Although many will be flocking to Earth Day celebrations, some non-feathered bipeds will be asking themselves (while pouring a few more
gallons into their gas-guzzling tanks): Is environmentalism now a religion?
In order to logically answer that question, it first seems necessary to define “religion.” Religion has been described as “what keeps the poor from murdering the rich” (Napoleon Bonaparte), as “kindness” (Dalai Lama), and as “the art and theory of the remaking of man”
(Edmund Burke). Exact
definitions, however, have been hard to come by.
In his Miami Herald
article Earth Day’s environmental‘religion,’ Robert H. Nelson offers this explanation (based upon the work of William James): “it
is not necessary to ‘positively assume a God’ in order to have a religion.” Nelson
then offers Paul Tillich’s view that religion is “a comprehensive belief system that seeks to answer questions of ‘ultimate concern’ to human existence.” Nelson concludes that environmentalism is a “new secularized Protestantism: the religion of green, the religion of Earth Day.”
In his American
Thinker article The Religion of Global Warming, W. A. Beatty describes the “earth-worshipping”
tendencies of those he calls “global warmists.”
He lists the following “trappings of religion” that are part of an “unshakable faith” in Gore’s gory pronouncements: original
sin (it’s all our fault); atonement and repentance (downsize now); rituals
(recycle or die); indulgences (purchase carbon offsets); and dire prophecy (the end is nigh).
Resources
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_religion2.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/18/2755120/earth-days-environmental-religion.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/04/the_religion_of_global_warming.html
Copyright April 20, 2012 by Linda Van Slyke All Rights Reserved
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