Before the advent of Judaism and Christianity, many people in the ancient world worshiped nature. Trees, rivers, and natural phenomena (ex. thunder) were assigned gods. God was in nature. The Bible was revolutionary and turned this religious notion on its head in stating that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". God was not inside of nature, but rather he was outside of or above nature. As such, the Judea Christian belief system teaches that nature has no intrinsic value.

With this belief system declining in the Western world, environmentalism has become popular and we are beginning to return to the view that nature is valuable in and of itself. The numinous is in nature. Such pantheism is becoming popular, as evidenced by the highest grossing film of all time: James Cameron's Avatar, a film in which the natives live in harmony with nature and worship a mother goddess called Eywa who is described as a network of energy.