 |
 |
>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. aha. when you say "faith in the supernatural," I take it you mean some concept of extra-natural deity such as a god figure. This would seem to rule out by your concept of religion, various non-theistic traditions such as Buddhism, no? >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. The key here is "comprehensive worldview," and I think any system of thinking that purports to explain the Big Picture can qualify as a religion. Jeez right back atcha: you fellers ought to get out more, read more widely, stretch your intellectual horizons. :-) just kidding Ben, I'm thrilled you're back and feisty as ever. But seriously, Ben: with your interest in AR and AR philosophers, I would think you for one would be familiar with the work of Mary Midgley. Allow me to recommend two of her works for your reading pleasure: Midgley, Mary. 1985. _Evolution as a Religion: Strange Hopes and Stranger Fears_. New York: Methuen. Midgley, Mary. 1992. _Science as Salvation: A Modern Myth and Its Meaning_. London ; New York: Routledge. I think you and Gus are showing some narrow disciplinary blinders, frankly, on this question of what is or is not a "religion." > >Maybe the more important question is: how _could_ environmentalism be a >religion? What would that _mean_? Ben, I believe I've actually also cited the following book in response to this question of yours, in a previous conversation when you were attempting to justify the Vail arson case: Lee, Martha F. 1995. _Earth First! : Environmental Apocalypse, Religion and politics series_. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. The book is largely a history of EarthFirst!, and Lee, a political scientist at the University of Windsor, examines EarthFirst! within an interpretive framework that views EarthFirst! as a millenarian sect. She argues that political divisions within EarthFirst! led to a split between the founders on the one hand, who tried to uphold among other things their original position that favored violence in the form of monkeywrenching, and on the other hand, the relative latecomers who came to the organization and who argued for policies rooted in social justice concerns. This internal debate between violence and social justice eventually led to the departure of Dave Foreman, and other things. I'm drastically simplifying an *extremely* interesting story here, but like I said--check out the book. >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. Well, careful and serious scholars have examined the idea that environmentalism/science/evolution/secular humanism, etc. are "religions," and have made a serious case for the same. The fact that it is "nonsense" to you suggests to me that you need to read more widely and more carefully in the sociology and philosophy of religion. :-) I'm being partly facetious here with you Ben, but between Guz diZerega throwing around the terms "dishonest," "incompetent," and "imbecilic," and you saying the thesis that environmentalism is a religion is "nonsense," well . . . I'd say you guys have some more homework to do. Anyway. Enjoying the conversation. Jim ps. you might also want to take a look at Catherine Albanese's _Nature Religion in America: From the Algonkian Indians to the New Age_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). The last chapter on the environmental "New Age" has some interesting stuff, for example, about Starhawk, Annie Dillard, and many others. > >Ben