Has environmentalism become more than just a good faith effort to protect the Earth? Is it now tantamount to a religion?
And if it is, is that a good thing or a bad thing? PragerU’s latest short documentary, hosted by Will Witt, explores the origins, agenda, and motives of today’s environmental movement.
What he finds raises some challenging questions for anyone who sincerely cares about the future of the planet.
After watching, please take this important survey on your relationship with the environmental movement:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JCC9CJB
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http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/2818/Crichton-Environmentalism-is-a-religion.aspx
Actually the main religion is Secular Socialism, whose deity is the government. All religions are man made constructs that first enforce an individual spirituality and then permutate it for the enrichment and power of their rulers. This is a religion mutated from the post modernist belief in Secular Humanism. The Church of Climate is just one denomination of the faith. The other main denominations are the Church of Feminism, Race and Sexual orientation. The main purpose of their faith is destruction of free market capitalism, which will accomplish the goals of the globalists elites to reduce the population of the peasants except for the labor they need. The analogies with religion are many. Any disagreement with any of the dogma of any of the churches gets one branded a heretic, i.e. denier, misogynist, racist, homophobe. They have their evangelists. Al Gore, Al Sharpton, Oprah Winfrey and Ellen Degeneres are metaphors for Joel Osteen in the various denominations. There are many other parallels that can be demonstrated when put in the religion context.
Fact, Fiction, & Faith
Sometimes a simple fact can expose as fiction the foundations of our faith. I will assert that of necessity such facts should become foundational in our search for truth. Yet also out of necessity that in the search for truth faith is also foundational.
FACT: Sometimes people lie.
EXPOSES AS FICTION: The idea that “X” is true because “Y” said it was true cannot be used to prove “X” is a fact nor can it be use to prove “X” is a fiction.
This is an example of a “logical fallacy” commonly called “Appeal to Authority”. Everyone is “guilty” of using it. And we use it out of necessity, but regardless of how often we use it such an argument will never by itself prove anything. Which means for example, all of the following are signs of statements of faith and not necessarily statements of fact:
…because science says…
…because my teacher says…
…because mom says…
…because the president says…
…because the actor says…
…because business says…
…because Darwin says…
…because the pope says…
…because God says…
…because the rabbi says…
…because the priest says…
…because the mullah says…
…because the monk says…
…because government says…
…because the old man says…
…because the child says…
…because the professor says…
…because the scientist says…
I hope those of you who disagree will take the time to tell me why I am wrong about any of the above.
I am going to make a claim that religion is a much broader human sphere than even ardent self-identified atheists could ever fear. Science is a method, a process and a very useful one at that. Used properly, it can filter thru many statements and if used “dogmatically” help to identify those which are more likely to be true. But far to often statements are made on sites internet wide that so and so said such and such and therefore your belief in this idea is invalid. If your argument can be simplified to X said Y therefore Z is true you have uttered a religious statement. I do not have a problem with people making religious statements, just with them refusing to acknowledge the nature of their statement. Once you realize how much of our statements on this and other sites can be reduced in this manner it should be easier to accept the religious views of others as you come to recognize them in yourself.
Good points James. Religion is indeed an aspect of a broader human nature. It is the ability to hypothesize what we do not see directly and make necessary decisions on the basis of incomplete information. Is that shadow a tiger lurking in the tall grass? The ability to imagine that had real repercussions.
Those who believe in a religion will state on faith that the tendency to need religion was designed into our DNA, or “is written on our hearts”. Those who reject religion will state on faith that the tendency to need religion evolved into our DNA because relying on fallible rules of thumb contributed to survival and reproduction, with the most useful rules of thumb resulting in the best outcomes for survival. Survival seems to prove the validity of the beliefs.
Consider the many dietary and hygenic rules found in various religions. Isn’t it probable that most of them arose because somebody had a bad outcome that was explained by eating the wrong thing or touching the wrong thing? So there was a fact observed and then an explanation given that wasn’t necessarily completely accurate. For example, somebody eats undercooked pork and dies from trichinosis. It became pigs are unclean and must not be eaten under any circumstances. If you follow that rule, even though it’s unnecessarily strict, you won’t be getting trichinosis from eating undercooked pork, and you have a higher probability of passing on your genes.
But the observed reality that people feel good about themselves when they forego something as a sacrifice is a strange reality. I don’t mean when people follow the religious practices that they were taught. I mean that people seem to get a positive reinforcement from sorting their recycle or no longer using aerosol spray cans as a couple of examples. They seem to be programmed to perform acts that do not provide any benefit to them and may require acting significantly against their interest. This altruism gene seems to be real. Is it designed in or is it evolved in? That question still requires an act of faith to answer either way.
“Those who believe in a religion will state on faith that the tendency to need religion was designed into our DNA, or “is written on our hearts”. Those who reject religion will state on faith that the tendency to need religion evolved into our DNA because relying on fallible rules of thumb contributed to survival and reproduction, with the most useful rules of thumb resulting in the best outcomes for survival.”– These two interpretations are not incompatible. If you were God, would you bring about a world in which people who did your will would be destined to die out rather than thrive? Whether one believes that the universe and man’s place in it is or is not the result of a divine will is, in either case, a matter of faith. The atheist’s position is as much faith-based as anyone else’s.
To the extent that “green” encompasses the meme of dangerous man-made climate change (i.e., AGW or CAGW), it has always been a belief in the unprovable . . . that is, it has ALWAYS been a religion.
It has been a religion for over 30 years now, an Elmer Gantry hucksterism sort of religion, and there is NO redemption for its practitioners or leaders.
‘Has environmentalism become more than just a good faith effort to protect the Earth? Is it now tantamount to a religion?’
No.
Next question!
Griff –
Check the post three above yours. Oh, and yes I’m a pot and acknowledge that I’m “black”. What’s your color kettle?
griffie has been an alterboy in the Church Of Globall Warmining for many years.
griff posted “Next question!”
My question to you is, what kind of gratification do you get by posting comments to WUWT, only to be continuously corrected and/or ridiculed?
Not that I am expecting an answer for someone (some bot) that exemplifies being a troll.
It could be his sacrifice for the faith that lets him know that he’s a “Good Person”.
It could be that he is remunerated by George Soros.
It could be that “he” is a legion of people paid to be omnipresent defending against our heresy.
It could be that it is a bot.
One thing is for sure, the griff entity is impervious to reason and facts.
“No.
Next question!”
Really?….. none of it….. not even a teensy weensy bit of Extinction Rebellion…no….the red robes…..the End of the Worldness…..repentance…. no…..all completely normal.
..and yet they have all the characteristics of one.
Their god is the planet, their scripture is climate science RCP8.5, their rallies serve as religious meetings where there is guidance in thought, from which they then go and evangelise throughout society.
And of course if you have a problem with their core dogma that is; “we are in the midst of a mass extinction of our own making” then you quickly become a heretic, it’s got it all really.
The real problem isn’t that the environmentalist movement has become a religion. Where the problems arise is that, like atheists, most of those that espouse the unproven beliefs deny that they belong to a religion. And more often than not see their beliefs as superior simply because they don’t stem from a traditional religion.
No religion requires more faith in and belief in God than atheism.
GK Chesterton “When people stop believing in God they don’t believe in nothing.They believe in anything.”
I am an atheist and I think most green ideology is misguided,but for some it is a religion, and that global warming hysteria is just that – hysteria.
Now that I’ve watched the “Religion of Green” video, I’d paraphrase the two themes here as number one, ‘Human Nature Abhors a Religious Vacuum” and number two “Whatever Rushes in to Fill the Vacuum is Likely to Include the Fear of ‘Something’. Of course, there is also some subtlety there about the tendency to make the Earth the focus, as opposed to making God the focus, but that’s a capsule paraphrase of the psychology that seem to be at work for environmentalism becoming a ‘religion’ of sorts.
A big problem right now is that the Leftist extremism we are seeing is clearly not even all focused on the environment as such, if only it were that simple! A lot of the ideology we are seeing has to do with government control, mostly Leftist in concept, but also no doubt some right wing globalist ambitions get mixed in to this as well. So, what can we do, maybe debunking bad ideas isn’t enough, maybe we have to substitute a higher, less damaging grade of scary stuff?
Say, look everyone, you must please hold scientists and the media to a higher standard —
— or Dr. Doom will get us all!
I find that as annoying and persistently hypocritical as greens are, to grant them religious status is far too great a compliment. The movement bears all the hallmarks a cult complete with followers who will not see any truth put in front of them but the one their grand leader has decreed to them. The real joke will be on them if they succeed and Marxism gets a foothold and the acolytes aren’t granted the saintly status they seek, but breadlines like the rest of the commoners. The academics should examine how theur kin have fared under Communism as well.
But it will be different this time right…
science and religion are complementary:
religion answers questions about the unknown (creation of universe, purpose of life…) so God may be regarded as our notion of ignorance. Therefore religion also is a firewall against existential fears and uncertainty.
Science is about things that can be counted and investigated.
Secularization transformed God to Mother Earth, the canonization of (wild) nature.
So, environmentalists became the new clergyman.
But opposite to the church which prayed salvation and the love of God, the environmentalists declare mankind as “cancer of the earth” , spread immense fears and request sacrifices that cost billions : windmills and solar panels are the indulgences for our sins: exploiting the earth. But to live means to exploit the earth, there is no choice.