On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, Jim Tantillo wrote:
> "Environmentalism is NOT a religion." I think
> you need to explain WHY you believe that to be a true statement. I
> believe it to be a FALSE statement.
>
Jeez:
For the same reason that Kantianism, feminism, liberalism, conservativism,
Keynesianism and isolationism are not religions. They're doctrines, sure,
but they don't involve faith in the supernatural, which seems to be a
critical feature of a religion.
If you want to expand the meaning of the term "religion" to include all
systems that involve some element of belief, then I do believe you'd have
to include anything that has any epistemological wiggly-ness; or, pretty
much everything that purports to be a theory about anything.
Maybe the more important question is: how _could_ environmentalism be a
religion? What would that _mean_?
For the record, I find the question to be rather empty and the comparison
flimsy. Or, perhaps better put: I just don't know what it means to say
that "Environmentalism is a religion." That's nonsense to me.
Ben
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