In my early Christian years, I loathed environmentalism because I saw it as a competing religion. People worshipped the creation instead of the creator. I saw it as a kind of paganism.
But towards the end of my belief, I became an environmentalist because I learned more about what man was doing, and could fit it with God commanding Adam to tend the Garden of Eden.
Now I’m an environmentalist because it’s just the right thing to do.
So is environmentalism a religion? I used to think so, and so do many fundamentalists. So does Freeman Dyson (who is a Christian), but in a good way:
There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible. The ethics of environmentalism are being taught to children in kindergartens, schools, and colleges all over the world.
Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future.
Environmentalism, as a religion of hope and respect for nature, is here to stay. This is a religion that we can all share, whether or not we believe that global warming is harmful. (via KK)
I agree — we should all agree to treat the planet planet respectfully, and not kill our fellow creatures through habitat destruction and pollution.
But does that make it a religion? Or just a common morality or idea?
In my opinion the term ‘religion’ only applies if it contains belief in some sort of supernaturalism, whether that be a deity, reincarnation or ancestral spirits.
Environmentalism has no supernatural component. Therefore I don’t think it should be classified as a religion.
I consider my brand of environmentalism to be a form of self-interest, not some sort of religion. If we muck up the environment too much, then we can end up harming or even destroying ourselves.
Thinking in these terms, then I don’t really care if we destroy the environment wantonly, since even if we destroy it so badly that we even destroy ourselves, the ecosystem will bounce right back, just like it did with the numerous mass extinctions in the past.
(I also have a smaller sentimental component to my environmentalism, where I like the environment being preserved for its own sake, but it’s not part of the public face I put to it.)
Perhaps a checklist is in order:
Did becoming an environmentalist change your view of yourself?
Did you change your behaviour when you became an environmentalist?
Do you now reject/regret behaviours that your pre-environmentalist self would have thought routine?
Does your current environmentalist belief cause you shame over smaller and smaller parts of your life that motivate you to more and more extreme lifestyle changes?
Do you feel motivated to “share” your environmentalist beliefs with others in hopes they will follow you?
Do you feel outrage at the actions of others that now run counter to your new environmentalism?
Is there a future utopia or dystopia attached to your new environmentalism?
If so then you have a ethic, a morality, an evangelical gospel and an escatalogical framework. Sounds like a religion to me. Adamus I don’t think “supernatural” defines a religion as much as “spiritual” if you look at the current selection in the yellow pages.
Of course to extend the model you would have to have definitions for:
Social Environmentalist
Mainline Environmentalist
Charismatic Environmentalist
Fundamentalist Environmentalist (Oh, I know a couple of these!)
NeoEnvironmentalist
I like your blog. I will go back to lurking.
If it doesn’t have a god, or at least some faith component, then it can’t be a religion.
Unless you happen to work for the Petroleum Institute, environmentalism is just common sense.
I suppose some might claim there’s a faith component to believing that global warming is real, is man-made, and can be slowed or halted. But I tend to go with, you know, the actual science on that, rather than Michael Crichton’s personal fantasies.
(In any case, my reply to global warming denialism is always the same: “Why are you in favour of pollution?”)
In my case, it’s also economic. If energy is getting expenseive, the smartest thing to do is … USE LESS!
It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. Which is presumably why Bush supports offshore drilling.
Metro – great comments. I consider myself an environmentalist I suppose, but it really doesn’t have much to do with global warming (it’s a factor, but not a big one). It’s more to do with sustainability – we just cannot go on consuming at current rates and expect civilization to survive, especially with exponential population growth. We humans have enough trouble as it is trying to put food in every mouth. So when there’s twice as many people (which is only some decades away), it’ll be even harder.
I believe our selfish genes have provided us with the intellect to sustain ourselves at least until the sun swallows us up. So let’s use those smarts!
I agree with many of the thoughts here. I also think we should keep religion and human issues, such as the environment and politics, separate from each other. We have used and abused our environment, throughout time, just as we have used and abused each other. The difference being, for the most part, the environment can recover. The problem with thinking of environmental awareness, or action, as religious, in nature, is that religion, as well as corporate greed and government apathy, has played a major role in the demise of our environment. Here’s a question: is God really involved in religion, or is mankind’s religion just another way to manipulate others in the name of God?
Great discussion and lucid comments! If you believe that all of creation is the creator, no worries! :)
I believe religion is a framework created by humans to comprehend something perhaps incomprehensible by its very omnipotence.
There’s more on the subject, but I don’t really have much time left here!
Great subject matter!
Diane
Howdy,
Respect for Creation is the highest
honor we can give the Maker.
Can’t take Cook out of the cookie.
Share, care and be aware.
Love,
LuRain Penny
X
That’s a switch. When James Baker was Secretary of the Interior, back in the Holy Saint Reagan days, he wanted more drilling and mining because he was convinced Christ was due any minute and would be pissed if we hadn’t used it all up!
I think it’s not a religion, because it doesn’t rely on faith. The facts are all that’s needed for you to become an environmentalist.
Theists will claim the same for their faiths, but that’s what they are, faiths, and there is no proof of their faith any more than there is proof for not-faith.
well, here’s my two cents. people are pack animals and have an innate need to care for one another, to care for the greater good. when this need is disregarded we fall into a state that isn’t natural.
religion was originally designed to help us fulfill these needs.
environmentalism works just fine. it’s a more direct route to the point.
As someone who would consider himself a ‘Christian Environmentalist’, and having worked for several years at a Scientific Research Library, I can say that there is much that most environmentalists take ‘on faith’. Facts in and of themselves tell us very little, and none of us have the full picture – contextualizing those facts, and discerning which ones are important and which are not, and how they relate to one another is rarely a truly ‘scientific’ endeavor, and trusting in the final results of those ‘meta-narratives’ which propose to make sense of those facts, if you are willing to dig deep enough, takes faith – a willing to take a step (small or large) for which there may be evidence, but no ‘proof’ – just as the best religions require as well.
“Respect for Creation is the highest
honor we can give the Maker.” (LuRain Penny)
That’s it! If we believe in and love God, then we show that belief and love through our actions towards each other and all of creation. This is true even if we don’t believe in God. It’s not about religion, denominations, rules, regulations or “sin,” it’s about love for humanity and all else we have been given. We won’t do this perfectly, but that’s okay. Religion, whether it is denominational or environmental, is of no consequence, because, I believe, God is personal, or one-on-one, and his creation is personal. Our environment was created for us, as we were for it. This is where we must begin to throw off the chains of humanity’s religious-superstitions about ourselves, the earth, the universe and God! “I came to give life…abundantly”
@heatlight
“… contextualizing those facts, and discerning which ones are important and which are not, and how they relate to one another is rarely a truly ’scientific’ endeavor.”
/understanding of science FAIL.
How old is the Earth, just out of interest?
Metro…
I don’t know if this has ever been absolutely decided, honestly… but if you’re trying to figure out if I’m a ‘young-earther’, I’m not. In fact, I don’t think the Bible addresses the question whatsoever.
“Reshit”, the best English phraseology for the Hebrew word for “Beginning”: every place it occurs in Scripture refers to ablock of time – not a specific moment…an ‘age’ or period of time, not a ‘point’.
In Job 8:7 ‘reshit’ refers to Job early life, the entire period up to when his misfortunes began. In Genesis 10:10 ‘reshit’ refers to the first phase or period of Nimrod’s kingdom.
So, either all of these cities were founded at the same moment, or this is an overview of the ‘early days’ or ‘reshit’ of his kingdom. Jeremiah 28:1, understood in context, was 4 years in – so, if it was still the ‘beginning’ of his reign, this ‘beginning’ has been 4 years long…it is used this way through most of the Old Testament.
Given it’s use elsewhere in the Pentateuch (the books of Moses), and throughout the rest of the Old Testament, there is no good reason that “in the beginning” in Genesis 1:1 should be a moment, rather than simply a referencing to an earlier period of time (which would indeed have a beginning and an end, but a length of time itself which has no necessary boundaries length-wise)…
Basically, ‘in the beginning’ should understood much like the phrase ‘in my youth’, not, as is commonly understood, ‘at the moment of my birth’.
Of course, that leaves the age of the earth entirely beyond the scope of the Bible – it simply doesn’t address the issue.
I hope that answers your question, Metro…
You DID ask, Metro. I’m sure you regret it now.
@heatlight -
While I applaud you’re literary analysis, one wonders why you’re going to the writings of a 5th-6th century BC priestly caste when asked a question about the ultimate age of the universe.
VorJack,
I thought Metro was asking for a biblical time-frame, also. Would it have been less irritating to you, (“You DID ask, Metro. I’m sure you regret it now.”), if Heatlight had said six-thousand years? I doubt it! Six-thousand or three-billion years, does it really make any difference, since we have no real proof of either?
@DB: So you think there is just as much proof that the earth is 1,000 or 6,000 or 4,500,000,000 years old? If so, you must have a very different definition of “proof” than I have! (And every scientist.)
What’s your definition of proof?
@Vorjack:
With due respect to the present company, I’m learning to regret asking believers anything. 1942 showed up back on that other thread. I think we seem to be losing patience with each other, and I hope I can avoid SIWOTI Syndrome long enough to let that one die.
I’ve also gotten sucked in at Comfort’s Lair of Laughter, which would be a lot funnier if it wasn’t people like that making public policy like this.
Thank the FSM I live in Canada.
One of them followed me home and suggested in all earnestness that I should pray for faith. I didn’t ask where I should get the faith to believe that my prayers for faith would be answered.
@Heatlight:
Pedantic answer, but reasonable enough, I guess. You’re right, that was my question. And I’m moderately heartened to find you don’t buy into YEC, which is teh weapons-grade stupid.
But my point was that you can’t contextualize scientific facts simply by literary analysis. You have to, as you said earlier, choose your sources fairly carefully.
The whole point of science is to arrange the ducks in a logical, testable, falsifiable row and slide them beneath Occam’s Razor. So your sources should reflect that in some measure.
YEC itself is really taking a pounding, it seems to me, by its own slow nibbling at its edges, in which its proponents say “Well science proved this, today, and here’s how it fits in perfectly with what WE say.” Because they have to, by the terms of the discourse they’re into, at least look at the science.
Understanding science through reading scripture is like filling in your tax returns through interpretive dance.
@DB
The answer was less important that the way he answered it. A simple “Well, the bible doesn’t say,” would have accomplished the same thing as this tortured bit of exegesis.
Then again, I have absolutely no right to complain about other people being long winded. So, apologies all around.
Anyway, to follow up on the comment by a good host, “proof” is a word you try to avoid in science. I implies something finished and absolute, which science never is. You talk instead of evidence and probabilities.
We have a substantial bit of evidence pointing to the Big Bang – what with the way all the objects in the universe are streaking away and the fact that the entire universe is still glowing from the aftermath.
VorJack & Daniel
One of you is telling me that proof is something to be avoided, scientifically, and the other is asking my definition of proof? No one has convinced me, with scientific evidence, (there is that better), that the earth is that old. That’s what I meant, but I unwittingly used proof instead of evidence. I’m not a bible-thumper, but I’m not against those who are. I’m also not a scientific-thumper, but I’m not against them either. Two questions: 1) What was the combustible material and ignition source for the “Big Bang (where did it originate)?” 2) Why is the universe continuing to expand at a faster rate when, according to science, it should be slowing down, as they thought until just a few years ago? Help me to have faith!
@DB
Daniel and I are working at cross purposes here, I suppose, and confusing connotation with denotation. In terms of connotation, ‘proof’ and ‘evidence’ can be used as synonyms. In a more rigid denotation, ‘proof’ is what you have when every last piece of ‘evidence’ has been gathered and the conclusions are irrefutable. Since it is practically impossible to ever gather every last piece of evidence (and how would you know when you had?), nothing is ever completely ‘proven.’
Anyway, to your questions: 1) There was no combustible materials at the big bang, and no explosion. “Big Bang” is a silly name for a period in which all space was inflating at incredible velocity. The term was actually a dismissive insult that got stuck to the theory.
There are many ways to talk about the big bang, and I’m not the best person to work through it with you. I’ll leave it at this: The Big Bang is not an explosion IN space, it is an explosion OF space. Space itself is expanding, dragging all the matter in the universe along with it, creating ever larger gaps between clumps of matter.
2) There appears to be some force, called by a place holder name of ‘dark energy’, that is causing items to be pushed apart. Sort of a negative gravity.
As for why we didn’t notice it before, it only seems to have an effect at large scales. The gravity that holds together our galaxy is enough to counteract it, so we don’t automatically notice it.
Remember, science if progressive. Up until the ’20s or ’30s, we still thought that the Milky way was the entire universe. We’ve only really begun to understand the scope of the universe – and before you get cocky, remember that the authors of the bible thought the universe consisted of a flat earth with a dome overhead. We’ve come a long way since then.
VorJack,
Thanks for the explanation. I’m not cocky, just inquisitive;-) Once again, don’t bring the bible up to me, since I’m not promoting it to you! Nor would I!! Your point about how would we know when we have gathered all the info, is well taken. Just to clarify, I believe in God, but I’m not witnessing to anyone, nor am I inclined to do so. Like some of you, I can’t stand religion, but I have, and have had, questions about scientific theories that most promoters of science don’t want to or can’t answer. My question still remains, whether the big bang is a theory or whatever, where did this “dark energy” come from? I’m asking with the expectation that I can’t get an answer right now, either because an answer doesn’t exist or it hasn’t been discovered yet. Thanks again! Peace, perhaps?
While the Big Bang is a very well supported theory (cosmic background radiation, things that are farther away are qualitatively different (i.e., different types of galaxies), element abundances, etc.), we still know very little about dark energy. The acceleration in the expansion of the universe was only detected about a decade ago; we didn’t know about it before then because our observations of the distances of distant galaxies were not accurate and abundant enough. (There’s an interesting article in Scientific American that we’re lucky to even be able to observe evidence for the Big Bang.)
Incidentally, the discovery of the expansion solved the apparent discrepancies in the observed age of the universe that had confounded astronomers before then (those derived from the then-known galaxy receding rates looked significantly younger than the age of the oldest stars in nearby globular clusters), but it gave us an even bigger mystery of why there is an acceleration. The common theory is that it’s due to some sort of dark energy which is inherent in a vacuum, but there are also speculations that we need modified theories of gravitation.
Basically, we know that something has started to accelerate the expansion of the universe in “recent” times (as in starting only several billion years ago), but we really don’t have any idea what is causing it and we just slap on the label “dark energy”. However, if it really is due to some dark energy, we at least know that dark energy comprises about 73% of the universe.
(The fact that dark energy is about 73% of the universe, Adark matter is about 22%, with only the remaining 5% being the same type of matter that we’re made of, and that our own galaxy is about 0.000000001% of that, and our own Solar System is about 0.0000000001% of this really does wonders for our sense of self-importance. :P )
Forgot to add: the fact that we hardly have a clue on what dark energy is is both frustrating and exciting to astronomers. Frustrating because obviously we don’t have a clue, but it’s also exciting because they can try out a whole lot of speculations and experiments to try to find out what it is. For example, it gives them a good excuse to try out new toys. :)
Environmentalism could only be a religion in the way Buddhism is a religion; more a philosophy than actual worship of the Earth, environmentalism is simply a way of life. In order to qualify as a religion, I would think there would have to be some personified entity or higher power to answer to.
Another point is that the bible doesn’t say how long god took to make the world, but it does say what order he did it in, and it doesn’t match with the evidence. And I’d rather believe my own eyes than take the word of a paper that wasn’t even peer reviewed.
@Vorjack: Yes, I really meant evidence, but since he used proof I went ahead and used his term. I was using them synonymously. I can’t imagine thinking there is as much evidence for the world being created yesterday as 4.5 billion years ago.
I also agree that the way you are defining proof, nothing can be absolutely proved, even that we exist or that gravity does. But we can have a very good probability of it being the case.
@wazza:
The problem isn’t that the Bible wasn’t peer-reviewed. It’s the peers.
“Secular religion?”
There’s no such thing. That’s like saying your shirt is black-white.