The New Religion
Socialism is often described as a religion that replaces God with society. Socialism is passé; in concentrated form it has led to the deaths of over 150 million. Besides, socialism, as the word suggests, is too people-focused for the adherents of the newest form of transcendental experience. John Baden explains it here:
“All religions have a litany and the Greens have theirs. We are sinners who sully creation. Our materialism wrecks our planet. Things are bad and getting worse for (other) people want the wrong things. Damnation awaits and darkness is nigh. Repent and renounce now else the end is near. Global warming will ruin our lives and destroy creation.
John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, told of his desire to go to the 'high temples' to 'worship with nature.' Joseph Sax, author of Mountains Without Handrails, wrote that he and his enlightened consorts are 'secular prophets, preaching a new message of salvation.' ...
Genesis tells us Noah built his ark for God would soon send a giant flood to cover the earth. This was deserved punishment for sinful ways. And Al Gore received a Nobel Prize for telling us a similar fate is coming via warmth rather than water. …
… modern secular environmentalism has become a religion; it's Calvinistic asceticism minus God.”
posted by Jason Pappas at 1:54 PM
11 Comments:
I concur that "modern secular environmentalism has become a religion." Moreover, it is even more dogmatic than most religions. However, this has not made the religion of socialism passé. Rather the source of support for dealing with global warming is that the greedy capitalists are ruining the lives of the poor masses.
I attended a lecture with a film on global warming which was ostensibly a scientific treatment. Yet the motivations it drew upon were those of the "class" and "national struggle". Without presenting any compelling scientific arguments, the film won over the audience of scientists, who as liberal Democrats were swayed by emotionalism.
The message was clear and simple. The greedy capitalists and their rich countries were the oppressors, who had to be punished for the sake of the innocent victims (which included the sweet polar bears). Reality had nothing to do with it.
Weingarten
Those who advocate dealing with global warming, claim that it: exists; is caused by man; is harmful; and should be dealt with. The skeptics concede that it exists, but either that it is not caused by man, is not harmful, or that dealing with it is ineffective. On this basis, it would appear that the issue is a scientific one, to be dealt with by the evidence. However, as one examines the arguments, pro and con, it becomes clear that the issue is also political, and perhaps primarily political. This is noted by how the Democrats differ from the Republicans, and by the financial investments in the conclusions & promulgations of the studies. Nonetheless, I submit that the issue is essentially one of morality.
To begin, I deny that we even know whether the earth is warming. Consider the article “Is there an average global temperature?” by James Lewis (http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/03/is_there_an_average_global_tem_1.html
March 18, 2007. Some physicists note that there is no such thing as global temperature, because the earth’s atmosphere is not a homogeneous system. The measures of central tendency, needn’t be the average, but might be the median or the mode. Even if we knew it to be the average, it might be the geometric mean, or more likely a weighted mean. Which measure is employed depends upon how the subsystems interact, and how the conclusions are to be applied. In short, we do not yet know which measure to employ, and given the small amount of measured warming (1 degree centigrade in a century) the difference in measure could drastically change the expected outcomes. Moreover, “the right predictor for global climate may not be an average heat density at all, but rather the regional differences in heat content. Weather systems flow from high to low pressure regions, which are in turn dependent upon complex heat exchange mechanisms.” In short, the very measure for demonstrating global warming has not yet been established.
Yet what is more significant is that the advocates of global warming do not seem to care. They will take evidence that the arctic is warming, while disregarding evidence that the antarctic is cooling. They will show a small reduction in the number of polar bears, while disregarding far greater increases in previous decades. They will focus upon an increase in heat in 2001, while disregarding the lack of increases in 2002, 2003,…, 2007. Measures will be taken in urban areas (which are warmer) rather than in rural areas (which are cooler). What is most significant is that when the advocates are shown that they have been mistaken, or have given a wrong impression, they neither acknowledge it, nor stop repeating their errors. Thus, when they say that hundreds of atmospheric scientists conclude that global warming is a serious problem, they will not acknowledge that most of these are not atmospheric scientist, but bureaucrats.
When they claim that the skeptics are flat-earth people, they include respected atmospheric scientists as well as those who were previously believers in global warming. More important is that science is built on skepticism, placing the burden of proof on those who present an hypothesis, rather than as a dogma that attacks the non-believers.
My point is simple. The advocates who do not present the evidence on both sides, and will neither acknowledge errors, nor stop repeating them, have not failed scientifically, but morally. So why address the scientific issues of whether: warming exists, is caused by man, is harmful, or should be dealt with? The pertinent issue is moral, namely whether there should be a balanced presentation of the evidence, and whether errors should be acknowledged.
Weingarten
PS, In 2005, a Canadian Greenpeace representative explained “global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter.” In other words, all weather variations are evidence for global warming. (Year of Global Cooling, December 19, 2007.)
I’m not sure I agree that ”Socialism is passé,” because it is getting increasingly popular in the US. Have you noticed that even “republican conservatives” seem confused these days? As to environmental extremism, does any really think that human beings will be here in another 300,000 years? I don’t. More to the point, I won’t. So I do not understand why I need to get an ulcer over hypotheses that no one can agree on. But feel free to throw me a bone here . . .
I think that the ultimate goal of the socialists is to bring our society closer to living in greater harmony with Nature. But I don't think they realize that "nature" is but a place untouched by human hand... a place mankind has struggled against all eternity to escape from and exercise his own unique arts and powers.
Nature is is a place where modern men retreat from and convalesce from the effects of civilization and of man's inhumanity to his fellow man. In this sense, it is a religion deserving a measure of worship.
But ultimately I think the transcendentalists, Henry David Thoreau (in Walden) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (in Nature) epitomized what was "practical" in the early American environmental movement.
Emerson, "Nature"
All science has one aim, namely, to find a theory of nature. We have theories of races and of functions, but scarcely yet a remote approach to an idea of creation. We are now so far from the road to truth, that religious teachers dispute and hate each other, and speculative men are esteemed unsound and frivolous. But to a sound judgment, the most abstract truth is the most practical. Whenever a true theory appears, it will be its own evidence. Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena. Now many are thought not only unexplained but inexplicable; as language, sleep, madness, dreams, beasts, sex.
Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the NOT ME, that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, NATURE. In enumerating the values of nature and casting up their sum, I shall use the word in both senses; — in its common and in its philosophical import. In inquiries so general as our present one, the inaccuracy is not material; no confusion of thought will occur. Nature, in the common sense, refers to essences unchanged by man; space, the air, the river, the leaf. Art is applied to the mixture of his will with the same things, as in a house, a canal, a statue, a picture. But his operations taken together are so insignificant, a little chipping, baking, patching, and washing, that in an impression so grand as that of the world on the human mind, they do not vary the result.
When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.-- Emerson
Al Gore is NO genius.--Farmer John
Good to see you back posting! I'll be back!
American Power
Well Jason, while you are out there tilting at windmills it will benefit you to realize that the public is finished with the laissez-faire supply side cult.
Say goodbye to the Club for Growth.
You remind me of 18 year old libertarian sophists. Some good instincts but naive. For example, you believe you can do away with government without being ruled like serfs by the extremely rich. So although you might be sincere, you represent the most serious threat to liberty on the horizon.
Farmer, the goal of most democratic socialists is to simply smooth out the distribution of wealth to provide a BASIC level of prosperity to a much larger number of people. You may not be able to beat the Malthusian curve but we can assure that the level of subsistence is much higher than current practice.
ducky, the only thing keeping the Maltheusian tidal wave from crushing us is that we haven't reached the load carrying capacity of the planet. But have no fear, we'll soon get there... 2054 by this chart. At that point, you can say goodbye to whatever temporary prosperity the world has achieved and go back to the "good old days" of the early industrial revolution.
So say goodbye to the Club for growth, and say hello to the Club of Rome.
Farmer, studies indicate smaller families come with more prosperous non agricultural families.
Leftism's body count is much higher than 150 million.
Nature is the one ultimate lawgiver. "Worshipping" it is a good idea (worship = reveling in existence and reality).
Environmentalism is a mixed bag. It's foolish to destroy one's own house, whether with pollution or socialist politics.
Duckduck thinks laissez faire is finished for good; but laissez faire is, at heart, respect for the individual and her/his rights. Far from passe, it's inherent (even though latent) in us, and will be the wave of the future.
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