Humanity's Relationship with the Natural World: A Comparison of The Book of Genesis and the Poetry of Robert Burns Eleanor Merry College

When discussing the relationship between humanity and the wider natural world, the biblical work of the book of Genesis and Robert Burns’ adjoining poems To a Mouse and To a Louse arguably offer a possibly insight into the development of mankind - specifically its own opinion of its station in the world as a whole entity. Coincidentally, the discussion surrounding man’s relationship with the natural world largely hinges upon humanity’s own characteristic nature; in that there are some curious parallels between the presentation of God the Creator in the Old Testament of the Bible, and Burns’ portrayal of man in a newly emerging modern world. Greenstein contests that ‘we are none of us, even on our good days, God’ (p.1) and this contention - even in a secular sense - may be largely played into question when deciphering humanity’s seemingly superior regard for their own race above others in the animal kingdom. How much weight should be placed on the religious theory that ‘God created man in his own image’ (Genesis 1:27) and has humanity fundamentally distanced itself from the natural world entirely in its plight for increasing modernity in a newfound urban age? It is largely equitable to arguable that competition and the Darwinist...