So animism has an "elaborate moral ecology". I wonder what the sacrificed goat thinks of that.

All the animist societies that I know of did their damndest to control their environments; they just weren't very good at it. But driving herds of buffalo over cliffs in order to cut out their tongues and livers, periodically burning the bush to destroy unwanted plants, and wiping out all the megafauna they could get to, are apparently minor peccadilloes in the environmental playbook. They don't compare with the awful sin of being a warm, comfortable, healthy and well-educated Westerner.

"Animism" defined as
1.
the attribution of a soul to plants, inanimate objects, and natural phenomena.
2.
the belief in a supernatural power that organizes and animates the material universe.

Gee...animism sounds like related to animal...and it encompasses everything including the most beautiful text ever written in human history in various religions...Genesis begins with God in act of Animism I guess...

Sure...lets bunch all religions and beliefs and all people who suspect a god exists...think 90% of the world...under Animism and be referred to as the animates by the remaining 'superior' non-animates...
sam