Andrew Crystall wrote:
>On 18 Jul 2001, at 23:48, K.Feete wrote:
>
>> One rather depressing one (from my point of view) is that the
>> political pendulum will end up swinging towards the religious. I think
>> it already would have done so if the dominant religion around wasn't
>> so anti-environmentalist and the New Agers weren't so wimpy; but look
>
>Well, it is in Israel, but that's not directly related. Not that I like that
>either.. (I'm religious, but not Orthordix Jewish, and I dislike religion
>having a role in the state).
Let me clarify that I don't mean *all* religions. I was thinking
specifically of Christianity, where he best you get is a sort of
watered-down version of the stewardship environmentalists. I'm sure there
must be environmentalist Christians out there, but I've never met one.
>> closely, and you will see some major symptoms of religion amongst
>> environmentalists, such as the dogmatic belief (even when unsupported
>> by knowledge or facts), the distrust of and rejection of "factual"
>> information as actually *damaging* to the cause, the sense of
>> martyrdom.
>
>Yup, and that's ANOTHER reason I'm eco-realist, not green. We
>stick to science, even when it makes some of the more radical
>grenns firebomb US, as well as the capitalists (and yes, fanatical
>green groups HAVE targetet us as "traitors" and "capitalists in
>sheeps clothing")
Yup, been there, done that, though not to the point of actual violence.
Annoying people.
>> of 'em. People already talk about "the environment" with only the
>> vaguest possible idea of what they're actually referring to, rather
>
>To me, it means the world's ecoweb as a whole...the low-concept
>Gaia.
I'm still working on my visualisation, but it's something close to this.
>> (Okay, okay, you say, but the Christians were also shaped and
>> strengthened by the presence of a relatively tolerant society, which
><snip>
>
>Oh yeah, the Christian moral standards are soo high. Sorry, I seem
>to remember reading about that bit in WW2 when..ahh sorry,
>another rant, another day.
The Christians were pretty OK through much of their earliest history; it
was when they started getting real power that things went bad, starting
somewhere around the time of the Crusades....
>> Caesar is dying, the knife in his back; long live Caesar.
>
>I agree..I don't believe capitalism can last THAT much longer. But,
>I'd rather deal with fanatical enviromentalists than capitalists. At
>least the enviromentalists say what they mean, rather than saying
>nice things and burying a dagger in your back at the same time...
The problem is, of course, that if the "good guys" are fanatics, they
often end up turning into the bad guys once they've got power. Face it,
the only thing that makes a disempowered irrational fanatic even
tolerable is the lack of power. Give him power and he's just as ruthless,
as cruel, and as horrific as the people he fought, as many dictatorships
have been proving through most of this century. Sorry, but I can't see
radical environmentalists getting power as an improvement, no matter what
I do.
Tempting as it may be to think so... the ends do *not* justify the means.
Kat Feete
-------------
"He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them
something to aim at."
Terry Pratchett
