48 Comments

1. Friendly Girl:

Repeat of ye blaspheming o’wicked Hawkins, or the oceans will rise up, eventually, soon even, and drown out ye and all who question the Tennessee Profit.

Apr 27, 2009 - 11:54 pm 2. lefroy:

Humans have always had a religious impulse – a sense of the numinous. There is a simple and obvious reason for this impulse, a reason that doesn’t involve psychology or Richard Dawkins’ memes. I prefer CS Lewis’ explanation for the religious impulse. His explanation is also the simplest and most elegant, and ought to appeal for that reason to scientists.

But each to his own. The point is that if you suppress the religious impulse, like an octopus in a box it will just pop out somewhere else. There is no question but that environmentalism, and climate change in particular, satisfy an irrepressible human urge to acknowledge guilt and seek forgiveness. Think Gaia, a preposterous, quasi-religious idea. For many people these things are a just substitute for the religious urge.

Apr 28, 2009 - 1:26 am 3. lefroy:

And to be clear about it – CS Lewis’ explanation is: because that’s how God made us.

Apr 28, 2009 - 1:31 am 4. Mike2:

Mr. Hawkins, the only thing you got wrong was you used the words “seems like they worship the earth”. Many of the left wing do worship the earth. Why do you think Obama told the adoring crowd in Berlin “we are the ones we have been waiting for”? He was speaking straight to the religious beliefs of the left wing here and abroad.

Friendly Girl, you got it exactly right with “Tennessee Profit”. I love it!

Apr 28, 2009 - 3:56 am 5. BPT (Australia):

Fox’s 24 is weakened by their green religiosity. Honestly. It puts me off the show. I can’t take it seriously.

Apr 28, 2009 - 4:21 am 6. BackwardsBoy:

Any politicial who professes a belief in the “climate change” hoax has proven that he or she doesn’t have the intellect to hold a position of power. We need leaders who can think for themselves and not be suckered into every passing fad.

Apr 28, 2009 - 4:45 am 7. Stephen:

“So they worshipped and served the things God created instead of the creator himself.” Is there anything new under the sun? Probably not. But these new irreligeous zealots will force you to worship trees before this is all over. Who will be sacrificed on their alters? How many will volunteer to sacrifice their children? Who among you will persecute your neighbors and turn them over to the eco-leaders? How many will sell there idols to make a profit in the outer courts? Too many I fear.

Apr 28, 2009 - 5:21 am 8. Alex:

There is nothing wrong with using recyclable materials. If you have never been out in the oceans, there are millions of tons of garbage and plastic floating out there…it is pretty disgusting. At some point we need to deal with it, instead of sticking our heads in the sand and pretending its not a problem. There are technologies and processes that could eliminate plastic landfill and the floating plastic islands in the oceans…we just need leadership to provide the political will to do so.

As far as Climate change….been going on for billions of years and will continue for billions of years after we are gone from this rock. Its a bit laughable that we think we can control Nature, we exist on a razor thin margin of not too cold and not too hot, and lucky if a meteor or asteroid does not change the status quo. Its only the last 10,000 years that we have stable earth to exist upon. Previous we had ice ages, massive volcano erruptions, etc, that did not allow humanity to build upon the previous generations technology and education. It was all we could do to survive. Climate change is a feel good agenda based on corrupt science.

What i dont understand is how people try to seperate themselves from the environment, it is not abstract. Your survival depends on adapting to the environment, and extracting from it food and water to maintain your existance. Once you fail to do this, you die. So it would benifit people to learn how the earth works and what we can do to reduce the garbage we are creating and tossing in the oceans and landfills.

Apr 28, 2009 - 5:52 am 9. Bonner:

Another good piece Hawkins. The deification you expound will cost us our freedom if we don’t check it.

Apr 28, 2009 - 5:53 am 10. JB:

We have exalted nature above its Creator and along the way dismissed the Creator altogether. This is a good piece about one of the greatest threats we face. It just seems that few people realize what a threat militant environmentalism is.

Apr 28, 2009 - 6:00 am 11. Delia:

We have also made ‘humans’ the ‘end all, be all’ affecting the world, causing pollution, global climate change *cough*, causing certain species to become extinct (like THAT never happened before man/woman came along).

The left have turned humans into the DEVIL and the LORD SAVIOR all at once. You evil, evil, wicked human with your ginormous carbon foot-print. Repent and help ‘SAVE THE WORLD’ by buying this, using that, recycling this, upgrading that, wearing this etc. etc. ad nauseum.

It’s so comforting to know that we humans control everything including mother nature.

Apr 28, 2009 - 6:19 am 12. RE:

Post Christian practitioners are adopting pre-Christian behaviors.

Civilization has entered a retrogressive era. It’s not going to be pretty. Barbarism is just over the horizon.

Apr 28, 2009 - 6:47 am 13. Juvenal:

As the lack of real scientific evidence for global warming (or any man-made climate change at all) becomes harder for the media and policy elites to hide, they’ll ignore science altogether and push the emotional, pseudo-religious aspects of the movement (which was always its strongest point anyway).

Of course, that won’t stop them from presenting the Earth-Mother liturgy as “science,” and people who are actually inclined to think about climate change in a scientific way as “anti-science,” especially on television and in the schools, both of which are potent weapons against the immature and the weak-minded.

Apr 28, 2009 - 6:56 am 14. Ardsgaine:

Our culture is so drenched in the Christian ethics of self-sacrifice that even those who reject the mythological aspects of Christianity retain its ethical base, and end up looking for something else for which to sacrifice themselves.

Apr 28, 2009 - 7:07 am 15. Meryl:

A refusal to worship creation according to the dictates of the “mother earth” movement draws scorn and criticism, via PSA’s, including videos of school age children lecturing their parents on the use of the curly light bulbs? Such footage is also routinely used for commercial TV ads (not PSA’s) in the upper Midwest, perhaps other places as well?

It’s a religion, led by the high priest Algore. I’m so sick of the language filtering into everyday use, particularly by weather forecasters who speak of “mother nature”.

Refusal to worship the Creator will eventually result in worshipping the creation, since we are in fact design to “worship someone”.

I’m a Christian, so you know that feeds my perspective. As a matter of liberty it’s fine with me if you choose to worship purple rocks or crippled muskrats on Thursdays. But don’t legislate that I must or regulate me because I don’t.

What’s happening in this area reflects the soft totalitarianism that we are becoming accustomed to.*** They keep leaning…and leaning…and pushing…and leaning….and pushing….until finally the public just gives in.

***except conservatives who refuse to “become accustomed” to such things…and we are vilified for pointing it out. Small price to pay for personal integrity…so keep pointing.

Apr 28, 2009 - 7:10 am 16. Parabellum:

Alex, the myth of a “floating plastic island” is just that, a myth. It’s been propogated by one man, a sailor named Charles Moore.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123793936249132307.html

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4132

Ever seen any photos of this “floating plastic island”? No? Me neither.

Apr 28, 2009 - 7:14 am 17. HLH:

This has been long in coming. I was particularly bothered when I heard certain “pastors” on earth day talk about our having one father – God, and one mother – the earth. It is, as Hawkins says, an absolute deification.

Apr 28, 2009 - 7:50 am 18. William:

We are trading enslaving ourselves to the idea of preserving nature. The most militant members of this religion will gladly trade human life and freedom to protect plants and animals (thus the FBI’s most wanted right now is an eco-terrorist). This is a timely piece.

Apr 28, 2009 - 8:03 am 19. backatcha:

16 – I’ve never seen a photo of an intelligent conservative and yet you claim they exist.

Apr 28, 2009 - 8:03 am 20. Christopher:

Obama is only going to fuel this “earth-first” worldview. He’ll do anything to hasten the demise of strength in the West, and environmentalism is certainly a hindrance to the West’s continued greatness. We must persuade our families and our friends to lift their eyes above nature to the One who created it. At the least we must persuade them that the worship of the finite is a death sentence for freedom.

Apr 28, 2009 - 8:09 am 21. TalkinKamel:

Historically, when human beings are looking for something to worship (and they need something to worship), if they don’t follow a religion such as Judaism, Christianity, or any belief that focuses on an ethical system, or being, outside of, and above, the earth, they’ll latch on to worshipping the most powerful things they see before them—which will either be nature, or the state.

Sometimes the two merge. i.e., “Pharoh is an incarnate god, as well as ruler of the Egyptians!” With contemporary Gaia/earth worship, we get a twofer! “Gaia is the great goddess, and the government must mandate laws telling us how to recycle, and please her!”

Not good. Not good at all.

Apr 28, 2009 - 8:16 am 22. TalkinKamel:

Hallow, hallow, hallow, hallow, backatcha!

You’re like, what? 15 years old? Defeat the circle mind, bro, and save them whales!

Apr 28, 2009 - 8:17 am 23. TalkinKamel:

William, the most militant members of this religion would like to see most of humanity die off, so they’ll stop polluting poor mother earth.

I don’t think they include themselves in this great die off. They see themselves as her elect priests/priestesses, who will serve their goddess once all those awful other human beings are all gone. Then they’ll have earth all to themselves.

Apr 28, 2009 - 8:19 am 24. scott:

Those who believe in nothing are capable of believing anything.

Truth is out there. Takes a lot of digging however. Shoot, even most believing Christians think their eternal destiny is cosmic (‘heaven’) when The Christ plainly says, “The meek shall inherit the earth.” This planet is soaked in deception. You must seek in all sincerity.

Apr 28, 2009 - 8:52 am 25. Rogers:

I only have one problem with this piece AWR: you did not tighten the screws on those who partake in eco-worship quite enough for me. But it is a good piece in showing how pervasive the problem is. And our children are being brainwashed or indoctrinated at the least as to the basic tenets of this “earth-first” religion.

Apr 28, 2009 - 11:03 am 26. William:

Lefroy – Great posts by the way. And we pervert that tendency to worship, with which we are endowed by our Creator according to C.S. Lewis in your post, by worshipping the creature rather than the Creator. (See Paul – Romans 1).

Apr 28, 2009 - 11:20 am 27. Bear:

Alex made a valid point and parabellum wants to refocus and refute the floating plastic island as a myth. His point is or should be, we need to use our resources with a little more discretion. As population density increases, it gets worse. I don’t believe in AGW per se, but we are having a negative effect on the ecosystems we touch. Deal with it.

Apr 28, 2009 - 11:26 am 28. Robert:

Excellent article. I live near the mountains where the worship is even more heightened than elsewhere in the nation. And as some of the other postings have indicated, we are going to trade our freedom for “mother nature’s sake” if we don’t reverse course pronto. We must get back to a teleological understanding of the natural order (see St. Thomas Aquinas or even R.C. Sproul). Only then will we recover the truth that man is above nature.

Apr 28, 2009 - 11:45 am 29. ChipD:

Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures,
especially through my lord Brother Sun,
who brings the day; and you give light through him.
And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars;
in the heavens you have made them bright, precious and beautiful.

Be praised, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
and clouds and storms, and all the weather,
through which you give your creatures sustenance.

Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water;
she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.

Be praised, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you brighten the night.
He is beautiful and cheerful, and powerful and strong.

Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth,
who feeds us and rules us,
and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.

Saint Francis of Assisi, “The Canticle of the Sun”

Apr 28, 2009 - 12:06 pm 30. AThinkingPerson:

There is nothing wrong with wanting a clean Earth but thinking we are responsible for it’s cycles and hold the power to raise and lower it’s temperatures? Typical Liberal arrogance. Well, I might have to rethink that since Carter II can turn water into wine right? Hmm….

Apr 28, 2009 - 12:12 pm 31. scott:

“my lord Brother Sun”

“Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.”

I always said RCs brought paganism into The Church. Pantheism too judging by the rest of that tripe.

Apr 28, 2009 - 12:46 pm 32. myth buster:

scott, ChipD, the refrain to that Canticle is “The Heavens are telling the glory of God, and all creation is shouting for joy; come dance in the forest, come play in the field, and sing to the glory of the Lord.” It’s not about worshiping creation at all, but about praising God for the wonders and power of His creation. If the sun is powerful and gives life and light to the Earth, how much more powerful and wondrous is the One who created the Sun?

Apr 28, 2009 - 1:11 pm 33. Eowyn2:

Are your carbon debits balancing with the carbon credits?

We’ll all need Green Accounts pretty soon

/

Apr 28, 2009 - 1:54 pm 34. Leatherneck:

It is all very New Age to worship the creation rather than the creator. That way you can find G-d within your self. Basic Lucifer worship, but you can not tell the New Age followers anything other than their false religion.

The sun is the reason for global warming, not man.

Apr 28, 2009 - 2:05 pm 35. Bill:

Good article. I noticed the earth day plug on American Idol myself and was quite dissapointed (though not too surprised). What bothers me about the child “stars” on Disney, NOGGIN, etc., is that they are but children. They’ve no solid ideas of what is going on in the environment; they only know what they’ve been told and they parrott that to our kids as they watch.

Apr 28, 2009 - 2:07 pm 36. ding:

This all started with that “It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature,” margarine commercial of the 60’s. Stupid people sitting in front of the idiot box for 50 years will believe anything.

Apr 28, 2009 - 2:48 pm 37. robotech master:

The global warming movement/green movement has nothing to do with “worshiping mother earth” it has alot to due with worshiping socialism/communism… plain and simple. Many of the supposed “green” fixes proposed are often more harmful then the problems they fix. A classic being ethanol which is far more harmful to both the planet and to humans.

Almost everything “green” is a giant kickback/government control program. The government also refuses to fund real fixes like nukes which is pretty much as green as it gets.

Apr 28, 2009 - 3:41 pm 38. Class Clown:

Only when we are naked in the forest shall we again be pure.

Apr 28, 2009 - 5:35 pm 39. Teleprompter Jesus:

Gaia is a subservient god. I am more mighty. This is the point in history when the seas stopped rising. That’s ME making Gaia behave. And dooooooooooooon’t you ferget it!

It’s all about me. And Telly. But mostly me.

Apr 28, 2009 - 6:05 pm 40. Mike:

You “Greenies” do your thing, and I will go about doing mine.

The global warming groupies are nothing more than a front for socialists/communists that wish harm to the American economy. Many trees could be saved by doing away with all the liberal newspapers.

Owlgore and GE are just waiting for Obama and his ilk to pass the cap and trade bill to cash in.

Apr 28, 2009 - 6:18 pm 41. stuart Williamson:

Earth worship is as old as mankind, with evidence ogng back to the oldest records of history. Wicca, or witchcraft, based on psiritual inspirton, derived from the sun, moon, stars, movement of the planets and tied to trees, birds, animals, fish and the cycles of the seasons, has regained following over the past half century. Love of nature is atavistic, part of every major religion.

Al Gore’s Earth Day has nothing to do with spirituality, everything to do with Socialism. Our colleges teach the “science” of Environmentalism, draw hordes of new students every year, eager to turn their backs on the evil materialism which made it possible for them to attend, and send them out by the thousands to make this a better world. They don’t go out to work in the earth, however. With their degree in Environmental Science they go straight into the government or large politically correct private corporations to tell us all what we can’t do to in order to “protect our fragile planet”.

Environmentalism, today, is simply a virulent form of anti- capitalism, an organized branch of Socialism, one of the most successful avenues of indoctrinating young people, the Alinsky community organizer types that provided Obama with his “grassroot” support to election.

There is nothing spiritual or all-embracing about these Earth Worshipers. Their’s is a Faith more dangerous than the Wiccans: rigidly fundamental, abusively intolerant, aggressively in-your-face, punitive. Totally Luddite, economy-destroying Socialism. Alinsky/Ayers/Axelrod style, The CHANGE we are all waiting for.

Apr 28, 2009 - 11:17 pm 42. Smoking Frog:

I’m generally on your side, but it is not “flatly outlandish,” however vague, to say that using public transportation could save 855 million gallons. US motor gasoline consumption is 390 million gal/day, so we’re talking about 2.2 days consumption, or 6/10 of 1% of annual consumption. It would have been easy for you to discover that 855 million gallons is only a tiny percentage of annual consumption. It took me all of about 30 seconds (eia.gov).

Of course, we don’t know that McCook was talking about annual consumption, but most likely he was, or he had heard it from someone who was. So an appropriate criticism of him would be to say that he’s talking about a tiny savings as if it were large, but instead you bought into his idea that it was large. There are too many foolish errors in PajamasMedia articles, and yours is an example.

Bill

Apr 28, 2009 - 11:24 pm 43. Raz the Erudite:

backatcha:

16 – I’ve never seen a photo of an intelligent conservative and yet you claim they exist.

Google for a photograph of William F. Buckley; or Patrick J. Buchanan; or Dwight D. Eisenhower; or THOUSANDS more. You Leftists do know how to Google for something other than free stuff on the taxpayers, don’t you?

Apr 29, 2009 - 2:30 pm 44. Alex:

#16 Parabellum,

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5296OE20090310?sp=true

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090315224258.htm

http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Po-Re/Pollution-of-the-Ocean-by-Plastic-and-Trash.html

A few links for reference. I agree people that sensationalize the issue are corrupt, like the example you mentioned. However it does not address the problem; there is more trash being added to the Environment than earth can handle.

Sail and Boating groups are organizing, hunting groups, scientists, cities are investing in cleaning up their beaches and waterways. This is not right/left , conservative / liberal issue, it is a safety and health issue.
We have become removed from agriculture and farming and do not connect what we eat and drink with earth any longer, it is a supermarket or restaurant. No matter how well we dress up the veggies, fish or steak, where it came from is far more relevant than how it looks in the wrapper.

The best ecologists are hunters, they understand the relationship between animals and environment, if deer and elk dont find lush forest, they move on. The same with Fish, they will not remain in areas that continually decline, they die out or move on. We can raise cows and pigs a bit easier these days, but a dirty farm will create conditions for desease and then forced culling of the animals. Unfortunately hunting is declining, fishing and farming have become corporate ventures.

Its a bit unnerving when people expect to live in a clean house, but cannot connect the dots to a clean earth. Nobody on this thread would ask their kid to swim in a polluted river, but when it comes to cleaning up the river there seems to be blockage in the reasoning process and the labels come out, groundless accusations are made, resistance is brought forward, and the environment keeps getting worse.

Its not brain surgery, if we think a clean house and kitchen is important enough, then so is the environment that provides the food on our table and water in our glass.

Apr 29, 2009 - 7:41 pm 45. typos_R_us:

Once any theory is disproved, supporters of that theory either move on or make the theory a religion. Religion being defined as belief held in the absence of supporting evidence and in the face of contradictory evidence. So the ’swampies’ now have a global warming religion that they try to force on rational people.
Nothing new about this. Look at what happened to Socialism. Born an economic theory, once it was proven wrong it became a religion. Now Socialists faced with the historical performance of socialism, claim that it wasn’t ‘real socialism’ that was being measured.
So it is with the ’swampies’ (AKA Neo-Luddites). Every deadline that passes leads not to a re-examination of the original theory, but an attack on the data that proves that theory wrong and a quick burial of the latest dead model.

This planet is a VERY large place and NO Human efforts can destroy it. Humans can destroy themselves, but that is inevitable. It won’t be piles of garbage that destroyes the human race or DDT or CO2. It will be the destruction of the family structure that is the foundation of Civilization.
No civilization and humans are just animals. Animals without much in the way of claws, teeth or other survival skills.

Apr 30, 2009 - 11:35 am 46. steveg:

So this is what I have been missing by not watching television? It would appear the holy-rollers on the left are allowed public airwave time 24/7 in order to spread their cultural marxism.

I am for a clean environment like anyone else, but we have reached the insanity stage. I am still waiting on ‘60 minutes’ to do a follow report on the island, they said would be under water by now. Do they ever do follow-up reports on their outlandish global warming doomsday predictions?

Or has anyone in the MSM ever challenged the wild pronouncements from the original earth day celebration in 1969. Here are a few from that day:

1)75% to 85% of all living animal species will be extinct by the year 2000.
2)The world will be 11 degrees cooler in the year 2000.
3)It is to late to avoid mass starvation and the average age of death will be 41 in the year 2000.
4)By 2000, the U.S. population will have declined to 22.6 million people.

And let’s not forget Al Gore’s hero and mentor, Professor Paul Ehrlich, who stated in 1968, “If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000″.

This reminds me of the lunatic preacher in the 1840’s, that kept predicting the end of times, and people would believe him over and over again. He was a nut, and these people are just as nutty.

Apr 30, 2009 - 5:35 pm 47. Jor-el:

What does it all matter? This planet is doomed. The small star we orbit will one day swallow us whole when it reaches the end of its lifespan. Anyone without SPF 40 gazillion is gonna have a really bad day.

But The Council has asked me not to speak of such things, so I shall remain silent.

Apr 30, 2009 - 8:10 pm 48. typos_R_us:

Jor-El, there are other planets. Getting there is just a matter of will. We have the technology now.

May 3, 2009 - 11:39 am