Thursday, September 18, 2008

Our New Established Religion, Ian McFadyen, Quadrant - again - 52:9, p13-18

Update:
Link to article.

Title: OUR NEW ESTABLISHED RELIGION.
Authors: MCFADYEN, IAN
Source: Quadrant Magazine; 01/09/2008, Vol. 52 Issue 9, p13-18, 6p
Document Type: Article
Subject Terms: ENVIRONMENTALISM -- Religious aspectsNATURAL disastersPUNISHMENT -- Religious aspectsSINSHEGEMONY
Abstract:
The author examines the relationship between environmentalism and religion. He recalls the development of the notion that natural calamities were punishment for collective human sin. He discusses the features that environmentalism shares with religion in general, such as symbolism and ritual, martyrdom, and damnation and redemption. He asserts that environmentalism has attained the hegemony, political influence and moral authority formerly accorded to the church.
ISSN: 0033-5002
Accession Number: 34132736

MANY REASONS have been put forward for John Howard’s failure to win the 2007 election—negative reaction to Work-Choices, his refusal to abdicate in favour of
Peter Costello, even a sense that he had just been in power too long—but there was another issue which suffused the Opposition campaign and which played a major part in persuading voters: climate change, in particular the recent drought. John Howard may be the first leader in the modern world to be voted out of office partly because he failed to make it rain.

Howard, however, may not be the last leader to be deposed over this issue, for the last few years have seen the surprise reappearance of a belief which was thought
to have been extinct for centuries: the belief that human beings can control the weather.
McFadyen concludes:

ENVIRONMENTALISM has, in a mere fifty years,attained the hegemony, political influence and moral authority formerly accorded to the church. We have come the full circle to a pre-Enlightenment society, ruled by an officially sanctioned religion that is as dogmatic, inquisitorial and eschatological as medieval Christianity, where environmental scientists are the clergy, Green is the colour of purity and the central icon is not Jesus suffering on a cross but the image of a tortured planet dying for our sins.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good point.

See the old imperial High Altar in Beijing broadcasts? The emperor would make sacrifice there every year, it was believed that if he did not, the sun would not rise, the seasons would not change 'Heaven would bestow chaos'. Stonehenge may have served a similar purpose, ancient Hindu 'Vedic' religion was based on sacrificial ritual to control the weather among other things, same as Chinese. In this way a parasitic priesthood could control large numbers of people (Mandarins, Druids, Brahmins...)

Environnuts have tapped into a deep superstitious fear in people, that's why the fanaticism, and why its so dangerous.