These animals are paying attention to us. Please talk nicely. Don't necessarily use their name.

You don't need to say bear ten times, so you can use a different word.

Hello, I'm Neil McGregor. For the whole of human history, believing and belonging have gone together.

In this series of podcasts, I'm looking at objects and at places

to see how those shared beliefs

have helped build communities

and how they can also divide them.

The series is called Living with the Gods,

and it's about faith and about society,

but it's essentially about how we live with each other.

This episode explores our relationship to nature and our dependence on the returning seasons.

This is the BBC.

If there's one scene from the Hebrew Bible that young children today are likely to recognize,

it must surely be the story from Genesis of the animals, two by two, entering Noah's Ark.

It's an enchanting myth, one family rescuing the animals of the world from the great flood,

humans and animals, literally all in the same boat.

But when the flood subsided and they all got out of the boat, the relationship between the shipmates

became much less cosy. As the animals disembarked and Noah and his family began farming and planting vines,

God spoke, setting out the future relationship between humans and animals in the clearest terms,

and entirely to the advantage of the humans.

Every living thing shall be food for you.

This biblical idea of dominion of a literally God-given right to do with every

...