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Friday, October 1, 2010

Environmentalism As Religion

Jackson Gabus clued me on 3quarksdaily. I love it when I find myself have a laugh at another's expense and then realize it's me being lampooned.

For some individuals and societies, the role of religion seems increasingly to be filled by environmentalism. It has become “the religion of choice for urban atheists,” according to Michael Crichton, the late science fiction writer (and climate change skeptic). In a widely quoted 2003 speech, Crichton outlined the ways that environmentalism “remaps” Judeo-Christian beliefs: "There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe." In parts of northern Europe, this new faith is now the mainstream. “Denmark and Sweden float along like small, content, durable dinghies of secular life, where most people are nonreligious and don’t worship Jesus or Vishnu, don’t revere sacred texts, don’t pray, and don’t give much credence to the essential dogmas of the world’s great faiths,” observes Phil Zuckerman in his 2008 book Society without God. Instead, he writes, these places have become “clean and green.” This new faith has very concrete policy implications; the countries where it has the most purchase tend also to have instituted policies that climate activists endorse. To better understand the future of climate policy, we must understand where “ecotheology” has come from and where it is likely to lead.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

To better understand the future of climate policy, we must understand where “ecotheology” has come from and where it is likely to lead.

Here's my question for these nutcase liberals: If God wanted us to be green, why did he give us SUV's?
:)
mw

Silk Hope said...

To understand Religion God is not the only one working here. Satan works overtime in my belief. He surely created the Ford Expedition. I must see one a month rolled on its top somewhere on a Southern Cal freeway. I owned one and they should be banned. Gunnar go figure that paradox.

Jack Gabus
"Tea Party Member"

Anonymous said...

God wants all redblooded Mericans to kill nature. That's why he made nature first, and Expeditions second.

mw

Silk Hope said...

Give me back my 1969 International Harvester Travel All. Now that is an "Merican" SUV!

No seatbelts, no padded dash, no cup holders. Just "three on the tree" a gun rack and those cheap plastic things that hang on drivers window to hold your Hamms beer. Right Rev?