After all, to conceive of the gods in human form, to claim that we share the same physical and psychic qualities as the gods themselves, is to view humanity as somehow distinct from the rest of the natural world. For the first time in our evolution we began to imagine ourselves not as a part of the universe, but as its center. Gone is the animistic worldview that had bound us in soul and spirit to the natural world. And if we’re no longer bound in essence to the animals and the earth, then why not exploit them? Why not intervene in nature to dominate and domesticate it, to transform it to our
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