Environmentalism as Religion

[GaHillBilly]

It's not new, but *I* just found it:

 

http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html

 

It's a great analysis, by the Jurassic Park "Crichton", about how ignorant urbanites, environmentalists and liberals generally have deified "Nature", without having a very clear idea of what "Nature" is . . . or what it's like.

 

He hit so many of the points I've made in the past while ranting about how Scout leaders with NKDD (nature knowledge deficit disorder) screw up Scouting that I just felt obligated to post the link. But, since his academic credentials (Harvard summa/pbk, etc.) are much more impressive than mine I'm sure ya'll will all agree that he's right (and that therefore, I'm right, too!).

 

Interestingly, an environmental sub-unit of the UN has recently and quite seriously proposed that the deification of "Nature" could allow the UN to replace all the divisive religions out there, and, oh, by the way, greatly increase both UN power and this little division's influence. The paper was apparently not intended for general consumption, but they forgot to "Leave No Trace" and it got caught up in the coverage of the CRU emails. If anyone's interested, I'll find that link too.

 

Enjoy!

 

GaHillBilly

 

 

[shortridge]

I would like to see that UN link.

[GernBlansten]

Isn't nature God?

So a reverence toward nature be in tuned with a reverence for God?

Why mock those who believe in that, no matter what they call it?

[le Voyageur]

Guess it's good to know that I'm a liberal urban atheist, even though I live rural and nearly off the net...lol. As I see it, Mr. Crichton could give me a hand. Gotta lop off the heads of a few chickens, and he could help with the plucking, and gutting...heck, we could even do a round or two of kumbaya to make the job go faster.

 

However, to be fair, I've rambled enough on this globe to know that the most dangerous animal is the human over fatted on religion. However, I doubt there will ever be a sauce that would make such a creature palatable.(This message has been edited by Le Voyageur)

[GaHillBilly]

@ Shortridge:

The file is a PDF: www.iisd.org/pdf/2007/unep_we_want.pdf

 

 

@ Gern:

"Isn't nature God?"

Not in any religion, except modern half-a-brain environmentalism. It's often stated that animistic religions worshiped nature, but it's far more accurate to say that they worshiped the demonic spirits inhabiting various entities (trees, etc.) in nature.

"Why mock those who believe in that, no matter what they call it?"

Uh-h-h, assuming you are serious, for the same reason you mock snake-handlers! (See "half-a-brain", above.)

 

A couple of years ago, my son had a college English teacher who was a self described feminist / atheist / Wiccan. It was his first encounter with a hard-core anti-Christian, and he was rather overwhelmed by the very dumbness and anti-rationality of it all. A Wiccan *atheist*??

 

Environmental nature-worship is sorta the ultimate form of anti-rationalism.

 

On the one hand, any modern environmentalist is a by-absolute-faith believer in modern evolutionism, which has at its very core an absolute faith in a radical naturalistic mechanism, and a rejection of all supernatural causes. This scientific evolutionism establishes Nature as (n)ature, a pure mechanistic machine, with no soul and no spirit(s) anywhere of any kind. Ethical and aesthetic values exist only as an artifact of various random evolutionary processes and have no particular or unique 'meaning' nor moral 'force'. Sentient volitional beings, such as men may, upon becoming aware of the random and meaningless root of all ethical values, make a personal choice to continue to acknowledge them, but this is a purely personal choice. As such, from the perspective of scientific naturalism, it's a choice neither more or less valid than the choice to become Al Bundy or Ghengis Khan.

 

Actually, from the perspective of scientific naturalism, the whole concept of a 'valid' choice is a mere religious artifact. Scientifically, any choice made by an organism -- whether bacterial or hominid -- simply 'is'. "Value" is also a religious artifact.

 

On the other hand, environmentalists often exhibit all sorts of religious-like behavior with respect to (n)ature, now called (N)ature. Among other things, they identify commands like "Save the planet" or even the anthropomorphized "Save our Mother (earth)" as moral imperatives, obligatory on all mankind in precisely the same way that traditional Judeo-Christian ethics "imposes" its values on others, regardless of what these "others" believe. The problem is that their prior commitment to scientific naturalism rules out all rational basis for such moral imperatives.

 

Thus, modern environmentalist are precisely the modern educated version of Kentucky snake-handlers.

 

 

@ Voyageur

"I've rambled enough on this globe to know that the most dangerous animal is the human over fatted on religion"

 

Yet another tenet of modernistic anti-rationalistic religion: the proposition that traditional absolutist monotheistic religions (orthodox Judaism, Islam, orthodox Christianity) are the real problem.

 

Unfortunately, it's not a proposition supported by the evidence, so it has to be taken on faith!

 

As I've noted before, the religion held by the top 4 mass-murderers (in order: Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, who together murdered over 100 million, not including combat deaths) of the 20th Century was some flavor of atheistic evolutionism. Even bringing in 21st C conflicts between Islam and Westernism, the atheistic evolutionists out killed the monotheists way more than 10 to 1.

 

If we are going to outlaw 'dangerous religions', recent history suggests that it's Dawkins, not Dobson who should go to jail.

 

The very fact that such an idea can remain acceptable in 'educated' circles offers overwhelming evidence of the 'bias' of the modern press and educational process. For the idea of the 'danger' of Xianity in particular is so overwhelmingly contradicted by readily available evidence, that the only possible way for such an anti-rationalist idea to remain in play, is if the truth is actively, constantly, and pervasively suppressed.

 

 

GaHillBilly

(This message has been edited by GaHillBilly)

[evmori]

Isn't nature God?

 

Yes

 

So a reverence toward nature be in tuned with a reverence for God?

 

Yes

 

Why mock those who believe in that, no matter what they call it?

 

Because we need to be politically correct (retching into the trash can).

[JoeBob]

Ev:

Good thing you had a trashcan nearby. I've found it hard to get the little chunks out of the crevices on my keyboard...

[le Voyageur]

GaHillbilly...

 

you're a misinformed hoot....lol.

 

First, Yaweh, aka Jehovah was a semitic volcano god of the Hittites before being morph into the God of Israel, i.e., a nature god.

 

You've also failed to mention the number of souls murdered by the Roman Catholic Church, which would be over a billion were we to include the destruction of the Aztecs, Incas, Mayans, Hurons and other Great Lakes Tribes, anti Baptists, etc. The RCC's war on women (The Hammer of the Witches), led to the murder of nearly 100 000 women, Jews, and gypsies). Papal wars added even more to the RCC death toll.

 

You also confused (maybe on purpose since you seem to have an ax to grind against atheism) religion, with idealogy. There is a differance.

 

If you would, please, do your homework. Your psuedo intellectualism ain't working here....still lol

[packsaddle]

I just read through the linked paper and I can't seem to find evidence in support of the topic. Looks mostly like trade and economic policy as it relates to environmental concerns. Have I missed something?

The only thing I can find is a statement, "The environment should compete with religion as the only compelling, value-based narrative available to humanity."

Looking at this statement through the eyes of a scientist, I merely see a confused and poorly-defined position statement. Substituting 'environmental awareness' for 'environment' makes a bit more sense but the mere act of competing with religion doesn't make it 'religion'. If so, I could also argue that such things as capitalism or consumerism or perhaps hedonism already compete with religion and should also be added to our concerns.

I'm not concerned though about this. The set of values based on greed are far more troubling and I'm no more likely to change or influence those than I am the confused and thoughtless ramblings of some analyst for UNEP.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[GaHillBilly]

@ packsaddle =>

On page 4: "The environment should compete with religion as the only compelling, value-based narrative available to humanity. To do that, however, it will have to make itself relevant well beyond the world of those already concerned with the environment, including very prominently its own formal constituency. Indeed, unless UNEP succeeds in recasting the debate, it is highly likely that the economic community will do itbadly, and on its own terms. It is already happening in the field of climate change."

 

The phrase, "the only compelling, value-based narrative available to humanity" suggests to me that they hope for a direct substitution. The words "only" and "compelling" suggest that they think it is a complete substitute.

 

With regards to badly written, what do you expect? It's from the ultimate government bureaucracy!

 

 

@ evmori =>

"Isn't nature God?"

"Yes"

 

Not in: Christianity, Mormonism, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Bahai, Jainism, Confucianism, or Taoism.

 

Not really, as noted earler, in: Shintoism or any of the traditional animisms about which I have specific information.

 

Nor in traditional witchcraft or black magic, which has always been a sort of anti-religion, attempting to manipulate -- or much more rarely serve -- evil powers.

 

Modern Wicca apparently is a 'big tent' that now includes some practitioners of black magic (whether the common wanna-bes or the rare real deal), as well as a 'stoner' (Nature? Wow, co-o-ol, dude!) or 'new age-y' anti-intellectual pursuit of the spiritual as 'whatever makes me feel good'. Within this category, "Nature" is sometimes 'worshiped', but just what "Nature" is, is always undefined. What it is not, is the complete collection of quantum scale particles and large-scale masses and processes that are the working materials of science.

 

This sort of Wicca pretty much overlaps and is indistinguishable from environmentalism as religion, and thus is more or less what I originally spoke of.

 

Perhaps, you have some sort of other religion in mind?

 

 

 

@ Voyageur

 

It will be tonight b4 I can respond fully to your collection of claims, but (raised teacher-ly eyebrow), 'are you SURE you want to turn it in that way??'. The "Edit" button is probably still accessible to you. I'd bet $'s to donuts that, once I check your math and some history references that your claims will prove to be embarrassingly wrong.

 

(Hint: etymologically speaking, "Semitic" derives from the name "Shem", one of Noah's sons. Hittites (a word exclusively from the English translation of the Hebrew Bible) refers to sons of Canaan. Whoever the "Hittites" were, and there's some debate, they were NOT "Semitic". If they had a "semitic (sic) volcano god", they would have had to have gotten him/her/it from the Israelites! )

 

Oh, and BTW, being a licensed plumber, as I am, is sufficient to qualify as a hillbilly around here. It's not sufficient to qualify as an intellectual.

 

Perhaps standards in your locale are lower? Maybe, if I moved there I could become "VaIntellectual" instead of "GaHillBilly"!

 

 

 

 

GaHillBilly(This message has been edited by GaHillBilly)

[DanKroh]

"Modern Wicca apparently is a 'big tent' that now includes some practitioners of black magic (whether the common wanna-bes or the rare real deal), as well as a 'stoner' (Nature? Wow, co-o-ol, dude!) or 'new age-y' anti-intellectual pursuit of the spiritual as 'whatever makes me feel good'. Within this category, "Nature" is sometimes 'worshiped', but just what "Nature" is, is always undefined. What it is not, is the complete collection of quantum scale particles and large-scale masses and processes that are the working materials of science."

 

Um, No. Paganism is a "big tent". Wicca refers specifically to a initiatory tradition which does NOT include "black magic", stoners, or newage (it rhymes with "sewage"). You can't be a Wiccan unless you've been initiated into Wicca, despite what a whole bunch of wannabees who have read a book about Wicca may think.

[GernBlansten]

I'm a little confused.

If my faith is based on a reverence for the earth and all things natural, it is not a true religion because it doesn't focus on a single sky god. And to practice that faith, I'm really just an atheistic evolutionary, much like the Nazis, the Chi Coms and the Stalinists.

 

As Spock would say. Fascinating.

[le Voyageur]

GHB....I'll have more time too, tonight so if you want to play I do love history.

 

Hint: etymologically speaking, "Semitic" derives from the name "Shem", one of Noah's sons. Hittites (a word exclusively from the English translation of the Hebrew Bible) refers to sons of Canaan. Whoever the "Hittites" were, and there's some debate, they were NOT "Semitic". If they had a "semitic (sic) volcano god", they would have had to have gotten him/her/it from the Israelites! )

 

Yes, you are right that the term Semite derives from the biblical Shem (I'm guessing you googled Wikipedia for this bit of trivia). But, so what, the problem is that the story of Noah is the Gilgamesh Epic borrowed and retold (spent a semester studying the epic of Gilgamesh under the tutelage of Professor Ruth DeEtte Simpson,an associate of Dr. Lewis Leakey.) In short, the story of Noah is a plagiarized fiction greatly inflated. It's in the same vein as fictionlizing Nicholas of Myra to Santa Claus. As such, I've my doubts that the 4th century Nicholas had magical reindeer that had the power of flight, and the ability to exceed the speed of light.

 

[packsaddle]

OK, I've definitely missed something...what's a 'stoner'? Is this someone who is a fan of the Rolling Stones, the way I sometimes think of myself as a Trekkie? Or is this someone who likes to smoke marijuana? Help me out.

 

Edited part: le Voyageur, bite your tongue! I do all those things every Christmas for my DIL's second grade class, dressed as Santa himself, of course. One child to the other in the hallway: "Do you think he's really Santa?" second child, "Sure he is, he's OLD!" that sweet, sweet child.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[Kahuna]

"If my faith is based on a reverence for the earth and all things natural, it is not a true religion because it doesn't focus on a single sky god"

 

That isn't the definition of religion. Merriam Webster:

1 a : the state of a religious b (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance

2 : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices

3 archaic : scrupulous conformity : conscientiousness

4 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith

 

I am Buddhist and nowhere do we have a "sky god."