Suchergebnisse

This article is concerned with the indigenous religious-based forest conservation of the Ammatoans of Sulawesi in the eastern part of Indonesia. It explores the Ammatoans' religious ideas of social actors that extend beyond human beings. Ammatoans understand that the cosmos is inhabited by not only human but also other non-human beings such as the land, forest, plants, animals, and so forth. Non-human beings do not only live together but also share the life with human beings in this world. Both human and non-human beings are equally perceived to be persons/subjects constitutive of intersubjective relationships. Such religious perception of intersubjective relations governs Ammatoans' everyday behaviors and practices, including those of forest conservation. Ammatoans' forest conservation practices include sets of regulations and punishments that are strictly enforced. Ammatoans' religious ideas and practices of forest conservation illustrate what scholars have called "religious ecology."

This paper questions the idea that theism can function as an explanatory hypothesis to account for the nature and origins of the cosmos. Invoking God cannot dissolve the mystery of existence, and the characteristic religious response here is one of awe and humility. I then address David E. Cooper's challenge of showing how a 'doctrine of mystery' can have any discursible content. It is argued that certain aspects of our human experience (of the wonders of nature and art and the demands of morality) afford us glimpses of the divine nature – intimations of the transcendent, which shine through from the ineffable source of our being to the human world we inhabit.