permanent snowcap in 2004
(http://www.mochiya.co.jp/image/000903.jpg)
Contents
1.
2.
3.
Preface ........................................................2
Alarm ...........................................................2
The road to catastrophe ..............................3
3.1. Destruction of the forest ..............................4
3.1.1.
Arctic zone ..........................................4
3.1.2.
Japan ..................................................4
3.1.3.
China ...................................................5
3.1.4.
Europe.................................................6
3.1.5.
New Zealand .......................................6
3.1.6.
Australia ..............................................6
A
Queens Land ................................... 6
B
Tasmania ......................................... 7
3.1.7.
North American Continent ...................7
3.1.8.
Defoliation by the US Military ..............7
3.1.9.
Amazon ...............................................8
3.2. Pollution .......................................................8
3.2.1.
Minamata Disease ..............................8
3.2.2.
Dangers of Radioactivity .....................9
3.2.3.
Water pollution ....................................9
3.2.4.
Pesticides and food additives ...........10
3.2.5.
Mass production and consumption ...10
3.3. Abnormal climates .....................................11
3.3.1.
Air ......................................................11
A
Smog .............................................. 11
B
Greenhouse Gases ........................ 11
C
Ozone hole ..................................... 12
3.3.2.
Abnormal temperature elevation .......13
3.3.3.
Ocean................................................15
3.3.4.
Retreating glaciers and rise of sea
level ..................................................15
3.3.5.
Marine life and fish stocks.................16
Abnormal Ocean currents ...............................16
Damage to human beings ...................................17
3.4.1.
War....................................................17
3.4.2.
Environmental hormones ..................17
3.4.3.
Biotechnology ................................... 18
3.4.4.
Computers ........................................ 18
4.
The corruption of natural balance ............. 19
5.
Chaos of concept ...................................... 19
6.
History of the worldview of the human race19
7.
Era of Nature ............................................. 20
7.1. Animism ..................................................... 20
7.2. Pantheism ................................................. 20
7.2.1.
The Orient ......................................... 21
7.2.2.
Sunda Land ...................................... 21
7.2.3.
Brahmanism and Hinduism .............. 22
7.2.4.
Shintoism .......................................... 22
7.2.5.
Taoism .............................................. 23
7.2.6.
Pantheism in North and South
America ........................................... 24
7.2.7.
Pantheism on the Mediterranean
Coast ............................................... 24
7.2.8.
Pantheism in the European Continent24
8.
Era of God ................................................. 24
8.1. Polytheism ................................................. 24
8.1.1.
Asia and Europe ............................... 24
8.1.2.
The Orient ......................................... 25
8.2. Monotheism ............................................... 25
8.2.1.
Buddhism from India to Japan .......... 25
8.2.2.
Judaism and Islam ............................ 26
8.2.3.
Christianity ........................................ 27
A
The birth .........................................27
B
The Dark Ages ................................27
C
Religious Revolution .......................28
D
Protestantism ..................................28
9.
Era of Humanism....................................... 29
9.1. Humanism ................................................. 29
9.2. Science and technology ............................ 29
9.3. Economic growth ....................................... 30
10.
Then? ........................................................ 30
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1
Preface
We live on the Earth, a unique planet in the Solar system and possibly in the Galaxy. Now, in the twentyfirst century, we are aware that this uniqueness is dependent on an extremely delicate, fragile and harmonious
balance of nature, plants and animals. This we can understand as being given by God through the processes of
evolution. However, my studies suggest the earth is in a critical state and this is confirmed by detailed scientific
observation and by recent abnormal changes in the climate of the planet.
People suspect that, sadly, this critical state is due to the recent vigorous activity of human beings. In order
to prevent a possible catastrophe, we must understand how and why the present crisis of imbalance has arisen
against the will of God.
We have various kinds of prejudice against, and conflict between, different races, nationalities, cultures,
and religions. The differences in culture and religion arose originally from inescapable phenomena such as
differences of climate from one area to another and the slow but drastic changes in climate, and the way in
which humans faced these changes. Humans have in recent centuries made wrong choices in how to deal with
the outcome of the succession of these past inevitable events leading to conflict between humans and between
humans and nature. Nobody can blame others in this respect. I believe that it is most important to study history
objectively in order to eliminate prejudice and conflict. I wish very much that you will try hard to be aware of any
prejudices, particularly those due to cultural differences between, for example, East and West, while reading the
following.
I hope deeply that we can find our way to maintain the peace and harmony between different human
cultures and between the rest of nature and humankind.
Japanese Cherry blossom
(Photograph by Seiichi Kondo)
1. Alarm
A survey of the weather for the last 25 years by the Japanese Weather Bureau shows that periods of
abnormally high temperature, heavy rainfall and drought have become more frequent and more extreme than in
the past in both Japan and the rest of the world. For thousands of years throughout recorded Japanese history,
cherry trees in Kyoto and Osaka have bloomed from the beginning to the middle of April. In recent years,
however, they have begun to bloom two weeks earlier. People everywhere are aware of the changes in their
climate and many are afraid that we are facing an unpredictable global disaster. A new Japanese religious
group, ‘Aum-truth-sect’, decided in the 1990s that the world would soon experience a dreadful catastrophe, the
Day of Judgment or Armageddon, as described in the Bible. To survive the expected turmoil, they thought it
necessary to defend themselves from possible attack by chaotic mobs. They prepared large stores of various
arms, which are illegal in Japan, and synthesized Sarin nerve gas, which was invented by the Nazi during the
Second World War, and is one of the most poisonous nerve-agents. It was used in the Iran-Iraqi War to kill
Kurdish people. They tested the effect of this agent in a Tokyo metropolitan subway train in the morning rush
hour on March 20, 1995. They killed 12 people instantly and injured about 2000. 1
Various reasons for the change of climate have been discussed and various proposals made to counteract
it. The major cause of the present abnormal temperature rise is commonly believed to be the increase in the
concentration of carbon dioxide (CO 2) in the global atmosphere. This causes a global temperature rise because
it reduces the rate of loss from the atmosphere of the heat that it has absorbed from the sun’s radiation. This
phenomenon is called the ‘greenhouse effect’. The rise of ocean temperature, following the increase in air
temperature, further increases the CO2 concentration because some of the CO2 dissolved in the sea-water is
1
Religious violence in Contemporary Japan, University of Hawaii Press, 2000.
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/a06.html
2
released. This increase of CO2 not only raises global temperatures but in conjunction with increased levels of
other gaseous oxides, especially sulphur dioxide, also increases the acidity of the air and of the water on land,
under the ground, in lakes and in the ocean.
The Hawaiian weather observatory has measured atmospheric CO2 from the beginning of the twentieth
century. According to their observations, the concentration has risen exponentially over the 100-year period with
some minor fluctuations due to forest fires and volcanic activity (see Figure 1). Measurement of the CO2
concentration over the past 1000 years in air bubbles in the glacier ice of Greenland and the Antarctic Continent
suggests that the atmospheric CO2 concentration must have begun to increase after the Renaissance and then
risen sharply during the industrial revolution in Britain. Now the amount of CO 2 emitted exceeds the natural
capacity of land and sea plants to absorb it, causing the CO 2 balance of the atmosphere to be upset.
Figure 1
Recent changes of CO2 concentration at Mauna Loa, Hawaii (red), Okinawa (green) and Arctic pole
(blue) (Japanese Weather Bureau.(http://www.data.kishou.go.jp/obs-env/hp/2-2-3n2o.html)
Since this is an international problem, international cooperation to decrease CO 2 emissions was called for.
For the first time in human history, delegates from more than 100 countries all over the world got together at an
international congress on global environment protection, Conference of the Parties of United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change in December 20, 1997 in Kyoto, Japan. The most important theme
in this congress was how to stop the increase in the amount of CO 2 emitted into the atmosphere. With the
exception of the USA the conference reached agreement, the so-called Kyoto Agreement, although there is no
power of compulsory enforcement of this agreement against the sovereignty of the nation.
The Government of USA, which consumes about 30% of global fossil fuel production, said that there is no
scientific verification of the reasoning and refused to accept this agreement, because they think that decreased
oil consumption in the USA would upset their economy. The patriotic American Chemical Society put a
statement at the top of their website-home-page, that there is no scientific relationship between global climate
change and increased CO 2 concentration in the air. Besides the USA, some other people have the optimistic
viewpoint that there is no serious change in global weather or that we are now in a transition period between
normal weather patterns. They present opinions based only on observations favourable to them, in spite of
much detailed evidence of global weather change now available from numerous scientific observations.
The change of temperature is only one example of environmental change that is occurring. Numerous other
disastrous changes are occurring, including damage to humans as will be mentioned in section 2.4.
2. The road to catastrophe
Planet Earth was born about five billion years ago. The life forms, which exist from the stratosphere to a few
tens of kilometers underground, have existed in a closed system interacting with each other for a very long time.
Accordingly, we must not look at each example of the destruction of nature as a separate and independent
phenomenon, but we must look at our earth as a whole system. Let us look at several examples of the
destruction of nature caused by our own hands.
3
2.1.
Destruction of the forest
Deep, rich forests covered most parts of the world until one thousand years ago. Forests cleanse water
supplies, give out oxygen, prevent floods and give shelter to humans, animals and birds. However, many of
these forests have disappeared and/or become poor, because humans have destroyed them and continue to do
so all over the world. They can no longer absorb all the CO2 we emit and convert it to oxygen. Since much of the
forest has been destroyed during recent centuries, we can clearly observe the details as shown below.
2.1.1. Arctic zone
The vast area of the Arctic and Antarctic Zones such as Siberia, Alaska and Northern Canada was frozen
to -50°C to a depth of 1000 metres during the third ice age. These frozen lands are called ‘Tundra’. The Tundra
surface is covered with thick piles of mosses and rotted plants called peat or bog. Peat holds plenty of moisture
and, thus, is used as gardening material, fuel and heat insulation material. Peat not only prevents the frozen ice
underneath from melting even in hot summer, but also can support dense forest, called ‘Taiga’, despite the very
cold winters and hot, dry summers. Grasses and mushrooms grow under these trees, which are now hundreds
of years old. This immense and deep Taiga is a gift of nature, where not only humans but also many small and
big animals such as Siberian tiger, wolves and squirrels, some of which are now very rare, have lived for
thousands of years. The Taiga is a typical example of the delicate balance of nature!
I must mention the very important fact that Tundra ice contains a lot of low molecular-weight natural gas
hydrocarbons, such as methane, in the form of clathrate compounds. When water started to freeze during the
formation of Tundra, water molecules aggregated together by hydrogen bonding to form a cage-like structure.
Methane molecules were trapped in the
I must tell you an unbelievable story. About 20 years ago, I was
middle of the cage. It is worth noting
going to present a research paper before an international
that this phenomenon suggests a
conference on porous solids, in Paris in the beginning of
possible fuel storage method. However,
November. On the way to Paris from Osaka, we landed in
the amount of methane stored in the
Moscow Airport to refuel. While I was walking around the large
Tundra is so large that if it is released to
waiting lobby to kill a few hours, I saw bookshelves full of
the atmosphere it will add enormously to
propaganda leaflets on the victory of socialism including one
the green house effect. Methane is an
written in English with a cover illustration of a very large bulldozer
even more potent greenhouse gas than
in the Taiga forest. This monster was equipped with huge scissors
CO2.
at the front and a kind of a big box-type machine car behind. I
It is worrying that Tundra has now
picked up this pamphlet with curiosity. It praised Soviet
started
to lose its intricate and elaborate
achievements in technology and proudly wrote that this highbalance and is melting into swamps with
speed giant bulldozer can chop big Taiga trees one a second,
bubbles of methane gas. Taiga will
strip the skin and turn it into timber automatically in situ! This
never recover until the ice age returns.
method of timber extraction is still being undertaken even more
Consequently, a vast number of animals
efficiently and the timber is exported in exchange for foreign
living there will disappear, and
currencies including Yen. They kill these ancient trees in just one
sculptures made from bones of
second and leave the land bare. The Taiga is thus being rapidly
mammoth, emerged from the swamps,
destroyed. What a crime to nature!
decorate the souvenir shops in Moscow
streets. In addition, the loss of the green Chlorophyll of Taiga will contribute to the increase of CO 2 in the air and
together with the release of methane will add significantly to the greenhouse effect and consequent climate
change.
2.1.2. Japan
One of the old names of Japan was ‘Kinokuni’ (the country of wood). Over 1000 years ago most of Japan
was covered with rich, dense forest with a variety of good quality trees. One of the oldest shrines of Shintoism,
the original native religion of Japan before Buddhism arrived, is the Izumo-Taisha Shrine located in Shimane
Prefecture along the Japan Sea coast. According to its mythology, records and design drawings, this shrine was
built before the seventh century and had a main wooden building about 48 metres high. This is higher than the
45 metre Big Buddha (Daibutu-den) building in the Todaiji Temple, Nara City, Japan, built in 751 AD, which is
the biggest wooden building in Japan. Nobody, including modern architectural experts, believed such a tall
building could ever have existed. However, a recent archaeological excavation using old maps of the garden,
revealed astonishing results. Traces of lines of big pillars, as described in the ancient records, were found! Each
pillar consists of three big trees of 1.3 metres diameter bound together to make one pillar 3 metres in diameter.
The technology of construction was studied following the ruins, and it was found possible to build such a tall
wooden building. Numerous studies of the structures of temples and shrines show that construction technology
at that time was very skilled.2
2
Ohbayasi Construction Co., The Recovery of Izumo Shrine, Gakusei Pub. 1989. (Japanese)
http://inoues.net/yamataikoku/ruins/new_izumo_taisha.html (Japanese with many photos)
http://www6.pref.shimane.jp/kodai/en/top_menu.html
4
One of the reasons for the development of this technology was the availability of good quality timber from
very tall trees. However, the forests in the plains were destroyed and turned into rice fields as the population
grew. Nowadays, only small areas of ancient forest remain in the plains such as Tadasuno-Mori Forest in Kyoto
City. We have to import foreign timber to repair our old temples. Fortunately, about 70% of Japan is
mountainous and these areas are still covered with forests, with a lot of wild animals and birds such as bears,
deer, monkeys, hawks etc.
2.1.3. China
Cold, strong westerly winds blow ceaselessly from north-west Asia to Korea, Japan and the north-west
coast of America. When it gets dry in winter and early spring, this wind brings tiny colloidal particles of clay
called ‘Yellow Sand’, dyeing the blue sky yellow. When the dust becomes dense, cars in Beijing need their
headlights on in daytime. Windows and buildings in Japan are covered with a thin layer of yellow dust and
people suffer from allergic reactions to it.
Satellite picture from Japanese Weather bureau. The white patch is the yellow sand cloud over the Japan Sea
blowing eastward.
Where does this dust come from? The climate of north and north-west China across the Gobi and TaklaMakan deserts along the Silk Road is dry. It is believed that the main source of this dust is the Yellow Clay Area,
along the middle part of the Yellow River. This area was once covered with forest, although only a thin layer of
fertile soil covered the infertile clay beneath. In about 207 BC, the Chinese Emperor Shi-Huang-Ti of Ch’in
Dynasty started to build the so-called ‘Great Wall’ as a defence against invasion by Fun-nu Mongolians, which
means ‘Barbarians’ in Chinese. It took about 1200 years to complete the Wall, which had a total length after
completion of about 2400 kilometres. Under the walls, thousands upon thousands of slaves used for
construction were buried. During this period, they cut down all the trees in the area as fuel for baking bricks and
for the slave workers. Since then, the thin fertile surface soil has been eroded by wind and rain, and has
disappeared. After the earth became bare, no more trees grew. The Yellow River eroded the soil severely,
turning the river and a large area of the sea beyond the river mouth, yellow. An experimental project to restore
the forest by a Japanese team has had no success so far. The north-west wind blows the clay off as micro
particles in a sandstorm. This erosion has made a very large Pi shape canyon and the living standards in this
area are the lowest in China.
The recent rise of air temperature has decreased the humidity of this area and makes the problem worse.
The wind is drier than average from early to late spring and blows dense clouds of fine clay particles
continuously eastward, which even reach the north-west coast of North America. Everywhere in the world,
deserts are expanding due to rising temperatures and increasing numbers of domestic animals, which eat all the
scarce green leaves on the edge of the deserts. Together with the micro particles of clay, heavy nitrogen and
sulphur oxides emitted from prosperous Chinese industrial areas attack Japan and pollute the coastal area. As
a result, pine trees along the coast of the Japan Sea are vanishing.
Another example of forest destruction is in Yunnan Province in the south-eastern border of China. This
place in the middle of the north-eastern end of the Himalayan Mountain Range was called Shangri-La (Utopia)
in James Hilton’s novel Lost Horizon. When I visited this area in 2002, I was very moved and impressed by the
native inhabitants, who keep up the traditional way of life respecting nature. They taught the Japanese wooden
construction engineering several thousand years ago – see description of the Izumo-Taisha Shrine in 2.1.2. The
inhabitants still pray to god before cutting timber for construction. This is in contrast to other areas of the
People’s Republic of China where money is everything. However as the population of Yunnan explodes and
5
they need more rice to eat, they are clearing trees from canyons and steep mountain cliffs to provide countless
rice field terraces. You cannot imagine the huge numbers of rice terraces covering the steep slopes of deep
canyons. Modern technology is still increasing these terraces. A Chinese photographer became famous by
taking photos of these areas and he is naïve enough to admire the patient endeavour of the peasants and to
appreciate the human-made artificial beauty. These terraces are easily washed away by frequent landslides
caused by the heavy rains of this area brought by trade winds from the Indian Ocean.
2.1.4. Europe
The European Continent is full of bad examples of the destruction of nature. Let me mention just one
example.
Before about the twelfth century, the continent was covered with deep forest, as described in many fairy
tales such as Sleeping Beauty, and Little Red Riding Hood. The reason why many European countries have
different languages is that these countries were originally buried in the forest like an ocean. High walls
surrounded city-states to defend them from the attacks of enemy, thief and wild animals coming from the deep,
wild forest. This isolation gave each city its own culture. However, from around the twelfth century when civil
power and the economy started to grow, people learned to tame horses and used them for cultivation and
transport as well as for battles. The rich forest was quickly ‘opened and developed’– a symbol of the victory of
human civilization against nature.
However, wild animals such as rats lost their nests in the forest and migrated into cities and spread the
plague. The famous folk story, Pied Piper, tells the following story. Villagers asked a Pied Piper to get rid of rats
from the village and kill them. He promised to do so and, in return, he asked for a large sum of money. He blew
a strange melody with his flute to collect all the rats in the village and led them to the river to be drowned. He
was successful in exterminating the rats from the village but the miser villagers paid nothing. The angry Piper
played a strange melody again and all the children of the village followed him to the river and all drowned. This
is just a folk tale but it illustrates how it came to be that millions of people all over Europe died of the plague.
This became a symphony, The Dance of Death, by Franz Liszt and is also seen in the large catacomb of St.
Stephan Cathedral in Vienna, which is full of dead bodies.
Only 20% of Europe is now forested. Wild animals have almost disappeared. It is interesting to note that
‘wild’ means stormy, fierce, outrageous, and untamed as well as natural in English.
2.1.5. New Zealand
The colonies of the British Empire also suffered destruction of their forests. Before the invasion of New
Zealand by the English just over two hundred years ago, the large area of land along the west coasts of the
South and North Islands was deep forest. These forests were converted into pastures for tens of millions of
sheep and deer. Japan is one of the largest importers of wool from New Zealand. Chemical fertilizers,
insecticides, pharmaceuticals and animal waste are dumped into the ocean causing pollution. The pasture turns
brown in summer like a large desert. Only the southern end of the Island is protected as the Fjord Land National
Park, and reminds visitors how beautiful it once was.
2.1.6. Australia
A Queens Land
The north-eastern horn-shaped peninsula of Queens Land, Australia in the Tropical Zone is two hundred
million years old, one of the geologically oldest lands in the world. Heavy rainfall nurtured thick rain forest for a
very, very long time. Thus, this area, as large as Japan, was covered with rich rain forest. This is an outstanding
geological monument. Aboriginal inhabitants lived in these forests and on the seacoast for tens of thousands of
years. All kinds of botanical species grow there and many new species are discovered every year in such
places as Deintree National Park. The dense growth of numerous varieties of tropical plants with beautiful
flowers is very impressive. Large drops of heavy rain hit the leaves high above in the canopy and reach the
ground as mist.
In the nineteenth century, rich mineral resources including gold and gemstones such as Opal were found
and a ‘Gold rush’ occurred in various places in Australia. You can imagine the destruction of nature and of the
aboriginal peoples that started then. After gold had become rare in the middle of the twentieth century, the
Australian Government wanted to develop the cane-sugar industry for the sake of ‘more economical
development’ in the rainforest area of Queensland. They divided the forest into tiny pieces and offered these to
the so-called ‘planters’ free of charge. The condition of the offer was to cut down all trees and turn the area into
sugar cane fields within one year. Otherwise, they should return this piece of land to the government. All the
Aboriginals were driven from their homes in the forest and collected into townships such as Mossman Town
nearby. They are socially discriminated against even today. The present Mayor of Port Douglas City in the north
of Cairns was put into jail for his vigorous antigovernment action during the fight to protect this area from
industry. In the 1980s, civil movements finally persuaded the Congress and government of its incomparable
6
value. A tiny spot called Deintree Forest is protected as a National Park and is kept nearly as it was before.
Visitors can only imagine the original landscape.
B Tasmania
The story is the same in geologically very old Tasmania, which is still peaceful and green. They prefer to
drink delicious rainwater rather than underground water, because the Pacific, Antarctic and Indian Oceans and
the Tasmanian Sea surround the island and the air is utterly clean. Stars shine with perfect brightness without
twinkling. Hyon Pine, a very rare species unique to this island, grows very tall and the oldest one discovered has
lived for more than two thousand years. These trees take a long time to grow, taking 200 years to reach maturity
and have flowers and seed. Each annual ring in the trunk is about 0.5 millimetres thick. Hyon Pine and other
similar trees produce timber of superb quality for shipbuilding and furniture.
In the middle of the nineteenth century, the British Empire invaded Tasmania because they found gold and
noble metal mines as well as a large forest of Hyon Pine around Queens Town on the western coast of the
island. By the end of the nineteenth century, about 50,000 Aboriginals who had lived on the island since the last
ice age had been completely exterminated. These unique people appear to have been of a different genetic
type from those of mainland Australia. The gold rush, centered on the mineral refinery of Queens Town, emitted
sulfur compounds into the air and into the Gordon River, which runs down to a small fishing village, Strahan,
along the Indian Ocean coast. The river coast turned black and still smells of sulfur. The sulfur pollution quickly
ruined the surrounding forests. The British sold much of the timber to ship builders using deported prisoner’s
labour and made a big profit. In the middle of the twentieth century, there was a plan to build a dam and a
railway along the Gordon River to carry ores and other products to encourage growth in the mining industry.
Civil volunteers protested strongly and succeeded in designating this wide area as a National Park. Now, one
third of Tasmania is lucky enough to be maintained under protection as State and National Parks and the area
of forest is increasing.
2.1.7. North American Continent
The northern part of the North American Continent is rich in forest. The paper industry owns large areas in
order to produce low cost paper as in Siberia. Japan is one of major consumers of these products. They use
chain saws to cut down trees, by placing two huge bulldozers linked by a huge chain a few kilometres apart in
the forest. Then they pull forward these two bulldozers simultaneously and indiscriminately tear down all the
trees, old or young, between them. Trees are taken to paper mills and the bare land left. This method results in
the complete destruction of the forest. Native American inhabitants, who lived in and with the forest, lost
everything. They were forced to fight against the bulldozers with their own bodies.
Near the Canadian-American border along the Yukon River, there is a small ghost town, Dawson City, with a
population of several hundreds. However, during the gold rush in the nineteenth century it had a population
of about 40,000, larger than that of Vancouver. If you drive to some of the side streams of the Yukon River,
you will find cruel scars in the earth made during the gold rush. Along the winding streams in the forest, you
will find long banks ten meters high made of stones varying from the size of a fist to that of a head. The bank
is longer than several kilometers and at the end lies, in absolute silence, the ruins of a monstrous steel
machine as big as the large Harrods department store in London. This was an automatic machine, which
dug the river, washed and sieved nuggets from the mud. The waste was dumped forming the long stone
banks. I assume that the story is the same with other gold mines.
http://www.yukonalaska.com/communities/dawsonhist.html
2.1.8. Defoliation by the US Military
In 1950, after the Second World War, the People’s Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) declared their
independence from France and established a Communist government. The USA, very much afraid of losing its
influence in Asia, established an alternative Government in South Vietnam in 1954, to which it gave military aid.
This action led to the Vietnam War3.
The majority of the Vietnamese people was very much in favour of independence and supported the
resistance movement of the Vietcong and Vietminh, which took the form of systematic guerrilla war. The US
Army, equipped with plenty of sophisticated modern weapons and more explosives than they used in the
Second World War could not defeat the guerrillas who had bases in the tropical jungles and villages. The US
resorted to all kinds of cruel operations such as the extermination of all people including babies in Songmi
Village on March 16, 1968.
To locate guerrilla troops hidden in the jungle, the US military sprayed 7.2 million tons of defoliation
pharmaceuticals from B52 heavy bombers. It was known that this pharmaceutical agent contained high
concentrations of dioxin (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxine and its homologous compounds), known to be the
3
http://911review.org/Wget/www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/littleton/v1tribun.htm
7
most hazardous compounds to human health at very low concentrations of parts per trillion. It causes serious
diseases such as cancer, and damages human genes causing a very high percentage of serious birth defects.
This is really a kind of chemical weapon. The rate of miscarriage in the area exposed to this chemical was 2.7
times bigger than that without exposure. The percentage of deformed babies in these areas is 13 times that
without exposure. There was no victory and the US military was forced to withdraw from the Port of Saigon in
April 29, 1975.
In 1981, Siamese twin boys joined at their waists, Peto and Dok, were born in this area. In October 1988,
they were brought to Japan to be separated. The Japanese press gave extensive coverage to the event. I
left Japan for the USA to present a paper at an international conference, Fundamentals of Adsorption, on
the day when the operation started. When I arrived in the USA the next day, I was eager to know what had
happened and looked for news, but, strangely enough, I could not find it anywhere in the US media. What a
selfish patriotism! The epilog is that the operation was successful and Peto is now working in a Vietnamese
Hospital, but Dok is bedridden.
http://www.angel.ne.jp/~nisikori/nam/nhyo65.html
In contrast to this, l saw in all the US media in the autumn of 2003, headline news on the successful
operation in an American hospital on Egyptian Siamese twins who shared their heads. The same attitude
was shown over the disaster of the Atomic Bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just recently the
Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC refused to accept an exhibition on this.
http://www.asahi.com/
It is likely that the US is now making the same mistakes over the use of depleted uranium shells in the
Balkan Peninsula and Iraq.4
2.1.9. Amazon
Forest destruction in remote areas such as the tropical zone is not very well known. In Amazon, Brazil for
instance, a large-scale ‘development’ of the tropical forest is underway. It is believed that about one million
native people had lived here for a long time before the white invasion started. In the twentieth century, diseases
brought in by Europeans decimated this native population. Now, the Brazilian government encourages the
development of the Amazon to increase the growth rate of the national industrial economy. As a result, the
Amazon, the world’s largest forest and the largest source of oxygen, has begun to die. The inhabitants, who live
in the forest, are fighting for their survival and many of their leaders have been secretly assassinated. 5
2.2.
Pollution
Air pollution in the form of smog emerged as early as the nineteenth century in London, Los Angeles and
Pittsburgh. However, ecology or environmental science was only established as an important subject after the
Second World War, when pollution began to have various serious impacts on humans. Let us look at some
cases.
2.2.1. Minamata Disease
Minamata Disease is one of many bitter experiences of pollution in Japan, and is a good example of
criminal action by the government-industrial complex.
In April 21, 1953, a paper reported that a deformed baby with a damaged brain had been born in Minamata
City, Kyusyu Island, Japan. The cause was not known but people thought it must be due to some local factor
and called it ‘Minamata Disease’. However, some doctors were aware that the symptoms were very similar to
those of mercury poisoning. There was a large caustic soda plant in the town called Japanese Nitrogen Co.,
which produced high-purity electrolytic sodium hydroxide (caustic soda or soda) using metallic mercury as the
electrode. This was the usual method of producing high-purity sodium hydroxide everywhere in the world. I was
told in a chemistry course at high school in 1940 that mercury, especially in the form of organic compounds,
causes serious problems to the human nervous system. As caustic soda is an important basic chemical widely
used in industry it is important to the national economy and so the Government is interested in its production
from a political viewpoint.
The tragedy in this case was that the effluent wastewater from this plant, containing inorganic mercuric and
mercurous chlorides, was purged untreated into the shallow inland sea, Minamata Bay. I knew a medical doctor,
who worked in this plant around that time. He confessed to me later that he studied the effect of the effluent
water using cats as guinea pigs. The poor cats went crazy and died. He reported this to his seniors. However,
the plant authority did not reveal the results of this experiment and publicly denied that Minamata Disease had
any relation to the plant.
4
5
http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/background/du.html
http://www.amazonia.net/Articles/231.htm, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1406567.stm
8
Minamata was and is a traditional fishery town and a lot of shellfish and small fish harvested from the bay
are eaten daily. These fish digest the mercury from the effluent and convert it to organic-mercury compounds
such as tetraethyl mercury. This is readily adsorbed into the human body and was the cause of Minamata
Disease.
The number of patients suffering serious brain and nerve damage increased and most of them died.
Several years later, the patients and their supporters protested to both the Japanese Nitrogen Co. and the
Ministry of Trade and Industry of the Japanese Government. However, the company and the government would
not accept responsibility because high-purity caustic soda is a key feedstock of Japanese industry. The
sufferers and their supporters fought very hard in the courts for about 40 years! Finally, after the Supreme Court
judged in favour of the accuser, the company and the government admitted guilt and in about 1990, they agreed
to pay compensation to the patients and relatives of the deceased. The number of people who were officially
approved as victims was 2,265 and quite a number of patients are still fighting in the court. Similar cases have
occurred in various places in the world.
2.2.2. Dangers of Radioactivity
Everyone knew about the dangers of radioactivity after the nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. These weapons are obviously against International Law, since they cause numerous diseases, such
as deformed babies, leukemia, cancer etc. However, nuclear testing was continued by countries such as the
USA and USSR to strengthen their military power. Recognising the dangers of nuclear proliferation, the testing
and production of nuclear arms was banned in all countries except those who already had them (USA, UK,
USSR, France, China, India and Pakistan) and these countries were supposed to work towards the elimination
of their own nuclear weapons. Sadly, they have not done so. Although the immediate influence of the
radioactive isotopes released in a nuclear explosion is limited to the area where the explosion occurred, the
radioactive isotopes, released during nuclear testing have diffused all over the earth. The half-life (the time
taken by radioactivity intensity to decay to half its initial value) of many of these isotopes approaches 10,000
years. Most people forget these facts nowadays, but the ill effects of the radioactivity released by nuclear testing
will continue for a long time.
I heard a story of civilian protest for nature conservation in Alaska in a documentary broadcast by NHK TV
of Japan. For details see website http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/SEEJ/chariotseej.html. An abstract follows.
In 1957, the US Atomic Energy Commission decided to perform a series of nuclear tests called ‘Chariot
Project’ only 30 miles south-east of Inupiat Inuit Village in Alaska. A group of volunteers including Inuit
people considered the possible consequences of this project. Wild animals such as caribou and moose eat
lichen growing under the snow on the surface of the Tundra. To their surprise, the radioactivity of the lichen
studied was already several times higher than in plants elsewhere. The survey discovered that this was due
to the fact that air and dust in the Arctic Zone contains more radioactivity than other zones. People were
shocked by this result and became very much opposed to the nuclear tests. They faced strong pressure
from the US Atomic Energy Commission. A professor of biology who belonged to this group was forced to
leave the University of Alaska. They finally persuaded the Federal Government to cease the project.
Recently, the professor got his post back and received an honorary degree from the University of Alaska. I
hope very much that these people will continue fighting against the destruction of nature in other parts of the
world.
2.2.3. Water pollution
Japan used to be famous for high quality water, because the average rainfall per year is about 1700
millimetres and water in the lakes is quickly recycled as the rivers from the mountains and lakes to the coasts
are only short and the current is rapid. Until one hundred years ago, the largest Lake in Japan, Lake Biwa, 670
square kilometres, supplied water of superb quality to the Kyoto and Osaka areas with populations now of about
10 million. People enjoyed special tea ceremonies with this water. However, the waste from farms, houses and
industries surrounding Lake Biwa seriously contaminated the water with increased values of BOD (biological
oxygen demand) and COD (chemical oxygen demand). More and more chlorine was needed to make the water
potable. People disliked the awful taste of their water, especially in summer when rainfall is low. Naturally, all
the cities in the area made every possible effort to improve the water, such as strict anti-pollution laws. Now,
they have improved the water-treatment by using ozone gas instead of chlorine and adsorbing organic material
with activated carbon but at very high cost.
The situation is worse where rainfall is inadequate to meet the demand for drinking water. For instance, the
lakes among the mountain range between Norway and Sweden receive acid rain due to sulphur dioxide
emissions from nearby countries including the British Isles and other European countries. The acidity of the
lakes in these mountains increases because the recycling rate is low and the lakes as well as the rivers which
flow from them will remain polluted for tens of years even if the source of the pollution is removed. This water
flows into the North Sea. The Norwegian government is now spraying calcium oxide (lime) powder onto the
9
acidic lakes to neutralize the pollution. Acid rain destroys old limestone buildings, such as various historical
colleges of Oxford University.
Pollution occurs in all rivers of developed countries, such as the Rhine, Thames, Danube, and Mississippi
and their delta swamp areas, which are bird sanctuaries. The pollution of rivers in developing countries such as
Mekong, Ganges, and Yangtze Rivers is also serious. Therefore, the demand for expensive bottled mineral
drinking water has become huge even in these poor areas. This obvious contamination has attracted national
attention and some countermeasures have been taken. However, the contamination of international rivers is not
easily controlled.
2.2.4. Pesticides and food additives
In 1945, DDT was invented in the USA and mass-produced as an insecticide. Rachel Carson rang the
warning bell on the dangers of insecticides in her book, Silent Spring, Houghton Mifflin Press, in 1962. However,
countless new insecticides and fungicides have been invented and introduced. Parallel to this, the number of
people with serious allergies has increased dramatically. Many pesticides act as hormones. Numerous wild
creatures such as the firefly, dragonfly, Japanese crested ibis and eagle are disappearing from Japanese
forests.
In 1954, a Food Technology Department was founded in Institute of Technology, Boston, Massachusetts,
USA and since then food production has been revolutionised all over the world. Mass production of chickens
and other animals as well as corn and vegetables has become possible with the help of pesticides, antibiotics
and hormones, producing foods with attractive appearance and inexpensive price.
Nowadays, people have become aware of the dangers of these additives and look for foods without them.
The price of organic vegetables has risen in the supermarkets. A NHK documentary on TV Japan reported the
effect of the cold summer of 2003 on agriculture as follows. A large farm in Nagano Prefecture in the Japan Alps
area has successfully produced organic cabbages on a large scale for more than ten years. They used a
minimum amount of pesticide to kill the insects and called the product organic, although there was no
authorized definition of ‘organic’. They made their own definition of organic cabbage that the application of
pesticide must be less than 19 times per season. According to them, the frequency of application was usually
much less. They said proudly that, this year, they managed to keep to the maximum 19 applications in spite of
the bad weather. Can you imagine - 19 applications of insecticides and they claim that their vegetables are
organic!
Fish cultivation is becoming popular all over the world. I mention a terrible case that happened in Japan.
Japanese people love to eat delicious blowfish, which contain the highly toxic poison ‘tetrodotoxine’. It is quite
safe to eat poison blowfish in licensed restaurants because the licensed cook removes all the poisonous parts.
Since natural blowfish is very expensive, blowfish farming became popular but production of pearls in
neighbouring traditional pearl cultivation farms began to decrease. The pearl planters searched for the reason
and found that large amounts of formaldehyde or formalin (hazardous to humans in several parts per million in
air) was frequently and secretly added to the water to protect blowfish from parasitic worms. Luckily for blowfish,
the parasitic worms were killed but not the blowfish. Generally speaking, it is nowadays very difficult to find out
the truth owing to the highly developed food technology and low morality.
Besides these examples, there are numerous other cases. In Italy, at least twenty-eight gangs associated
with the Mafia have been connected with illegal dumping of dangerous ‘special waste (highly poisonous
chemicals such as dioxin)’ in the sea of southern Italy. There are probably other, as yet undiscovered, incidents
of this kind.
2.2.5. Mass production and consumption
Before human activity became so intensive, nature could cope with our presence on this planet. One
century ago, nothing was wasted and it was natural to recycle all materials. Excess foods and even human
wastes, for instance, were fermented and went back to the land to enrich the soil. The planet was able to absorb
all our waste and nature remained well balanced and clean. However, by the end of the nineteenth century
industrial production was enhanced and Americans started the idea of mass production and promoted mass
consumption as a virtue in order to support the increased industrial production. This tendency spread quickly all
over the world after the Second World War and people forgot about saving and recycling. As a result, the
amount of waste material, in the form of solids, liquids and gases is now far beyond the digestive capability of
nature.
In Japan in the past, it was common sense not to waste food. Children were told “The word rice looks like
Ж shape in Kanji character [written as (8)(10)(8)] because rice is produced by human labour of eighty eight
times. Therefore, god will punish you, if you waste even one particle of rice.” In Europe, older generations wipe
the dishes with bread thoroughly after eating.
Japan imports nearly 60% of its food and wastes a shocking amount of it - 5,600 million tons per year!
Restaurants, schools, hotels, food processing industries etc. are the main sources of food waste. This is the
second largest amount in the world next to the US. About 800 million people enjoy similar wasteful food habits
in developed countries, whereas 800 million people are starving to death in Asia and Africa out of the total 6
billion people in the world today.
10
2.3.
Abnormal climates
Before the first half of the twentieth century the destruction of nature was limited to small local areas as
described above. However, the scale of destruction expanded to become global, parallel to the increase of the
economy during the end of the twentieth century.
2.3.1. Air
A Smog
The London Fog, which resulted from the British Industrial Revolution, is well known. In the period of rapid
economic growth in the sixties, Japan also had dense ‘smog’ in big cities, especially during cold seasons, as
used to happen in London and Pittsburgh when coal was used as the domestic fuel. As calls for anti-pollution
legislation increased in Japan, the Government was obliged to act, restricting not only the concentration of
emissions but also the total amount. It was feared this might prove fatal to industry. However the air in big cities
became cleaner, and industry survived without serious damage. The environment-protection-industry is now an
important Japanese foreign-aid
item. This action was born from
I had once a bitter experience in Krakow, Poland in the 1980s. Prof.
bitter experiences such as the
Rutzinsky of Poland invited me to his laboratory. We left Dusseldorf,
Minamata
Disease
Case.
West Germany, for Lublin one morning in the middle of September. We
However, the application of these
managed to cross the Eisenach Border into Poland in the late afternoon.
laws to heavy transport Diesel
Darkness had fallen when we gave hardly a goodbye to a suspicious
engines, one of the worst sources
East German customs officer. We drove as quickly as we could in order
of the type of air pollution causing
to arrive at Lublin via Krakow in time. We felt happy and relaxed to be in
lung cancer, is still delayed in
Poland. However, as we approached Krakow there was thick smog with
order to protect industry.
visibility down to only a few meters. Prof. Rutzinsky murmured bitterly,
Pollution is not restricted to
“This is the result of Russian technology”. There are large coal-mines as
national
boundaries. Chinese
well as salt-mines in the vicinity of Krakow, and USSR made this area
industries use inexpensive, sulfurthe largest heavy-industry center in Poland. Of course, industrial
rich coal as fuel, and consumption
productivity had first priority and no consideration was given to pollution
is rising in parallel with their
control. We drove very slowly in the milky sea of smog trying to find a
economic growth. They do not
place to stop. A hotel light emerged in the curtain of smog, but there
treat the sulphur-rich emissions
was no room available. Luckily for us, he remembered that his wife had
and rain on nearby agricultural
a good friend in Krakow. He called her on the phone and she suggested
fields in some areas such as the
that we hired a taxi to guide us to her house. It was about 3 am in the
Long (Yangtze) River is almost as
morning when we finally arrived at her home. Both of us got serious flu.
acid as vinegar (pH3) and
vegetable leaves get yellow spots
everywhere. A west wind brings this polluted air to Japan.
B Greenhouse Gases
As mentioned in section 1 the increased concentration of CO2 is raising global temperatures by the
‘greenhouse effect’. While CO2 is having the greatest impact due to its high concentration in the atmosphere
there are other gases which have a greenhouse effect. Methane (CH 4) was mentioned in section 2.1.1. and is a
more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Nitrous Oxide (N2O) also has an effect. Concentrations of all these
gases are now increasing rapidly as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2
Changes in concentrations of greenhouse gases over the past 1000 years by the third IPCC (2001).
The graphs show concentrations of carbon dioxide (blue), methane (yellow) and nitrous oxide (pink).
(Japanese Weather Bureau (http://www.data.kishou.go.jp/obs-env/hp/2-2-3n2o.html))
Conscientious countries are now trying to decrease their CO 2 emissions by sacrificing economic growth.
However, the present effort to decrease CO2 shows the reality of human selfishness as follows.
Travellers, including me, can now enjoy inexpensive, long-distance trips by air. Commercial aircraft fly all
over the world. This is a sign of world peace and prosperity and very good for the tourism industry. Behind this
phenomenon, however, the rapid increase in oil consumption by aircraft, increases the pollution of the
11
stratosphere. Let us estimate how many tons of jet fuel per day are consumed. In one international flight by a
jumbo jet, we burn more than twenty tons of jet fuel. Can you guess how many jets fly per day? About 300
international and domestic long-distance flights longer than about five hours are taking off from Narita and
Kansai International Airports, and there are more than 500 short-distance domestic flights from 15 airports. The
total number is more than 800 aircraft per day. Thus, passenger planes consume at least eight thousand tons of
oil every day in Japan, despite the current economic depression. Commercial air companies say that their fuel
consumption is only 7% of the world total, but military aircraft will add to the amount consumed by aircraft. Also,
I must point out that the aircraft scatter oxides of carbon, nitrogen, sulphur and other elements directly into the
upper atmosphere contributing directly to the green house effect. In contrast, emissions from much of the fuel
burned on the earth’s surface are absorbed by plants and the ocean, and take a long time to reach the
stratosphere.
These emissions from aircraft may contribute to the formation of the ozone hole as discussed in the next
section.
C Ozone hole
Organofluorine compounds, often called CFCs, are stable compounds used in large amounts as refrigerant
agents and in the silicone industry, and released into the air after use. These heavy-molecular-weight gases
diffuse upward very slowly, reaching the stratosphere after 10 years and create chlorine radicals, which are
known to decompose ozone. The ozone layer in the stratosphere absorbs high-energy ultra violet rays from the
sun, which would otherwise cause fatal damage to plant and animal cells. For instance, like radioactivity, UV
light damages proteins, producing free radicals, which cause skin cancer especially on white skin.
The observatory in the Antarctic found a large and increasing hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic
Continent. It is said that the intensity of UV radiation reaching Australia and New Zealand has increased
because of this and the number of skin cancer patients is increasing in parallel. The Australian weather forecast
gives daily warnings on UV radiation intensity. Fortunately, the rate of increase of the size of the ozone hole has
been slowing down recently perhaps due to the decrease of CFC compounds, although the expansion of the
ozone hole does not stop.
Figure 3
The concentration of CFCs at Okinawa showing the stabilisation of levels
(Japanese Weather Bureau.(http://www.data.kishou.go.jp/obs-env/hp/2-2-3n2o.html)
Recent research has suggested a possible new mechanism for ozone decomposition. ‘Polar Stratospheric
Clouds (PSCs)’ formed of colloidal ice particles containing oxides of carbon, nitrogen, sulphur, and other
molecules including chlorine, are formed at low temperatures in the polar sky. These contaminants, perhaps
partly from aircraft emissions, accumulate in polar areas from the temperate and tropical zones and become
enclosed there during the polar winter. The extent of PSC formation and the size of the ozone hole fluctuate
simultaneously and PSCs are now suspected to play a key role in the decomposition of ozone.
At this point, I suggest that nowadays the speed of technological development and its application to
industry is very high and the scale is very large compared to the assessment of its impact. In other words, not
enough time and effort is being put into risk assessment. We must pay more attention to the possible risks of
12
damage to nature from the application of new technology, as we already do in the development of new
medicines.
The concentration of N2O from World Data Centre for Greenhouse Gases WDCGG
2.3.2. Abnormal temperature elevation
My home is located on the eastern hillside of Osaka Plain in the middle of the Temperate Zone at about
latitude 35° N. We used to manage to survive in the hottest summer with a maximum temperature of 33-34°C
due to a cold west wind that blows all year round across the sea of Japan from Asia.
I mentioned earlier that in recent years, local plum and cherry trees have started to bloom two weeks earlier
than normal. The maximum and average temperatures have been rising for decades. In the winter of 2003 to
2004, the average temperature for three months was 1.5° to 1.0° higher. The temperature inside my house
nowadays exceeds body temperature at noon for a few weeks. According to the Japanese Weather Bureau, the
number of days with maximum temperature above 35°C per summer is record-breaking. Apparently, the cause
of this abnormality is in the high temperature of an equatorial current of the Pacific Ocean, named ‘El Nino’ near
the coast of Chile. Historically speaking, this phenomenon used to occur in a 11 or 12-year cycle and the
weather of the northern hemisphere fluctuated accordingly. Now, this high temperature seems to happen every
year and indicates the rise of temperature and the change in the Pacific Ocean currents, which contains nearly
half of the water on the earth’s surface.
Figure 4
The average temperature of the northern hemisphere over the past 1000 years. The red line shows
the recent temperature measurements. The dark area is from measurements on wood, coral and ice cores of
glaciers. (Japanese Weather Bureau.(http://www.data.kishou.go.jp/obs-env/hp/2-2-3n2o.html)
Another related phenomenon is the waywardness of typhoons. The nuclei of typhoons and hurricanes are
born in summer on the equator in the Pacific Ocean. Then, they usually travel towards the northern and
southern hemispheres along the eastern rim of the Asian and Australian Continents respectively. Typhoons
travel north, and go up along the Philippines, Taiwan, and the Chinese Continent, while growing, and then to the
Korean Peninsula, the Japanese Islands, and finally dissipate in the Sea of Okhotsk. These unwelcome guests
used to take a regular orbit, migrating through the channel made by the low-pressure gap between the two highaltitude atmospheric pressure regions located in the Asian Continent and the Pacific Ocean, respectively.
However, miraculously enough, very few of them have visited Japan now for more than twenty years, which is
fortunate for us. The reason for this change is that the pressure over the Pacific Ocean is getting noticeably
higher than that over the Continent, so that the channel between the two fluctuates greatly. This is because the
13
temperature of the ocean is higher than before. The typhoons no longer have a channel to the north, and,
instead, wander around the South and East China Sea. Moreover, the stratospheric west wind may be weaker
than before and helps this tendency.
This recent phenomenon is surely a strong evidence for the upset in the Earth’s weather. Statistical
analysis over 100 years of Japanese weather by the Japanese Weather Bureau reveals that the average annual
temperature is rising very rapidly compared to past changes. The frequencies and amplitudes of heavy rainfall,
drought, and high and low temperatures each year have been increasing over the last 25 years. It is likely that
the same phenomenon is occurring in Europe where record-breaking rainfalls and floods are now frequently
seen.
Analysis of changes in width of tree-rings and depth of glacier layers versus the time scale (the so-called
‘finger-print’ of the weather change), shows that climate does not change smoothly from one equilibrium
condition to another, but swings radically between the two conditions until it reaches the second equilibrium. In
other words, the oscillating weather change that we observe now may suggest that we are not in an equilibrium
condition but are moving to a different condition, if it ever exists. This is most likely owing to the activity of
humans on a global scale.
In summer 2004, another shocking phenomenon resulting from temperature elevation was found. The
snowcap of the world famous Mt. Fuji of Japan has disappeared! Mt. Fuji, as painted by the wood block painter
Hirosige in the 1830s and by many other painters too, was famous for its permanent white snowcap on top of a
beautiful conical shape.
At the end of August 2004, I led a group of tourists to the Japanese Alps in central Japan for ten days in
order to escape from the oppressively hot temperatures of Osaka. We happened to find a very nice
viewpoint along a roadside and enjoyed the magnificent view, looking down the Yamanasi basin surrounded
by high mountain ranges. While taking photos in the fine weather, I noticed a conical shaped high mountain,
totally black in colour. I wondered what mountain this was. Careful observation of the direction, distance and
shape revealed that this is the beloved Fuji without snow and I exclaimed, “Look, I see Fuji.” However,
people did not respond and looked doubtful, because it had no snow at all.
After I went home, I developed the digital photo, and had a nice picture of this scene. There was Fuji with a
dark color in a hazy sky. Mt. Fuji is 3776 metres high located at latitude 35° N. I enlarged a few photos and I
was sure that I could see no snow. I felt strange because I had a mental image of Mt. Fuji with its permanent
snowcap at all seasons of the year. I hastily searched the internet for information about Fuji and found that
there has been permanent ice, or Tundra, 50 cm below the surface for a very long time. One of the
researchers wrote in 2003 that this Tundra was retreating every year and now exists only for about 300
metres from the summit. The beautiful snowcap of Fuji was due to this cold Tundra beneath the summit
preventing the covering snow from melting. However, the Tundra had all gone from Fuji this summer and we
have lost the snowcap as well as all residual snow inside the crater.
Mount Fuji without its famous snowcap.
(http://www.mochiya.co.jp/image/000903.jpg)
Other consequences are a shortage of water in the large mountain-top hut and a large-scale landslide of
the soil and rocks near the summit, which were previously kept solid by the Tundra beneath the surface, and the
beautiful shape of Fuji will change in future. Also, I suspect that this phenomenon is connected with the
decrease and contamination of natural springs on the foot of Mt. Fuji, which were famous for their excellent
quality and quantity.
The same is true for Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, 6007 metres high at latitude 3° S. The
summit was permanently snow-covered in spite of being located near the equator. Now, the snowcap is
definitely retreating as you will see in recent photos and it will presumably disappear in the very near future.
14
2.3.3. Ocean
Serious ocean contamination results from the wreckage of oil tankers, which occur every year. Perhaps
nearly a million tons of oil have been dispersed into the ocean. Oil companies and governments try hard to
minimize the damage to the ‘coastal inhabitants’, but this is only a short-term solution. They try to recover the
spilled oil by pumping and absorbing it using synthetic hydrophobic or lipophilic (oil-loving) polymers. However,
their final solution is to add a lot of surfactant to disperse the crude oil into the sea as an emulsion, which
consists of micro particles of oil suspended in water like cream. The oil appears to have disappeared. People do
not care what kind of damage is caused by creating this fine-particle oil emulsion in the sea. This problem is
invisible but it cannot be sensible to put thousands of tons of petrochemical surfactants into the sea to add to
the pollution of thousands of tons of oil.
In addition to the chlorophyll of seaweeds and land plants, coral is a massive converter of CO 2 to oxygen.
Coral lives cooperatively with brown seaweed, absorbs CO 2 and fixes it as calcium carbonate. I have visited
several times the Great Barrier Reef, one of the largest coral reefs in the world, located 10 to 20 kilometres from
the coast of north-eastern Australia. Near Heyman Island in the southern part of the reef in 1993, the coral was
very beautiful like flowers and sheltered tropical colorful fishes. Even non-experts like me could see it was fresh
and alive. In 2003, I was shocked to see many parts of the northern part of the coral reefs, such as near Port
Douglas and Cairns. They looked deadly white as bones. We could see that much of the coral there had already
died. Local people say that the pollution from the land is the reason. However, the polluting effluent from the
land is not likely to be the primary cause, since it is quite far from the coast. According to Australian Government
statistics, about 30% of these reefs have already died. The same is true of reefs in Okinawa, Japan, and all over
the world.
Live (left) and dead (right) coral (International Coral Research and Monitoring Centre)
(http://www.coremoc.go.jp/)
Coral grows in shallow seawater and has formed numerous Polynesian and Micronesian islands. Higher
ocean temperature and ocean contamination is fatal for the coral, which is killed by a rise in ocean temperature
of only one or two degrees. These coral rocks are vulnerable to acid rain and will gradually decompose.
Together with the rise of the sea level, the islands could sink into the sea.
2.3.4. Retreating glaciers and rise of sea level
Glaciers all over the world are retreating markedly as temperature rises and the ice melts more rapidly than
it is formed. I noticed that the edge of the large Athabaska Glacier in the Canadian Rocky Mountains National
Park in 1990 was a few hundred meters back compared to 1970, when it was just near the highway. Its
thickness must have decreased too. The glaciers of the Himalayan Mountains are also melting. In the middle of
glaciers, large lakes are formed by melted water. The Indian Government tries hard to strengthen the bank of
ice that keeps the water in. If these banks were broken, people living down stream would be subjected to
sudden large-scale floods and avalanches.
Since the amounts of water in glaciers and in the sea are estimated to be about 2.15 and 97% of the total
water content of the earth respectively, the melting of glaciers will cause the sea level to rise. If the temperature
continues to rise at the present rate, it could be 5°C higher after 100 years and it has been said this will cause a
rise in sea level of about 90 centimetres. I think this old estimate is too optimistic. If the ice on the Antarctic
Continent melts, the rise of sea level would be about 100 metres. We have never experienced such a large
temperature rise in such a short period. It is interesting that satellite observation shows the thickness of the
glaciers of the Antarctic Continent is increasing because of the increased snowfall caused by the increased
humidity arising from the evaporation of water from the warmer oceans. On the other hand, the glaciers near the
Antarctic Coast are rapidly breaking up and the penguin population is decreasing because of the warmer
climate.
15
In the third glacial period, the areas above latitudes about 40° N and 40° S were covered with thick ice and
so sea level was a few hundred metres lower than now. Lands in many parts of world were connected to each
other. This helped the migration of humans to various places. The temperature elevation in the following period
caused the rise of sea level. Thus, many inland places in Japan, for instance, have the names of harbours,
shores, and sea. The legends say that such places were once on the edge of the sea. A geological excavation
discovered that my house, for instance, which is now on the side of a hill about 30 km from the nearest
seashore of Osaka Bay, was once on the seashore. If the sea level rises further, then many parts of Tokyo,
Osaka and many important large cities of the world will sink under the sea again. Even now, many parts of big
cities are below sea level, protected from the sea by huge banks and dikes, like the dikes in Holland, built by
investing large sums of money.
Some Polynesian Islands, situated on the equator near the International Date Line, such as Tuvalu, with
about 10,000 population, and Kiribati are marked examples. The inhabitants of some Tuvalu islands are likely to
lose their lands soon and have asked the Australian Government to rescue them. However, the government
refused because they do not recognize that the sea level is rising. Many cities are on the delta area of rivers
such as Cairo on the Nile, and Calcutta on the Ganges. These cities have large populations consisting of many
poor people. What would happen if these and other areas such as Tokyo, Osaka, Calcutta, Amsterdam, the
Country of Bangladesh and so on having tens of millions people sank under the sea? There is neither an
international definition of refugees due to a large-scale natural disaster nor an agreement on how to save them.6
2.3.5. Marine life and fish stocks
The fishing industry is declining. Japan is surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, Japan Sea, China Sea and the
Sea of Okhotsk, and thus is a country of seafood.
A few years ago, I visited beautiful Bergen, the Fjord
All kinds of seafood, even poisonous blowfish,
City, Norway, where the composer, Edward Grieg lived
decorate Japanese dinner tables. Salmon, cod,
and composed many songs and instrumental music
sardine, herring and seaweeds were more than
such as the opera “Peer Gynt”, which reminds people of
abundant, only 50 years ago. The demand and
the solemn beauty of Fjord Country. Raw herrings
supply was balanced well. However, our domestic
marinated with various kinds of sauces decorated the
coastal production has not been able to satisfy
breakfast table in the hotel where we stayed about 15
the traditional seafood habit now, owing to the
years ago. These have disappeared now. One evening,
pollution of the coast and international agreement
I went into a famous seafood restaurant on the harbor
to protect the territorial coasts of each country.
and asked for local lobster, but the answer was no. Even
Hence, Japanese fishing boats must make long
the native Norwegians eat lobsters from New Zealand,
voyages even as far as the South Atlantic Ocean.
since the local lobsters became rare and too expensive
Norway is the largest exporter of North Sea
to eat.
cod but its production is decreasing. They
cultivate salmon in Fjords to export to Japan. The
fishing industry in Norway is declining, but the international hotels in Bergen are full of people involved in the oil
business based in the North Sea Oil Field.
2.3.6. Abnormal Ocean currents
In the end of September 2001, I sailed along the
The abnormal ocean current in the Pacific
Norwegian Fjord Coast in a cargo boat from Bergen north
Ocean, as described in 2.3.2, is a manifestation
up to Kirkeness on the coast of the Balents Sea of the
of serious changes in weather patterns. Another
Arctic Ocean via Nordkapp. Before boarding, I bought a
example is in the Atlantic Ocean.
thick feather jacket to keep me warm from the possible
Everyone knows that the warm Mexican
coldness of the Arctic Zone. From the top deck of our
Gulf Stream near the equator keeps the
boat I fully enjoyed the silent wilderness of the coasts
northern coast of the European Continent on the
with many deep Fjord surrounded by high mountains.
Atlantic Ocean warm. However, the present
However, the temperature on the deck was not so cold
phenomenon of particular warmth in the North
as I thought, and the expensive thick coat was not
Sea may cause a disaster. Danish scientists,
necessary. We crossed the Arctic Zone in fine weather,
stationed in Greenland, found that the Gulf
to Trosmo, Nord Kapp at 71°N. and finally got off at
Stream circulates the entire North Atlantic
Kirkeness Habour near the Russian border. It was so
Ocean not only horizontally, but also vertically.
warm there. The welcoming beautiful maple leaves were
The warm current on the ocean surface goes
decorating the silent town. The end of September is the
north and stops near Greenland and the shore
season of maple leaves in Japan too! Now Kirkeness
of Spitzbergen Islands in the Arctic Ocean,
residents say it is warmer than ever.
warming these coasts as well known. The newly
found fact is that the current is cooled down by melting icebergs and glaciers there, and descends to the bottom
of the ocean at around the Barents Sea and forms a convection current. The cooled current at the bottom of the
ocean proceeds southwards, emerging near the equator, cooling the hot tropical zone. Actually, this vertical
current acts as a heat pump keeping the Atlantic climate milder. These horizontal and vertical circulations
6
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/specials/0401/0107tuval.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1656222.stm
16
helped the development of European Culture and European inhabitants enjoy a mild climate. However, this
convection current seems to be slowing down perhaps because of the lowering of the salt concentration of the
sea, which makes the density of water lower, accompanied by global temperature elevation. If this slowing-down
phenomenon continues, then the European, as well as North American, Continents will become cooler. There
were quite a few conflicts in European history such as the invasion of the southern countries by the Swedish
Empire, because of only a minor climate change in the Middle Ages. In a worst-case scenario, the same
phenomenon may lead to the ruin of European civilization (once in a blue moon, I hope).
I am very grateful for an unforgettable experience of the kindness of Norwegians. Our cargo ship stopped
over at Trondheim Harbour after a few days from Bergen. This town had a great fire in the beginning of
1900. Then, it was rebuilt following the fashionable Art Deco style with the aid from the German
Government. We enjoyed the beautiful town for half a day while our ship was loading and unloading her
cargo. I needed some money to exchange in a bank. After exchange of the currency, we happily left the
town and continued the sail. After a few days, an announcement called me to come to the office
immediately. I went to the reception desk and they asked me if I had my passport. I went back to my cabin
and found my small shoulder bag gone. This bag contained my passport as well as money and all other
important documents for my journey. I became very pale and went back to the desk in a hurry. The crew
asked me to call a phone number in Trondheim. It was the bank. They said they found the bag and decided
that I must have been a tourist passenger of the cargo, and contacted the boat. In my great luck, I could
receive my bag in the terminal harbor Kirkeness!
2.4.
Damage to human beings
When we talk about the destruction of nature, human beings are included in the category of nature. In the
following section we study how we are destroying humanity.
2.4.1. War
War is the most efficient destruction of human by human!
The definition of war in this chapter is fighting between nations using violence, although there are other
means of fighting such as economic blockades without physical violence. The concept of the nation has
changed as the worldview has changed. Before about the twelfth century God, a dictator, or a human with
authoritative power was considered to own the nation and this still applies in some developing countries. In
these circumstances war was a fight between these authorities and their relatives, and they only hired common
people as warriors. War victims were mainly people involved in the fighting. Religious revolution, renaissance,
and especially humanism, later, led to a fundamental change in the concept of nation. People, sometimes with
the pretext of race, culture and/or economy, or money, are now considered to own the nation, which is called a
People’s Republic or Democratic Country.
As such, all people in a nation are forcibly involved in the war whether they support the war or not, with
some exceptions, such as conscientious military objection. Meanwhile, the industrial revolution has entirely
changed the technology, strategy and method of warfare. The number of victims increased tremendously from
the end of nineteenth century. The appearance of weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological, and
nuclear, reflects the radical change in the nature of war. After the middle of the twentieth century, people
thought that peace could be maintained by the Balance of Power or Mutually Assured Destruction based on
nuclear arms. Now in the twenty-first century, Pin Point Precision Attack and robotic weapons utilizing high
electronic technology is the key issue and people kill each other on a large scale under the name of a Holy War
to defend Democracy.
Peace does not mean a state of society without violence, but the state of the society of love and friendship.
2.4.2. Environmental hormones
We have already mentioned a few cases of chemical contamination. Here, I will talk about environmental
hormones, which is the common name for Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals.
In the 1950s, the broiler-chicken industry grew very big in the USA. Mass production of chickens spread
throughout the USA and then all over the world. They operate a large-scale production industry of thousands
(now hundreds of thousands) of chickens and turkeys in a single plant to reduce the cost of production.
An alarming report came from Boston in about 1990 on the effect of chemical additives on animals. The
population of crocodiles in the Florida swamps was found to be decreasing. Scientists in Boston found that the
sex organs of many male crocodiles had vanished or were much smaller than normal. They suspected that the
synthetic surfactant effluents to the swamps could act like sex hormones and retard the growth of male organs
at the embryo stage. They concluded that this could be the reason for the decrease of this species. A Japanese
research laboratory experimentally confirmed this in 2001.
17
The growth of sex organs in a baby in a mother’s
uterus is affected and the development of male organs will
be disturbed, if, for example, the mother takes excess
female hormones or chemicals functioning as hormones
after impregnation. This gives rise to various degrees of
abnormal modification. What are these chemicals doing to
human sex organs?
Recently I heard that a laboratory tried to grow hens
without feathers so that they can save the labour costs of
plucking. This is called ‘food technology’. A brand new
department of food technology was built in Massachusetts
Institute of Technology while I was there and I was once
asked to test the taste of artificial chocolate. I was not told
what the artificial ingredient was, but the taste was OK. Food technology now means poor people eat artificial
foods with similar appearance to, and a vague resemblance to the taste of, genuine natural foods but cheaper.
Almost all foods in supermarkets are now artificially treated in some way or other. Ordinary people have no
choice but to eat these foods, containing emulsifiers, preservatives, synthetic flavours, and colour etc. It is
almost impossible to find purely natural food without any additives (including agricultural chemicals). Even socalled ‘organic’ vegetables (grown without the addition of man-made chemicals such as pesticides and
herbicides) when produced near cities, grow in soil mixed with decayed leaves containing polluted dust from the
air.
Hence, in Japan, more than 10 % of our population is suffering from various kinds of allergic symptoms,
including myself. I am afraid that this is only a small example out of many other biological effects caused by
chemicals used for mass-production of foods. It is nowadays nearly impossible to live a natural life as we did in
old times.
When I was in Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Boston in 1954, I sometimes went
to one of the chain-restaurants called Kentucky
Fried Chicken with a symbol of a hen on top of
its chimney and I enjoyed young, fat, and soft
fried chicken. The meat was really soft and
juicy, and the price was cheap for foreign
students. The trick was that they gave birds a
lot of antibiotics and female hormones to make
them grow faster, softer and bigger. This type
of food has now become widely popular all
over the world.
2.4.3. Biotechnology
In the twentieth century our planet experienced a population explosion despite the number of wars taking
place and there is a serious potential shortage of fuel and food. The U.S. Government and big enterprises have
invested heavily in bio- and gene-technology to create high yielding corn, bean and other species, in order to
control the world food market. They have been quite successful. However many people are against this
technology because it may lead to the same mistakes as previous food technologies, which were not subjected
to long-term safety assessment. It took billions of years to modify the genes of bacteria to achieve a human
species through the process of evolution. Therefore, new unknown genes, which are modified over only a few
years, would be too dangerous for humans to accept as edible materials on a global scale. A long period of
research is absolutely necessary for safety assessment.
Hopeful of achieving the great human dream of an immortal life in the very near future, laboratories try to
synthesize artificial human genes on an industrial-scale, which could again be very lucrative. Soon, we will be
able to synthesize parts of human organs and a human being as well. Given modern technology, it is a matter of
time before this is done, whether we want it or not. We must know the outcome of this adventure. It is a typical
example of the world of madness. The time is near to ask ourselves who we are, human, animal, devil or
Pseudo-God. Only ten years ago, the novel by Ken Follet, Third Twin, Random House Publishing Co., 1997,
was a horror mystery, but it is now a real issue.
I have been describing only pessimistic aspects of modern biotechnology. However, I would like to add one
small and possibly optimistic aspect of the contribution of this technology to nature. That is the biological
research of human tissues. There are new cures and/or hopes of future cures, even for the lethal pancreatic
cancer, which is rarely cured today. This method comprises the injection of fresh lymph of a close relative,
which stimulates the patient’s natural healing power. This method has successfully cured a disease with no
need of surgery or chemicals to kill cancer cells. This kind of approach may be harmonious to nature and is now
called the medicine of the twenty-first century.
2.4.4. Computers
The U.S. initiated the computer technology industry in the 1940s. This has developed so rapidly that
modern human society cannot exist without computers. Modern warfare relies on high precision weaponry
operated by sophisticated large computers. The U.S. as a Superpower, equipped with these weapons and
nuclear fusion bombs, believes that they can control this world without the cooperation of other organisations
such as the UN.
Let me mention one example of the disadvantages of computers. The computer, in the form of computergames, for instance, is now attacking the human brain. The human-made computer-software as well as the
hardware reacts instantly with a speed much faster than that of the human nerve. This kind of game demands
instant reaction from your eyes to fingers to hit the mouse button as fast as possible. Usually, you will lose the
game if you think a little longer. Thus, people will loose the logical way of thinking. This means that the
computer trains you repeatedly to be instinctive with reactive behaviours and not to think logically, from a very
18
young age. In Japan, people prefer to look cartoon-style picture stories that can be impulsively and emotionally
comprehended. They are no longer interested in reading thick books. Thus cheap picture cartoon books fill
more than half of the shelves of bookstores in down town.
In many countries, we have many strange or illogical crimes, which even police and experts of criminal
psychology cannot anticipate and understand. I believe that one of reason may be that an imaginary world is
created in people’s brains based on computer games which frequently involve rapes, murders, violent fighting
and killing. The manufacturers of these games care only to win bestseller ranking. These violent and/or sex
stories fill half of the shelves of rental video shops and it is more and more difficult to find warm-hearted, happy,
human stories. This cultural disease is spreading widely as computer technology develops. Look at the
American Yahoo internet, which is full of warning pages on computer viruses. A peaceful life is seldom possible
in the computer world.
3. The corruption of natural balance
As mentioned above, a simple survey of the various aspects of nature destruction indicates the loss of the
balance of nature. Various types of chemicals, which did not exist before, pollute air, water, soil, plants, animals
and humans. Previously nature could digest contaminants soon after their production and they did not cause
any damage to nature. Thus nature kept the balance or equilibrium in the past. The worldwide occurrence of
persistent pollution indicates that nature is no longer able to keep this balance.
Our earth is a beautiful planet composed of water, oxygen, carbon and other elements in proportions and at
temperatures that enable all kinds of plants and animals to thrive. All these living things, including humans, are
based on a biological mechanism of genetics and all have similar genes and DNA. Since the earth is a closed
system, each individual natural event interacts with other events within the system. This interaction had
produced a beautifully balanced and harmonious system. All life on earth is creating a heavenly philharmonic
symphony played by an excellent orchestra with many musical instruments.
However if one of the instruments becomes out of balance, the symphony would easily be spoiled. Human
activity has upset the balance and throughout the entire system individual components are experiencing big and
small swings of change throughout the entire system, which will continue until they reach a new equilibrium. We
do not know where and how the next stable equilibrium of the earth will be.
4. Chaos of concept
All people are aware that something is wrong with modern civilization, which is causing such drastic
destruction of nature. We all feel that we should do something to protect the environment. There are many
official and voluntary movements and unorganised individuals, ranging from left to right and from south to north,
with a variety of philosophies, aims and methods. Aims range from the defence of the happiness of an
individual, or their family, their town, or their nation, as was seen in the previously mentioned case of the
Japanese ‘Aum-Sect’, to the welfare of humanity in general or the welfare of nature as a whole including
humanity. Some of these movements seem to be selfish and short-sighted. Until we learn how to deal with the
destruction of nature, we will surely face a large-scale catastrophe, like ants drowned in a flood. What we do
now is merely a collection of separated minor efforts, but it will take a major effort to achieve the long-term
conservation of the global balance of nature.
Therefore, it is urgently necessary to achieve a unanimous understanding of Why we destroyed nature and
what is wrong with our modern civilization and a unanimous consensus on What and how we must take action
to restore nature. To obtain an answer to this question, it is helpful to study the history of the human worldview,
How we have looked at nature.
5. History of the worldview of the human race
~ Nature, God and Human ~
Chimpanzee and Bonobo are said to have evolved into prototypes of humans about 6 million years ago in
Africa. These prototypes started walking upright and running about several hundred thousand years ago and
became able to eat not only fruits, leaves and grasses, but also meats, and able to live under a variety of
different natural environments. Compared with the total length of this human prehistoric period, the period of
recorded human history is very short. We can detect their trace and infer their history from about 50 to 10
thousand years ago, based on hard records such as stone, metal tools and rock paintings as well as recorded
facts and memories such as mythologies, social customs and legends or folklore.
We sometimes erroneously believe that people in archaeological time, compared to the modern age, were
simple and uncultivated barbarians on the basis of known history. However, it is dangerous to imagine that we
are superior to them because there is seldom understandable evidence about their way of living. As
19
archeological research develops, it becomes clearer that their lives were much more sophisticated than we
imagined before, and the difference lies mostly in materialistic terms.
During the last ice age, the weather of the present tropical areas of Northern Africa and the Middle East
were much milder and richer in plants and animals. This made human life easy and the population grew. As
research has revealed, human civilization seemed to flourish for several hundred thousands years there, as
seen in North African cave paintings. As the climate became warmer toward the end of the ice age, people
looked for a better place to live. While some people remained in the Middle East, some groups migrated as
follows:
(1) East, along the coasts and shallow seas, to India, South East Asia, and Sunda Land, an area which is now
sunk under the sea (see section 6.2.2), finally reaching Japan about thirty to forty thousand years ago.
(2) West and, probably, north-west, to the Aegean Sea, Balkan Peninsula and the Mediterranean coast of
Southern Europe, very probably giving rise to the Aegean Sea and Egyptian Culture, which is the origin of
Greek, Roman and European Civilization.
(3) North, some to south Siberia along what is now the Siberian Railroad and some further to the south, to
northern China. This group gave rise to the Han (Chinese majority tribe) Culture along the Yellow River
about ten to twenty thousand years ago.
(4) Then, finally, across the Bering Strait to the North and South American Continents. Each group built its own
culture suited to the prevailing climate.
It is a common understanding that humanity’s worldview has passed through approximately three stages:
the ‘Era of Nature’, which lasted for many thousands of years; the ‘Era of God’ for several thousand years; and
finally the ‘Era of Humanity’. Let us look at how we changed our worldview starting from the ‘Era of Nature’.
6. Era of Nature
6.1.
Animism
During the ice age and soon after, tropical and semitropical zones were cooler than now and had abundant
rainfall and plenty of trees, grasses and animals. In North Africa and on the Mediterranean Coast of Europe,
archaic cave drawings illustrate the abundance and variety of life. In this mild climate amid nature’s abundance,
people worshipped the extraordinary power of nature in the form of Animism. Initially, when the size of the
community was limited only to families and relatives, they thought that objects intimate to their particular
surroundings, such as animals, rocks and rivers, each had their own will and spirit. For example, the river flowed
because it wanted to flow. Thus, they worshipped important animals that played a key role in their life, awesome
and important natural phenomena like sunrise at the spring equinox, giant rocks, rivers, stars (which point the
direction of travel) etc. as is still the case in various parts of the world.
Most of the modern monotheistic religions erroneously regard animism as a primitive and immature faith,
and call it ‘Voodoo’ and/or superstition.
6.2.
Pantheism
As the community grew larger, and insight into the intricate mechanisms and wisdom behind nature
became deeper, people developed a more generalized worldview. Animism changed into pantheism - the
awareness of the presence of God behind nature in a more general form. The larger communities of people
prayed in common to a particular form of nature, such as the sun, a mountain, an animal or tree, as a symbol
and manifestation of God. They prayed for mercy, happiness, food, water supply and favourable weather.
Pantheism seems to have been widely developed spreading out from Africa via the Orient and all over the
world. (The ‘Orient’ is the area usually called the ‘Middle East’ in European texts). For instance, Zoroastrianism,
which developed in Persia and still survives in that area, admires fire. Many temples and shrines in Asia
including Japan admire fire and water, sometimes in the form of a dragon. In addition, many temples keep and
admire animals such as monkeys, elephants, cows, snakes, hens (South East and East Asia, Japan), horses
(China, Japan), deer (Japan), fox (Japan) as the missionaries of Gods. In Europe, the Celts admired the sun in
the form of a ring before Catholicism spread. The ring re-appeared as the symbol of the Irish Catholic, in the
combined shape of the Cross and a round sun in about the twelfth century, when St. Patrick arrived there on his
mission. This would have greatly helped to convert the native Celt to Christianity.
A modern Irish ornament showing a cross with Celtic knots, in a ring.
20
The admiration of the ring as a representation of the sun still persists in the finger ring, which is widely used
not only as a symbol of power and political authority as you see in Wagner’s opera, Der Ring des Nibelungen,
but also as an ornament. The circle was also the symbol of God, perfection, in the initial period of Buddhism.
This shape turned into a wheel and later into the fylfot. The symbol of God also means the cycle of life and
perfection in the religion of native North American people.
6.2.1. The Orient
People in the Orient as well as the other two groups who migrated from the Orient to Europe and the northeastern Eurasian Continent, Mongolia and northern China, where the climate was drier than Sunda Land,
developed a culture based on wheat and animals. Their gods were stars, lion, ox and other important animals.
These people were patriarchal, and buried their dead in tombs.
6.2.2. Sunda Land
As mentioned in Section 5, one group who migrated eastward from the Orient several hundred thousand
years ago finally arrived at Sunda Land, via the coast of the Indian Ocean. Most of the seas surrounding the
Eastern rim of the Indian Subcontinent, Andaman, Malaysia and Indonesia are now not deeper than 200 metres.
In the ice age, the sea level was lower by as much as 200 metres and the area mentioned above was believed
to have been a large continent called ‘Sunda Land’. Its eastern limit was the narrow but deep Lombok Strait next
to Bali Island (the gap between plates). The seas of the Gulf of Thailand and the South and Eastern China Sea
up to Okinawa and the southern part of the Japanese Islands would have been shallow or dry also. Some
evidence of traces of that period is now being studied by ocean archaeologists. An example is the sea-bottom
ruins of Yonakuni Island off Okinawa, Japan. 7
Until sometime after the ice age, the area where Sunda Land existed was cooler than now, and got plenty
of rainfall because it was situated between two large oceans, the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Trade winds
blowing off these oceans brought plenty of moisture from both sides. A culture based on rice and fish developed
and spread beyond the Himalayan Mountain Range up to Yunnan and Tibet and across the Indo-China
Peninsula (Vietnam). The warm humid climate gave them a rich life supported by plenty of rice and seafood.
This culture diffused widely through South Asia, the southern part of China up to the River Yangtze, and the
Pacific Coast up to Japan several tens of thousands years ago. People in these areas still have the same life
style eating rice, seafood and fermented food like Miso made of fermented Soya bean. (Rice has better
productivity and contains more protein than wheat). They live in houses with the floor roughly 1 m above the
ground to protect them from the effects of high humidity and to help keep the houses cooler. They have kept the
extended family system, in which several generations live together under the same roof providing the
systematized regular labour necessary for rice production. The inhabitants of Sunda land had a matriarchal
society and we still find many female-line communities in the rice-growing areas, where men visit the women’s
houses with the permission of the housemistress, who is the head of the family. Also they cremated their dead
and this practice is still found in south and east Asia.
I visited an interesting people, the ‘Naxi’, population about 230,000, in Yunnan Province, China in 2002.
These people, who differ from the majority Han Race in China, are called a minority race by the Chinese
Government. The Naxi had an independent country called ‘Dairi’ before the French Occupation in nineteenth
century, but were invaded by Communist China after the Second World War following the withdrawal of the
French military. They live around the beautiful Linjiang district, the source of the Mekong and Yangtze rivers.
Recently they revived the local use of their own ‘Tompa’ language with hieroglyphic characters different from the
ones, alongside the official Han language (see Figure 6).
Figure 5
Tompa letters reading ‘I love you’
They maintain the female-line family system, unlike the Han. The daughter inherits the mother’s family
name. The housemistress decides everything for the family members. Women are hard workers in caring for the
7
http://www.yonaguni.jp/yum.htm (Japanese), http://www.lauralee.com/japan.htm (English)
http://www.xpeditionsmagazine.com/magazine/articles/japan/japan.html (English)
21
family and working in the fields to grow food, whereas men get together, drink tea, smoke tobacco and chat with
friends, or else work as technicians such as carpenters and/or warriors. This might have happened in Japan too.
We had many powerful queens, such as Himiko who was recorded in ancient Chinese Han Dynasty literature.
Many leaders and the servant of God were women in Japanese mythology before Chinese culture influenced
Japan.
Patriarchy might have been brought later from the Orient via northern Asia through the first Silk Road, along
the present Siberian Railway to Manchuria, Korea and later to Japan through the second Silk Road via the Gobi
Desert and Northern China roughly 15 to 20 thousand years ago. The Han race migrated to Japan from about 5
thousand years ago.
I would like to mention some examples of Pantheism in Asia.
6.2.3. Brahmanism and Hinduism
Nobody knows when Brahmanism started in India in spite of the existence of many documents written in
the ancient ‘Sanskrit’ Language. Over time, it was much modified and became polytheistic. ‘Hinduism’ is the
European name for Brahmanism (Hindu means India). Original Brahmanism had surprisingly similar
characteristics to Shintoism in Japan in respect of its ideas and its social non-hierarchical system as will be
described later. Hinduism, like Shintoism, is very hard to define. The following anecdote is often used to explain
Hinduism. A boy was walking along the road and found the dead body of a little bird. He felt sorry for its death,
buried it along the road, and put a small rod on top of this mound as a sign of the bird. Later a passer by looked
at this rod and put a flower in front of the mound. Later, a man built a tiny shrine above the mound. Finally, a big
temple was built there and many people started visiting.
Modern Hinduism has quite a
If you take a walk in the suburban streets of its capital, Denpasar, you
large
number of believers in Asia
will easily find a succession of houses with large gardens surrounded by
in
such
places as Bali Island,
long walls along the street. In each compound, a family consisting of
Indonesia,
where it is the major
several generations lives together in the same square. In their gardens,
religion,
whereas
Islam is the
they have mini-scale temples and pagodas, as many as ten or more,
major
religion
in
all
other parts of
and large and small trees. Every morning, someone like the housewife,
Indonesia
with
180 million
carrying on her head a plate full of small dishes having pieces of
believers.
The
Balinese
have an
flowers, vegetables and cakes as offerings to gods, visits each of these
extended
family
system
mini temples and trees in her garden, places these offerings in front of
consisting
of
3
to
4
generations
them, and prays. People carry out this kind of ceremony not only inside
living in one house, as was and is
the house but also in front of big trees, for instance, along the streets
often seen in the rice-growing
and in Hindu temples every day. Each individual has his or her own god
provinces in Asia.
to protect him or her.
6.2.4. Shintoism
I would like to mention another typical example of pantheism, Shintoism, in some detail. The Japanese
have kept the Sunda Land culture until today. This is because Japan, a collection of offshore islands off the Far
Eastern coast of the Eurasian Continent, had little influence from the cultures of the Orient, Europe and Asian
Continent until about two thousand years ago. Most Shinto shrines have kept the original, typical pantheistic
style, although newer Shintoism is more polytheistic. Shintoism is a general name for many independent
shrines, having different gods, as in Hinduism. It is not a centralized system but rather a definitive classification
of religions by modern Japanese law, because they have similar style and formalities to each other.
I will give some details on the original pantheistic shrines. There are numerous large and tiny shrines all
over Japan, and each one is a legal religious foundation of its own. Each village has a Shinto shrine with its own
God, such as the sun, a mountain, a giant rock, an animal such as an imaginative dragon, snake or fox, plants,
or a hero and heroine of mythology. Village people visit the shrine not necessarily for their own benefit, but
mostly to offer prayer for his, her or its protection from sufferings such as famine. Offerings such as fresh crops,
vegetables, fresh fishes and fruits of harvest, but, usually, not a sacrifice, are still brought to the shrine.
The design and structure of shrine buildings are usually older than those of Buddhism, which arrived in
about the sixth century and are very similar to those in South Asia. For example, the gate of the Shinto temple is
called ‘Torii’. (see Figure 7) Its original meaning in Japanese is ‘hen’s presence’. These gates were originally
made of logs with a simple Π shape, which are also often seen in old villages of South Asia such as those of the
Naxi tribe mentioned above. On the top of the gate, Naxi people place a skull of an animal such as a hen or
water ox, which is said to act as a defense against evil spirits entering. The hen is said to be the first
domesticated animal in Asia and, according to Shintoism, was a messenger of god.
22
Figure 6
Various types of Torii
All Shinto temples contain a round-shaped mirror, representing the sun as the symbol of god, an iron sword
and a comma-shaped beaded jewel made of Jade or Quartz, which represents the human embryo. We see here
a typical example of pantheism. These comma-shaped beads are often found in the ancient tombs of aristocrats
and in old paintings of aristocrats. Erroneously thought to be ornaments, they were actually the symbol of god,
which represents the essence of nature. The human embryo is sacred, because it is the origin of the human
being made by fertilization. This symbol as god is seen not only in Japan but also in other Asian countries such
as Korea. The Korean national flag has, in the centre, two embryos surrounded by a circle. That is, the placenta
(or the sun) surrounds the blue embryo (sky) and red embryo (earth), and this system indicates the universe.
Even now, it is a custom among Japanese common people to keep the baby’s navel cord [or placenta in the
case of noble classes] in a precious box and worship it for many years.
Let me introduce some traditional Japanese ways of life, because this provides typical examples of their
pantheistic worldview. Traditional Japanese houses are made mainly of wood with straw matting for the floor
being about one metre above the ground like a Shinto shrine, with sliding doors between rooms made of wood
and paper, and clay-made walls and baked clay tiles for the roof with natural decoration. One reason for this
structure is to prevent damage from high humidity because all those construction materials absorb humidity
whereas stone, concrete or steel do not. Also Japanese people feel more natural and relaxed surrounded by
these materials. They love to have gardens, which copy nature, attached to their houses. When a satisfactory
area is not available for a garden, they have veranda with flowerpots and ‘Bonsai’, which is a miniaturised form
of nature. The Japanese garden is markedly different from that of Roman-type gardens in Europe. The basic
concept of the former is to copy nature as simply and genuinely as possible and to enjoy the beauty of four
seasons in condensed form, whereas the latter tries to modify nature as artificially as possible. People prefer to
see nature in some condensed and abstract form rather than artificial geometric style. The same is true for art.
Traditional Japanese painting is in watercolour using inorganic natural pigments as colour material and the
subjects are mostly natural scenes and landscapes, such as mountains, rivers, lakes and flowers. The paintings
of Hiroshige, a world famous painter of wood block prints, are typical. He painted the living style of common
people always surrounded by natural scenery.
Many Japanese traditional ceramics are intended to have irregular-shapes and colour because this gives
them a natural feeling. When continental people look at these traditional ceramics made in Japan, they might
feel that these are rejects. The Japanese try to copy nature in an abstract way and people prefer deformed
shapes for their delicacy and elegance. The Japanese ceramics made with geometrically perfect shape and
colourful decorations, such as ‘Arita’, were made mainly for export to Europe. Compared to this, most of the
best Chinese and European pottery have shapes as geometrically perfect as possible and express something
very artificial. The word ‘Art’ means something being made by humans.
6.2.5. Taoism
Tao means ‘road’, which means the right road people should take. It is as old as Hinduism and Shintoism
and belongs to the pantheistic category. It originated in the Han tribal worship of natural objects such as the
Polar Star. As time passed the original pantheistic characteristics became weak and moral, philosophical and
mystical aspects were strengthened and fortune-telling and superstitious aspects were developed. These
aspects had benefits for either individuals or the government. Taoists pray to many ‘gods’ or spirits, including
Christ, Buddha, Confucius, and so on - whatever appears beneficial to believers.
I visited a huge Taoist temple in Takao (Kaoshan), Taiwan. There were statues of all the gods from
monotheistic religions. They say that because they have adopted all the other religions of the world, their
religion is superior to others. Nearby stores sell false trillion yen bills to countless visitors to use as an offering to
the gods in order to gain all kinds of benefits. There are various types of ceremony intended to control the
spirits. The ritual of burning fake money at funerals to buy favours for the deceased is well known. Taoism was
banned during the Chinese Communist Revolution together with all other kind of religions, although it has
revived now, like the Russian Orthodox Church.
23
6.2.6. Pantheism in North and South America
I must mention another example of pantheism in the Native Americans. The American Continent was and is
rich in nature. People emigrated across the Bering Strait from the Orient via Siberia a few tens of thousands of
years ago. They spread all over the North and South American Continents, and developed their own culture and
religion. They have always admired and worshipped nature. They believed in the circle, which indicates
perfection, the mighty sun and the symbol of God. A ‘medicine man’, after rigorous training, can talk to nature
such as flowers and insects. When he wanted to collect honey from the bee’s nest, for example, he asked
permission of the bees. Then, bees would not attack him. They did not like to live with or near white people, not
only because the severe discrimination they suffered after the invasion by ‘frontiersmen’, but also because
whites use dirty (polluted) artificial things such as soap. These people believe that God owns the land and man
does not – land is on loan from God and man has the responsibility to take a good care of the plants and
animals, since God gives him the best wisdom among all the living things to do so. We all know what happened
to these native people of the North and South American Continents in the last few centuries when Europeans
who had an entirely different worldview invaded them.8
6.2.7. Pantheism on the Mediterranean Coast
The people who migrated westward reached beautiful places to live along the Mediterranean Coast such as
the area which is now the Aegean Sea, as the sea level then was lower. They developed the Hellenistic and
Egyptian civilizations, which invented hieroglyphics and various alphabets and forms of writing for the first time
in human history. These civilizations were all pantheistic as clearly seen from the ruins and records which were
preserved in much better conditions than those of Sunda land, because of the drier climate. In addition, they
had a lot more mountains where they can move to, following the rise of sea level.
This civilization is now recognized as the origin of European civilization by historians such as Fernand
Braudel of France, who studied history from a wider point of view than before.
6.2.8. Pantheism in the European Continent
Some people moved further north and reached the Atlantic Ocean. The study of relics from the Celts and
Germans, who are the ancestors of most of the present Europeans, show that they had a pantheistic culture
different from that of modern Europeans. However, very little trace of them remains due to the widespread
influence of Christianity. None-the-less, careful study by, for example, Leopold Schmitt, Paul Sartori and others
shows that Europe still retains some traces of its past culture in festivals such as those of Odin and Troll in
Scandinavia, Santa Claus, Kloepfelsnaechte, Mitra, Silbester Abent, St. Valentine and so on.
As the ice age ended and the temperature went up, the climate in tropical zones got warmer, sea levels
rose, and the coastal area got smaller. Sunda Land sunk slowly under the sea. The population was now too
large to be accommodated in the reduced coastal areas and in Asia the population migrated northward along
the coast of the Asian Continent, the Islands of Philippines, Taiwan, Okinawa to the final destination, Japan
roughly 40 thousands year ago with their culture.
People’s pantheistic understanding of the world began to change, as the size of communities grew and the
climate changed. The idea of religion or theology developed and pantheism was transformed to polytheism.
7. Era of God
7.1.
Polytheism
In polytheism the object of admiration changed from nature to gods and then to idols or statues of the gods,
which frequently have human figures. It is sometimes very difficult to give simple definitions or distinctions
between pantheism, polytheism and monotheism.
As time passed the number and variety of traces, such as ruins, mythologies and folklore increased, and as
archaeological study progresses, the past will become clearer and clearer. I will try to outline the development of
polytheism based on current understanding.
7.1.1. Asia and Europe
Polytheism is largely a development from pantheism as mentioned above. Whereas in pantheism actual
stars and animals were worshipped, in polytheism imaginary Gods with human and animal characteristics such
as King Shiva, Apollo, Zeus etc. were worshipped as symbols of various aspects of power that humans valued.
Each tribe had its own God in common as a symbol.
Usually these polytheistic religions have a chief god such as King Shiva in Hinduism, and Zeus in the Greek
pantheon.
8
Doug Boyd, Rolling Thunder, Bantam Doubleday Publishing, New York, 1974
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7.1.2. The Orient
After the end of the ice age, the Orient became dry and hot and the land became bare. The main food was
wheat, which needs less rain. From the point of food, the world can be classified into two zones, the dry
wheat/meat zone, and the wet rice/fish zone. As the climate became even drier, it became very difficult for
people to survive in the desert. The respect for nature, which underlay pantheism, seems to have been lost and
only the admiration of the sun and stars remained. The people of the Orient gathered near the coast of the
rivers such as the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, and around oases in the rapidly expanding deserts. Life had
become hard, severe and cruel. The population was now too big for nature to feed. In order to have social
stability within the tribe and to defend it from the attack of other tribes, or to ease the fight between tribes, they
needed to have strict rules in their tribal societies to maintain unity. For instance in 1770 BC, King Hammurabi of
Mesopotamia set the famous ‘Code of Laws’. It consists of 282 articles on all kinds of crimes and the degree
and method of punishments, which people must obey. This code contains famous words such as “An Eye for an
Eye and A Tooth for a Tooth”. In order to validate these laws, they needed a powerful dictator or Hero, with the
supernatural backing of Gods to prosecute people in accordance with the chosen law. Hence, gradually
polytheism spread and became acceptable to more people. In contrast, I believe that a peaceful society does
not need laws of prosecution to keep social order.
7.2.
Monotheism
Written records in this era became numerous and it is very difficult to describe the story of this age,
because each monotheist religion had, and has, a very wide distribution of ideas in four dimensions, x, y, z and
time, from right to left and from conservative to progressive. The description of this period in this essay is mainly
based on commonly accepted views but I have offered my own understanding on some important points, which
have a bearing on the peace of today’s world.
7.2.1. Buddhism from India to Japan
Siddahrtha Guatama, the Buddha, or Shaka, was born in 563 BC. His great contribution was to crystallize
all the gods of Brahmanism into one ‘God’ who has no personal characteristics, which is universal, and gives
enlightenment to all people. The original symbol of Buddhism was a circle as mentioned before. The Buddha
sculpture as an idol arose from the influence of Greek god sculptures much later. In the initial stage of
Buddhism, there were no elaborate churches and tombs. As recorded by his students, Shaka told people that
there was only one God who gave fundamental spiritual happiness to people as well as to all natural existence.
This belief has led many Indian people to adopt vegetarianism - they do not eat fish and meat or even eggs,
because all living things are on the same level as human and it is a great sin to kill them. They must not kill
mosquitoes even when they sting their skin, and just wait until the mosquito flies away. They believe in the
harmony of nature and the spiral of life.
Buddhism has almost faded away in India but has diffused further East. During its long journey from India to
Japan, it has become mixed with other religions such as Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and Taoism. When
Buddhism was first introduced to Japan from China by government missions in the seventh century it more or
less maintained the original form. Followers of the native Shintoism at first strongly resisted Buddhism, but
eventually a compromise was reached in order to modernize the Japan of that day by the introduction of
Chinese culture. Japanese emperors and aristocrats supported Buddhism on one hand, but also preserved
Shintoism and used both as authoritative guiding concepts of politics. By this time, the dominant form of
Buddhism was the Shingon Sect, which was introduced by monk Ku-ukai in the ninth century. In 816 AD he
introduced a mystical branch of Buddhism, which had developed in Tibet and was deeply influenced by Tao. It
was a religion of magical dualism and encouraged people to undertake strict disciplines to achieve
enlightenment. It got strongest support from the upper classes, but degenerated, as seen in the gorgeous but
extravagant buildings of Shingon temples. The holy writings of this sect were in the dead language, Sanskrit,
which nobody could understand without hard study.
We still suffer from its superstitious customs in Japan. The good and bad days of Tao are mentioned in our
calendars but have no literal meaning and have no relation to Buddhism. For example, people prefer to choose
a certain ‘good’ day, named as ‘Daian’ for their wedding. You must then pay more to hold the wedding
ceremony in a wedding hall, because of the demand to hold weddings on this particular day. ‘Tomobiki’, a day to
invite friends, must be avoided for a funeral ceremony, because it would be ominous to invite friends to death.
Houses must be designed so that they have a ‘good’ direction such as south-west, but not north-east, for the
gate. How strange it is to have such an old and meaningless custom for hundreds of years! People are like this.
This is human history. European’s have similar customs such as Friday 13th is a ‘bad’ day. Most Japanese are
aware that these are all comical nonsense, but the majority of the population sticks to these customs.
Then, from about the twelfth century, monks such as Shinran, Ho-nen, and Nichiren, announced that not
only aristocrats but also common lay people could achieve enlightenment just by praying to God without any
hard study and training. This was a great religious revolution and reformed the dualistic and deformed Shingonsect to the original idea of Monotheistic Buddhism. One example is that darkness is the shadow of light and god
lives in all creatures. Let me mention an unforgettable statement by the monk Shinran. “Even a good man, who
25
believes he is good, can be saved by Buddha. Why not a bad man, who believes he is bad?”. I believe that this
is the result of the combination of Buddhist monotheism and Shintoist pantheism. This is a great contrast to the
dualistic morality (good versus bad or virtue versus vice) of earlier Buddhism. Common people had become
more prosperous due to the improved economy, and they supported these various newly born sects. The
biggest, the Ikko Sect, was lead by monk Ren-nyo, who refused to pay tax to the government and had resisted
vigorous opposition for one hundred years. This revolution helped greatly to spread Japanese culture such as
Kabuki, art, tea ceremony and poetry, from the higher classes to the common people. I would like to point out
that this is religious revolution is very similar to that which occurred in Europe in the same period.
Generally speaking, the South Asian people are far more tolerant of other religions than people of the
Orient. You will find that in many villages in South East and East Asia, inhabitants peacefully share the same
sacred place to build Hindu, Jaina, Buddhist temples, and even Muslim mosques, and other religious buildings,
unless they are used as the tool of politics. They like harmony rather than antagonism between people and
between nature and human.
The famous conflict in India is between Muslims and Hindus, but not Buddhists who are a minority in India
now. As mentioned in the Hindu section, Hinduism is a typical polytheism, which esteems idols of numerous
Beings giving benefits to believers. On the other hand, Islam denies any kind of idolized symbols. Hindus are
very conservative and try to stick to their traditional habits for living, which are different from those of Islam. For
instance, ox, elephants, monkeys and snakes are sacred animals in Hinduism, whereas Islam eats ox but not
pig because the Koran forbids it. Pakistan is a Muslim country, but India has religious freedom and so is home
to many religions. India was separated into two pieces in 1945 owing to the conflict between Hindus and
Muslims. Even the hero of Indian independence, Gandhi, could not stop the separation. Of course, politicians
may use this problem to increase their influence as is seen in the present Indian political problems, although
they belong to the same race.
It is worth noting that the Asian concept of time is different from that of the Orient. In India, and in many
parts of Asia and Japan, time is eternal and is an endless spiral as is clearly seen in Brahmanism and then
Hinduism. This idea was deepened and crystallized by Buddhism. In the temperate climate, there are four
distinct changes of season every year, presenting the beauty of nature and there is a cycle of life and death
every year. The death of nature is not eternal but cyclical. In this understanding a human’s life and death is
transmigration, or reincarnation. All living things are born as one kind of animal and die to become another kind
of animal in the next life cycle. Therefore, life and time are seen as eternal. The same is true in physical
science, which regards the world as full of periodical vibrations and oscillations with various periods, amplitudes
and frequencies. From this idea, Buddha saves even a most evil human in the pit of hell to heaven. This is in
contrast to the understanding of the Orient, where time is a straight line from the past to future. The result of
wickedness, as judged by god or authorities, is Hell where no help exists.
7.2.2. Judaism and Islam
I must ask readers to excuse the sharing of only a short section on Judaism and Islam. It is not essential to
discuss their histories in detail for the purpose of this book.
As pointed out in 7.1.2 the view of nature in the Orient changed from admiration to fear after the climate
became very dry at the end of the ice age. It became vital for the people living there to control and modify nature
for their own benefit as far as possible. Seasonal changes of nature were far less distinct. The noticeable
change is only the rotation of the stars. Judaism finally emerged out of the pantheistic and/or polytheistic
religions of the tribes of Semites and Israelites. Although surrounding tribes were polytheistic, the Israelites
came to worship only one God, Yahweh, who, they believed, gave the believers special favour and benefits.
They later developed the idea that this God was God of all creation as is seen in Genesis in the Old Testament
and so are looked upon as giving birth to monotheism.
The most dependable way for people to survive in the desert was to unite, securing safety and prosperity
under powerful leaders such as Moses and Muhammad, and even Jin Ghis Han the Mongol leader, for
example. The disciplines incorporated into their sacred texts – the Old Testament and the Koran – are derived
from their characteristic tribal customs and beliefs, which originated in and were necessary to this desert life.
The religious systems of Judaism and Islam are somewhat alike, since they have the same root. They, as
well as many of the denominations of Christianity, look upon the Holy Scriptures as having central importance.
They have consecrated leaders for the believers to obey and a centralized system based on Synagogues,
Mosques and Churches. Most of them have tended to be exclusive believing that their way is the ‘right’ one and
forbidding marriage to people of a different religion or even a different sect within a religion, although there are
now several more open and tolerant denominations. Their teachings are rooted in the accumulated wisdom of
how desert people can live peacefully together.
It is unfortunate to world peace that Judaism, Islam and Christianity oppose each other in many conflicts
because of historical, economical and political reasons. These three groups all have belief in a one true God,
though they give this God different names or in the case of Judaism ‘no name’. They also have other similarities
such as strict disciplines based on the Old Testament, the New Testament or the Koran, similar church systems,
trained leaders, and, in Islam and Judaism, many social customs in common such as circumcision, fasting, and
dietary laws. It looks like a fight between close relatives - in fact Jews, Christians and Muslims are often called
the ‘children of Abraham’.
26
7.2.3. Christianity
A The birth
Christianity originated in the same desert as Judaism and Islam and the first Christian believers were desert
people who lived in the same society as Jews and, later, Muslims.
Original Christianity brought about a religious revolution. Its gospel recorded in the New Testament was to
be offered to all humankind regardless of sex, race and nation. Jesus, as a Jew, picked out and emphasised the
growing strand within Judaism that saw God no longer as a tribal God but the God of the entire world. Christians
taught that all who believed in the gospel would be saved.
However, it is evident that the early Christians retained the same instinctive desert philosophy, ‘humanity
needs to control nature’, although the New Testament suggests that God should be worshipped as the creator
of all nature. The New Testament is a collection of documents written by various people at various times and so
it is inevitable to find expressions, which contradict each other.
It should be noted that there is an important difference between Christianity at large and Buddhism in that
only humans and not animals can communicate with God in the former religion, whereas god lives in all
creatures in the latter. This difference suggests that the idea of God in Oriental religions is of an ideal form of a
human being as the master of nature, whereas, God in Buddhism is nature itself.
B The Dark Ages
The national religion of the Roman Empire before the time of Emperor Constantine was pantheism with the
sun as the major God. They took over much of the Greek worldview and politics. They had election of leaders
by vote, and foreign captives, who were initially put into the lowest class as slaves, could rise to a higher class
and even become Emperor. This so-called democratic system of absorbing foreigners was the main reason for
the expansion of the Empire.
Christianity diffused westward from the Orient to Mediterranean area and Rome. The number of believers
increased more in Rome than in the Orient. Because Christians refused to worship the pantheistic gods of the
Roman Empire, they suffered discrimination and segregation for a few hundreds years. In spite of this fact,
Christianity was supported and spread gradually among the common people. In the fourth century, even
Emperor Constantine’s wife and daughter became Christians. Thence he decided to use Christianity to expand
the area of the Roman Empire by absorbing Christians into the political system, and he approved Christianity as
the national religion of the Empire. Christianity was gradually absorbed into the Roman political system. In order
to moderate the friction caused by such a drastic change, countless attempts were made to mix pantheism with
Christianity.
For instance, various ceremonies and festivals of Christianity, such as Christmas, were mixed with these of
former pantheistic festivals such as the winter solstice. Another example is the names of the weekdays such as
Sunday (sun), Monday (moon), Tuesday (fire) and so on. There are still many ceremonies and festivals based
on pantheistic customs in many areas of Europe. Thus, many changes must have occurred in both Roman
society and the Christian Church. The church hierarchy with the Pope at the top was firmly established and was
used as a tool for achieving the expansion and stability of the Empire. As a result, some of the important
concepts described in the New Testament slowly faded out or were twisted to fulfil the desire of authority. Jesus
was placed on the same level as God in most Christian denominations. Many gorgeous Gothic and
Romanesque temples and cathedrals were built to show their power.
The Vatican Palace was established as the centre of the Catholic Dominion in the Roman Empire. Popes
represented God and possessed many treasures. Gorgeous church buildings were the symbol of the great
kingdoms, kings and communities. Many high-ranking bishops enjoyed luxurious lives. In order to make
believers obedient, the Roman Catholics, as well as Russian, Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian and other Orthodox
Churches, introduced stories of Heaven and Hell and various kinds of dualistic superstition. Jesus would have
been deeply upset if he could observe these deeds done in his name. The Russian Orthodox Church backed up
the Russian Romanov Dynasty supported by slave labour. One of the targets of the Russian Revolution was the
denial of such degenerated religion. I can sympathize with Lenin’s idea that “Religion is the Opium of the
people”. This is not monotheism but is actually a kind of polytheism. There, Orthodox faiths were used as
political instruments to control the agricultural slaves. The Roman Empire expanded to the entire European
continent with the aid of slave-like soldiers.
The Roman Church claimed that the Pope represented God’s Will. They interpreted or modified the New
Testament for their own benefits. The Church once claimed that the cosmos rotated around the earth and
sentenced scientists, who opposed this idea, to death by burning. Many people, who were dangerous to the
Church, were looked upon as witches and were burnt at the stake as examples to others. The terrible
inquisitions were excuses to murder anyone whom the local church leaders wanted to get rid of, although the
present Pope has shown his regret for those past mistakes 400 years later.
Christianity expanded all over Europe accompanied by the expansion of the Empire. The European
Empires with the support of Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches expanded to east, west and south with
flags of the Holy Cross and The New Testament. The Roman Empire once secured Constantinople in order to
control Oriental countries and their markets, but they lost the war in the end, after the failure to stop the attack
27
by Muslims. In the West, they also invaded north and west Europe, where the Celts lived. These people had a
pantheistic religion as mentioned above, but were finally converted. Although Catholics carefully extinguished
the Celt culture from the continent, as they did to the original culture of the Indio in South America, traces of the
Celtic culture remain now on the Atlantic Ocean Coast in places such as Ireland, Denmark and Norway. The
ring as the symbol of the sun, for example, remains as a fossil of the old culture in Europe. The destruction of
the forest of Europe had started then. It took one thousand years from the birth of Jesus for Catholics to control
Europe, getting rid of ‘heathens’ and ‘witches’. The power of the Catholic Church was everything in this period.
This is called the ‘Dark Age’.
The worldview or the basic principle that ‘human controls nature’ did not change at all for thousands of
years from the birth of monotheism through the time of the Religious Revolution and Renaissance to today. I
must add, however, that there were some people who admired nature such as St. Francis of Assisi. 9
C Religious Revolution
The Dark Ages lasted more than 1000 years. The use of horsepower became popular in the middle of this
age, and traffic and agricultural productivity began to increase. The invention of bank cheques helped domestic
and international trade and travel and the middle classes became prosperous. Although The Crusades failed to
maintain European power over the Middle East, they brought the forgotten culture of Greece from the Orient to
Europe. These were the engines that opened the way for the new tide of humanism. During the Dark Ages
Roman Catholicism was dominated by the upper classes. The Bible, for instance, was only written in Latin,
which only the limited number of educated people could read. It must have sounded like a mystery or a curse to
uneducated low class people.
Martin Luther translated the Bible into the common German language, enabling access by ordinary people.
This removed the mysterious mask of God from the faces of Catholic authorities and politicians and marked the
end of the Era of God. This was the trigger for the Religious Revolution. The original spirit of Christianity revived
in many Protestant or Reformist denominations despite many wars attempting to suppress this movement. It is
interesting to see the analogous history of the religious revolution of Buddhism in Japan at the same age as
mentioned before.
This was the start of the eventual end of the prejudice and discrimination of the class system in European
society. In one stream of this revolution, humanism was crystallized as the concept of ‘Liberty, Equality and
Fraternity’, which emerged later in the French Revolution and American Independence. Common people’s
power grew stronger and the idea of humanism challenged the position of God and weakened the power of all
religious authorities. This was most profound in the Russian Revolution, where a secular state was formed and
all religious activities were crushed.
Catholics, Muslims and Jews assumed that humans, as representatives of immortal God, had dominance
over nature and could control it for the benefit of humans. However they believed members of their own race, or
religion, and/or religious sect were superior to other humans who they thought of as heathens, pagans, witches
and savages. Members of different religious sects still fight each other, such as the Catholics and Protestants in
Northern Ireland. Asia and Africa were looked upon as savage places where monsters with human faces and
animal bodies lived as described in many books introducing foreign countries. Missionaries were dispatched to
these areas in order to convert these monsters to the religions of the invaders and to collect information used for
future invasions. In many areas, aboriginal children were kidnapped to be educated as Christians. These
believers thought that they had a ‘Sacred Mission’ and had no guilty conscious over cruel deeds such as slave
hunting and selling and genocide during colonialism. Even in the modern age, fanatic killings are approved
under the names of their Gods.
D Protestantism
In another stream of change, there appeared a broad spectrum of Protestantism. The Church of England,
for example, was established to unify people under the English monarchy, although it was very similar to the
Catholicism, which it had denied. They persecuted other Protestant movements such as Puritans and Quakers
who were exiled to the New World.
There are some Protestant denominations whose principles are fundamentally different from Catholicism.
As an example, I must mention Quakerism, because this group is unique in the history of Christianity.
Quaker is a nickname for a member of the Religious Society of Friends, because they were said to quake
while they prayed. George Fox (1624-1691) was the founder of the Religious Society of Friends. He was an
utterly honest man and told people to listen and learn from Christ directly, rather than from the ministers of the
Churches.
Quakers believe that every human (and all nature for most Friends) has the light of God inside, and there
should be absolute peace with no violence. They have dispensed with all religious formality, including ordained
clergy and churches and outward sacraments such as baptism. George Fox told people that God does not dwell
in human-made temples and called churches “Steeple Houses”. All people are seen as equal and its
organization does not have a hierarchical system. On Sundays, they come to their simple Meeting House (not
9
Catholic Encyclopedia; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06221a.htm
28
church) and worship God in silence, except some present may feel prompted by the spirit to give ministry and
some Quakers, especially in the USA and Africa have found that programmed Meetings with less silence better
suit their circumstances. Members carry out their activities decided by unanimous agreement – they do not vote.
In their business Meetings discussion will continue until unanimous agreement or the ‘sense of the meeting’ is
reached. They have no symbols, idols, icons, or statues of Jesus, Saints and God. They have no initiation
ceremony. The British and American Friends Service Committees received the Nobel Peace Prize for their
intensive international peace activities. An old Hollywood movie, Friendly Persuasion, with Gary Cooper as one
of the actors, tells some aspects of their lives. Most of them are conscientious objectors (COs) and refuse to
fight during wars. They also help people who are imprisoned for refusing to join the military in countries where
there is still compulsory military service. Their faith is expressed in their concern and action for peace and
justice for all, rather than in a search for their own personal salvation. Although Quakers are a minority among
Christian denominations, this is a monotheistic religion with a unique understanding acceptance of other faiths. 10
8. Era of Humanism
8.1.
Humanism
In the Cultural Revolution called the ‘Renaissance’, science, technology, and the liberal arts spread widely
into all class systems. This revolution together with the religious revolution led to a new Era called ‘the Era of
Humanism’. This movement liberated the common people, who had lived like worms in the Dark Ages under the
yoke of the Roman Catholic Church. The authority of the ordained clergy and the upper classes was taken over
by ordinary people in revolutions such as those in France, America and the USSR. The common flags of these
countries were ‘Freedom and Equality’, although these two concepts are sometimes in serious contradiction.
For instance, as capitalism grew in the USA, Antimonopoly Law was declared by the second President
Jefferson in order to protect small industries, but the big tide of nationalism in USA weakened the application of
this law, as is seen in the case of ‘Microsoft’.
As the concept of humanism deepened, the nature of society changed. The people were seen as equal
regardless of race, gender, or physical or mental ability. People enjoyed their lives and European culture such
as music and painting flourished. The sweat and tears of the native inhabitants of the European colonies in
America, Africa and Asia supported this prosperity. However, the scale of inter- and intra-national wars became
larger and more destructive in Europe. The League of Nations was born in 1920 after the tragedy of the First
World War in 1918 with the hope to bring an end to war. However, it became clear very soon that National
Sovereignty was still dominant.
After the end of the fanatic totalitarianism and super-nationalism of the Second World War in 1945, the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drawn up in the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948.
Today the UN is still challenged as to how to overcome the egoism of National Sovereignty. Now, humanism is
the worldview of the modern age. At this point, I regret to say that a basic antagonistic concept of the Orient,
‘Humanity controls nature’, still persists in the mainstream of modern humanism.11
‘Communism’ appeared as the extreme idea of humanism, but ended as a paradoxical experiment. In order
to achieve total equality, the total control of humanity by itself was necessary, with the assumption that this is
possible and that communism is perfect. The problem was who can be the perfect controller.
Religion lost its influence over people in the era of humanism.
8.2.
Science and technology
Humans throughout their existence have used technology. The remarkable achievements of technology in
recent times, utilising the fruits of science, has hastened the decline of religion and the rise of humanism. One
must remember that science and technology are entirely different subjects, although people frequently mix up
the two. Technology is about how. For example, people learnt, from their daily experience, how to make and
use fire. In contrast, science arises from the natural human instinct of curiosity – it asks why things are the way
they are. Science (why) is a new way of logical and causality thinking.
This new way of thinking, called the ‘method of science’, was introduced during the renaissance by such
persons as Francis Bacon (1561~1626) and Rene Descartes (1569~1650). The method of science is based on
elimination of preconception, establishment of assumption, induction and deduction, and reasonable verification
of causality of phenomenon by experiment. This idea was entirely against the theological system of the Roman
Catholic Church, in such subjects as astronomy and Galileo was put into jail in 1642, because he insisted, on
the basis of his observations that the earth rotates around the sun. Therefore, science was looked upon as
sinful in the Dark Ages, and religion and science are still seen to be opposed to each other by many people.
However, science is not antagonistic to religion. These two do not contradict each other, as you can see from
the content of the scientific method. As yet, we do not understand the fundamental properties such as mass and
10
Rufus M. Jones, ed., George Fox, An Autobiography; http://www.ccel.org/f/fox-g/autobio/htm/TOC.htm
http://www.quaker.org.uk/more/index.html
11
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
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energy or the force fields such as magnetism, electricity and gravitation. These terms are operational definitions
of phenomena. Scientists only have theories, such as ‘the law of conservation of energy and mass’. Harmony,
balance or equilibrium in nature is a fundamental belief of scientists. In other words, the basis of science is quite
similar to ‘There is a Logos in the beginning of the World’ or ‘the Harmony of Nature’.
Many important discoveries unravelling the mysteries of nature have been made in the many branches of
science and there seems to be no end, like peeling off the skin of an onion. These discoveries have had a big
influence on human history. Science had been looked upon as a useless toy of the high classes in its early
stages, but, in the nineteenth century, people realized that science was a potent source of new technology.
Humanity with a strong desire for the well-being provided by technology was as eager to eat the apple of
science as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Now people believe that science is almighty and have
developed highly efficient technology and begun the destruction of nature on a large scale, as if they were God,
or the Devil.
After the revolutionary changes of technology in Europe in the nineteenth century, large investment in
industry became necessary. Thus, ‘capitalism’ became important and grew very strongly for the first time in
history. Technology combined with capitalism grew especially in England, helped by an energy revolution based
on coal and resources taken from Africa, America, Australia and Asia. Technology can be used to stimulate
economic growth, so that investors can make a profit. This is good for the strong but sacrifices the weak and
handicapped and the ideal of equality fades out. Things will become miserable when resources become scarce
in the very near future and profits diminish.
8.3.
Economic growth
In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries politicians have measured success by the economic growth rate.
The aim of all limited companies is to maximize their profit and so increase the dividend paid out on their
shares. Politicians all over the world compete on the rate of economic growth and big multinational companies
try to operate on a global basis in order to increase their influence. The USA especially pushes its ‘free trade’
policy onto countries all over the world. To what extent can economic growth continue? Is there to be no limit to
growth until nature collapses? We must not forget that freedom of economic activity without equality is the same
as the Law of the Jungle.
The development of technology has become so rapid that humans all over the world assume that they are
the Godlike masters of nature and nature is being destroyed on an unbelievably large scale.
People must realize that nature cannot support this violent human action and that we must strive to do
something to stop the destruction of Mother Earth. The Era of Humanism must end. What do we expect then?
9. Then?
~ Return to nature ~
It is now evident that the progress of technology will upset the whole nature of our planet. Only 50 years
ago we believed nature had a wastebasket of infinite size. However, as discussed before, the digestion capacity
of nature for human waste has already passed saturation point and now nature is out of balance. The era of
humanism seems to be coming to an end. This is why the major oil companies, combined with the government,
are madly eager to secure residual oil fields all over the world.
We cannot wait until something terrible happens. If the catastrophe comes, it will be too late to stop, since
the inertia is tremendous and scientists predict that due to feedback mechanisms it will be out of control.
The fundamental solution is that we humankind become aware of our past mistakes. That is, we must
recognize that the destruction of nature is the result of the failure of the paradoxical Oriental Worldview that
humanity is the master of nature. Now we must look for a new worldview, which all humankind can accept, as
the third turning point of worldview in human history, after two turning points, from Nature to God and from God
to Human. Where can we find this way out?
If I may suggest, there is nothing else than the return to nature. We must humbly respect God, which
created the Cosmos. We should think of ourselves as responsible caretakers of the planet Earth, and not act as
greedy pillagers.
If we do not make this turning point on a worldwide scale, human activity on Earth will destroy NATURE
and ALL LIVES.
About the author
Seiichi Kondo is a member of Japan Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends and is involved in
work against social prejudice and discrimination against minority groups such as Korean residents and leprosy
in Japan. He is the Professor Emeritus of Physical Chemistry at Osaka University of Education specialising in
sciences of solid surface, colloids, adsorption, and science education. In November 2003, he presented a
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lecture titled “Nature, God, Human and Then” as the Inazo Nitobe Memorial lecture. The Japanese version of
this lecture has been published by Japan Yearly Meeting in April, 2004 and has now been translated into
English.
Acknowledgment
The author express his sincere thanks to Toshio Kato and Noriko Watanabe of Tokyo Monthly Meeting of
Japan Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends for their help. Thanks are also due to Anne Brewer,
London Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. She devoted a considerable time to the correction
and editing of this essay in English and offered valuable, for her comments and suggestions.
END
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