I sent an earlier reply to Jim, but it seems to have vanished on in the ether.

Here is another maing the same points and picking up, on what has since
appeared.

First- I think it was abundantly clear that my reply was to Crichton and his
imbeclic charge (yes, Jim, imbecelic or dishonest or both), and I wrote there
that I was not going to discuss the nature of religion as such. The clear
sense of the article was that I was working within Crichton's definition of
religion.

Second, I explicitly wrote that SOME environmentalists did in fact resemble
Crichton's charge, and even pointed out SOME Earth First!ers as examples. I
did not regard that as a contradiction. As to why, see below.

Jim does not want me to stay within Crichton's framework - which is what I was
addressing. Fine - but remember, since I explicitly stated in my paper that I
was not going to discuss religion as such, I was not being ignorant of other
definitions, I was trying to stay focused on Crichton's stupid one, and the
similar views of right wingers who agree with him.

So let's leave Crichton behind and move on to more interesting discussions of
these issues.

There can be a serious inflation of terms over time, and I suggest this is
happening to religion when environmentalism is described as a religion. Here
are the reasons for my statement:

1. I cannot be a Christian without following the Christian religion - right?
But I can very coherently be an environmentalist and follow Christianity,
Buddhism, Paganism, or some other belief. If I can be a Pagan or a Buddhist or
a Christian or an atheist or some other thing, and ALSO be an environmentalist,
in what sense is environmentalism an all-encompassing view? If it is, then
maybe Christianity is not a religion since it must not encompass what
environmentalism encompasses and so is not an all encompassing view. If it
does, so Christianity and environmentalism overlap on most vital issues, how
can I be a Pagan and an environmentalist? Wouldn't being an environmentalist
then require me to be a Christian? Or are these all encompassing views
mutually incoherent so anyone who claims to be both an environmentalistr and a
follower of some widely recognized religion is simply confused.

2. I think the science fiction example is very well-taken with respect to this
issue. While environmentalism does NOT provide an all-encompassing view, any
more than baseball or abolitionism or science fiction, it can provide a great
deal of meaning to the lives of those who identify with its priorities. These
people can become irrational and fanatically devoted to it - for them it serves
as a religion, I guess. But that does not make it a religion any more than the
existence of baseball fanatics makes baseball a religion. (By the way in
Chicago today a baseball was exploded in what to some anthropologists might
appear to be a religious ritual.)

3. That some scholar, or set of scholars, chooses to expand a word beyond its
common meaning may or may not be appropriate. It depends on the yield in
understanding compared to the misunderstandings it generates. Such expansions
may be useful in certain contexts, but quite possibly not in others. For
example, if "religion" simply means "comprehensive world view" then as Jim
stated, liberalism can be a religion. But then the separation of religion from
government, a central liberal notion, is incoherent and illogical. Yet it
clearly is not incoherent or illogical in practice, even though there are areas
where distinctions and boundaries can appear contestable.

4. More on comprehensiveness of view without reference to what we usually
consider religions: Looking at environmentalism, it is possible also to be a
liberal environmentalist (and within the broadly liberal camp, a free-market
environmentalist, a conservative environmentalist, a progressive liberal
environmentalist, etc.), a socialist environmentalist, and a Nazi
environmentalist. This suggests to me that being an environmentalist tells us
what ISSUES we are concerned about, but nothing at all about the context of
meaning we apply to those issues, and a general kind of orientation towards
those issues- that natural processes and communities be respected. But if a
religion does anything at all, it must give us a all embracing context of
meaning.

To rub this point in, I can be a liberal Pagan environmentalist, someone else
can be a conservative Christian environmentalist, someone else can be a Nazi
Pagan environmentalist, and the permutations and combinations just go on and
on. Are all these separate religions? What if I practice my religious rites
with others who differ from me on some of these other issues? I see a lot of
confusion and not much coherence from such a sloppy widening of the term
religion.

So I have to conclude that, in practice, environmentalism as a religion, if it
is to mean anything coherent at all, refers to a certain fanatical style of
being an environmentalist, akin to fanatic science fiction fans - perhaps the
ones who learn Klingon, etc., and certain fanatic baseball fans. Maybe the
ones who went to the ritual in Chicago where the ball was blown up.

BUT it does make sense to say that for some Nature can be a religion, usually
meaning wild nature. John Muir and, with a very different flavor, Robinson
Jeffers, might be examples as might many environmental leaders over the years.
And likely a significant number of other people. Many people have found that
experiences in nature give greater meaning and context to their lives. I think
this kind of experience is religious. For some, this may be enough, for
others, such as myself, we have a yet bigger context in which we make sense of
these experiences. But for those who do not, such as Jeffers, it is probably
right on to say that Nature is their religion in a reasonable sense of the
word. However - and this is important when considering Crichtonian silliness,
this says nothing at all about a person's view regarding global warming,
vegetarianism, or the existence of eden.

At best, those who claim environmentalism is a religion link this kind of
experience in nature with an environmental movement concerned with specific
issues, and that still doesn't fly. One can be an environmentalist for
entirely anthropocentric reasons (we will all die if we don't change) or eco-
centric reasons (it is ethically wrong to act in this way) or religious reasons
(we are out of harmony with the wider world that is the source of the meaning
we experience, or alternatively, we are disregarding the will of God).

So I think the confusions here come from a serious inflation of what
constitutes a comprehensive world view.

Into your court, Jim!

best wishes,

gus


Quoting Jim Tantillo <[log in to unmask]>:
snip...
> What is a religion?
>
> Does environmentalism--or at least certain forms of
> environmentalism--qualify as a religion?
>
> jt
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >Steven
> >
> >_________________________________________________________________
> >Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee when you click here.
> >http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
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