Climate and Religion: From Meteorological Theology to Environmental Ethics Introduction: Nature as a Message The connection between climate and religious beliefs is one of the oldest and most fundamental. Climatic phenomena — rain, drought, thunder, flooding, and the change of seasons — were direct manifestations of divine will for ancient humans. Thus, religion formed as a system of interpretation and management of relationships with powerful natural forces from which survival depended. Climate is not just a backdrop but an active participant in a sacred dialogue, shaping pantheons, rituals, ethics, and eschatology. Climate as Architect of Pantheons and Mythology Climatic conditions directly determined which gods were worshipped and how they were depicted. Agricultural civilizations (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Canaan): In regions where life depended on river flooding or timely rains, gods of fertility, water, and the dying/reviving nature became central. Sumerian Dumuzi, Egyptian Osiris, Phoenician Baal — all of them died (symbolizing drought or winter) and were resurrected (with the coming of rain or flooding). Their spouses (Inanna/Ishtar, Isis, Anat) as goddesses of the earth and fertility sought and returned them, reflecting the desperate hope for the cyclicality of nature. Rituals, often orgiastic, were intended to magically stimulate the fertility of the land. Arid highland civilizations (Ancient Greece, Iran): Here, where water was scarce and thunderstorms were powerful and terrifying phenomena, the supreme deity was a thunder god: Greek Zeus, Indo-European Perun, Hittite Teshub. He controlled rain as a favor and thunder as wrath. Steppes nomads: For them, in the open, boundless space and dependence on the condition of pastures, a monotheistic or genocentric cult of the Sky as the supreme, often impersonal deity (Tengri among the Turks and Mongols) developed. Climate here formed not a god-«manager» of weather but an abstract supreme beginning, embodying order and d ... Read more