.New Age Idols - First in a series

[Geee]

Issues & Insights

From ancient times, the worship of people or objects other than a Supreme Being was viewed as apostasy, most vividly depicted in the Old Testament by the Golden Calf in Exodus. While idolatry is instigated primarily to control obedient followers, religion has typically had its roots in the notion of deliverance from suffering, salvation, a code of righteous conduct, and a sense of comfort. However, fervent religious belief has also entrenched powerful overlords and been responsible for the persecution and death of millions in the name of holy righteousness. Idolatry and activist religion thus have a great deal in common.

Call it whatever you like, but the United States today is in the grip of several manifestations of a kind of idol worship. This article is the first of a series examining these modern golden calves. We ascribe this disturbing development to educational institutions abandoning a focus on critical thinking and instead nurturing a “clergy” who preach reverence to their conceptual idols. This produces students who lack adequate reasoning skills and instead parrot supposedly enlightened narratives fed to them, much to society’s detriment by crowding out beneficial debate.

The first and most pervasive example of today’s transition from reason to idolatry is the Church of Climate Change. Not only is the U.S. in thrall to this, but most of the West has also genuflected. The cause even has its own Joan of Arc in unhappy, deluded Greta Thunberg. At this point, the theology is centered on the belief that climate change is such an existential near-term threat to humanity that no attempts at mitigation should be off limits, regardless of their futility or collateral damage.

 

There is no debate about the fact that carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere, and since CO2 does not break down for some 300 years, that trend will continue. However, crucially, we only know the impact of that accumulation through supposition, anecdotal findings, and models that have already proved unreliable and often inaccurate. We certainly do not know whether there even exists some elusive doomsday. The question is not whether steps should be taken to reduce emissions, but which policies will work, whether their impact will justify the cost, what coping strategies are more suitable than extreme mitigation policies, and who will participate. By analogy, we do not ban automobiles in order to eliminate traffic fatalities; instead, we insist on seat belts to mitigate the damage even though some people still perish.

We have written at length about the many flawed policies perpetrated by the climate change clergy, who too often benefit economically, politically, or egotistically while promoting radical remedies. The climate clergy and its supplicants are masters of propaganda, too often to the exclusion of facts and common sense. Example No. 1 is the myth that extreme sacrifice by the West, which is responsible for only 25% of emissions (and falling), will set a useful “moral example” that will be emulated by others. For the most part, the result in other countries has been largely meaningless virtue-signaling. That should be justification enough to moderate the sacrifice by ordinary citizens until such time as we see real progress in the rest of the world. But that is considered heresy.

[Valin]

55 minutes ago, Geee said:

Issues & Insights

Call it whatever you like, but the United States today is in the grip of several manifestations of a kind of idol worship. This article is the first of a series examining these modern golden calves. We ascribe this disturbing development to educational institutions abandoning a focus on critical thinking and instead nurturing a “clergy” who preach reverence to their conceptual idols. This produces students who lack adequate reasoning skills and instead parrot supposedly enlightened narratives fed to them, much to society’s detriment by crowding out beneficial debate.

1.   I look forward  to more!

2. We (in America/The West got Idols by the train load (Idols available on request), and it is NOT just on The Left. We've got them too!

"How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye."

Luke  6:42

 

[Valin]

1 hour ago, Geee said:

Issues & Insights

The first and most pervasive example of today’s transition from reason to idolatry is the Church of Climate Change. Not only is the U.S. in thrall to this, but most of the West has also genuflected. The cause even has its own Joan of Arc in unhappy, deluded Greta Thunberg. At this point, the theology is centered on the belief that climate change is such an existential near-term threat to humanity that no attempts at mitigation should be off limits, regardless of their futility or collateral damage.

 

Here I go Again

Michael Crichton explains that he is not a "catastrophist," and gives a salient explanation that doesn't refute the mob as much as lends an anthropologist's perspective that could shape many issues today and tomorrow.

 

 Dec 25, 2006
Michael Crichton on Environmentalism as a Religion

[Valin]

 

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