The Ecology Movement Has Become a Religion

(Definitions) It is good to want clean water and clean air. Most religions contain beneficial beliefs like "love thy neighbor" that are reasonable and practical guidelines for living. What distinguishes religion from ordinary social beliefs is an irrational component based upon faith. There are distinctive religious practices that only serve to please the gods of the religion or to increase the social binding of the group. For example, religious believers are called upon to perform certain ceremonies as a way of demonstrating their faith. This may or may not be harmful to society as a whole, but in any case faith-based belief characterizes religion. Note that traditional religions like Jainism and Buddhism do not require belief in a god or gods, so that not a defining factor. For the purposes of this debate, a religion is a systematic collection of faith-based beliefs without rational foundation used by believers to guide their lives. This is close to the definition commonly used by academic theologians. For this debate, "ecology movement" is defined as the widespread belief system in the Western world that derives articles of faith from environmental considerations. It is not a narrow definition related to scientific study of the natural world. I use the word "ecology" simply for lack of a better word to describe the present movement. Just as one might define "Presbyterian" in terms of what Presbyterians believe, I will define the ecology movement by what its believers take on faith. Here is partial list of the irrational beliefs that define the ecology movement. followers of the movement believe: 1. That smoking has substantial monetary health-care costs. Four independent studies have shown that smokers die young, saving as much in later health care costs as their acute illness from smoking costs. Yet, legislation has been enacted to recover non-existent costs. http://content.nejm.org... 2. That there can be no standard for the cleanliness of air by which it can be said to be safe for non-smokers to breathe, even voluntarily. 3. That there is an absolute virtue in saving water, even when there is no water shortage. We must always have toilets that don't flush and showers that dribble, because doing so is "good for the environment." 4. That anyone who does not believe in human-caused global warming is not just wrong, but is by denial a sinner and ought to be treated as a sinner. For example, MIT's Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology Richard Lindzen, an expert on convection models in the atmosphere, need not be taken seriously because he has reached the wrong conclusions. The science is subordinate to honoring eco-faith. http://www.boston.com... 5. That development of coal-to-oil conversion, drilling offshore and in ANWR, and of oil shale resources in the United states must be prohibited because bringing forth domestic carbon is sinful, whereas importing carbon is less sinful and should be permitted. 6. That morality demands that each person sort their garbage. For example, glass bottles must be carefully sorted at significant time and expense, even though they are ultimately buried. It is done as a symbolic act in deference to eco-gods. 7. That it is improper and immoral to mention that if a 100 megawatts of solar or wind power is brought on line, and equal amount of conventional power must be built at the same time, because the sun shines less than half the time and the wind blows about a third of the time. Counting the extra expense is even more immoral than talking about it. 8. That mass transit should be implemented even if it uses more energy and costs more money than automobiles. 9. That lights should always be shut off in unused rooms, even in winter when the heat from the lighting is exactly compensated by the room heater running less, so there is no energy savings. Mentioning this obvious fact is deemed sinful. 10. That it should be illegal to build flood gates to save the city of New Orleans, because when for the brief period the gates are closed, it would interfere with the breeding habits of a small fish. This short list should suffice for the current debate, although there are many more irrationalities that could be cited, such as wildly irrational fears of nuclear power and irradiated food. Of course, not all followers believe every tenet of the religion, just as not every Catholic is opposed to abortion. The pattern is nonetheless clear. If a traditional religion attempted to impose its irrational religious beliefs upon the public, it would be rejected as an outrage. Suppose some branch of Christianity declared that we should have toilets that don't flush or that glass bottles should be sorted for separate burial for the pleasure of God. The public would rebel at the imposition. However, the ecology movement is embraced so thoroughly that mandates having no purpose other than pleasing the eco-gods are accepted as ordinary. The ecology movement should be recognized for what it is, a religion. Recognizing Christianity as a religion does nothing to diminish the value of "love thy neighbor." What recognizing a religion does is help us to distinguish symbolic acts of faith from rational acts that should govern public policy. We should defend the right of individuals to take cold showers and bury their glass bottles separately, just as we ought to defend the individual acts of faith of other religions. However, we should not have a government enforced state religion.