Who's in charge here? People rule Nature or Nature rules people?
If people rule over nature, reality is reinterpreted instead of understood which is an example of arogant stupidity that leads to environmental crises we face today.
The Catholic (and more broadly Abrahamic) imagination does not merely misunderstand nature; it reverses the order of dependence. It places humans above nature, as rulers, stewards, or beneficiaries, and then wonders why reality keeps breaking its promises.
Let’s be precise and unsentimental. Nature rules over people. Full stop. Not morally. Not politically. Causally.
To say “humans rule over nature” is not just false a total mistake. Rule implies intention, authority, negotiation. Nature has none of that. Nature does not respond to commands, prayers, ethics, or meanings. It responds only to causes. Gravity does not care about dignity. Disease does not respect hierarchy. Climate does not negotiate with doctrine.
The Catholic imagination rests on three linked illusions. First, teleology, nature exists for something, ultimately for man. Second, exceptionalism, humans are ontologically special, exempt from natural necessity. Third, authorization, God grants humans dominion, so exploitation becomes obedience. All total bullshiet.
Once this structure is in place, disaster is not an accident but a consequence. If nature is for us, then resistance must be punishment, failure, or disorder. Floods become “tests,” plagues become “warnings,” ecological collapse becomes a moral drama instead of a physical outcome. Reality is reinterpreted instead of understood.
Spinoza detonates this entire framework in one move. Humans are not a kingdom within a kingdom. They are modes among modes. Same necessity, same exposure, same indifference. The laws that shape stars shape bodies. The only difference is complexity, not privilege. And this is why the damage has been so vast.
When you believe you rule nature, you stop listening to it. You override limits. You replace feedback with ideology. You act as if nature were a moral partner rather than a causal system. That guarantees catastrophe not because nature is vengeful, but because it is indifferent.
Importantly, this is not just Catholic. Capitalism inherits the same structure with God removed and “growth” put in His place. Different altar, same blindness. Utility remains the standard. Nature remains unheard.
The Spinozist correction is brutal but clean. Nature does not consult us. We are what happens when certain natural processes take a human-shaped form. which proves that humanity is still in a primitive phase of development. Any sense of “rule” exists only inside human language-games. The belief that humans rule nature is not power, it is ignorance mistaken for authority.
