Vermin Supreme giving an interview during the 2008 primaries
I can’t believe this went so long without me noticing it. Being involved in politics for as long as I have, I’ve seen some really screwball candidates. But at long last, I think I may have found a candidate who is even more absurd than the infamous Vermin Supreme.
Now, to Mr. Supreme’s credit, he can form coherent sentences in the manner in which the average Joe would say such things…he just says stuff that we would never say. But hey, he was running for president of the United States (and one of the few people I’ve ever met who was also a fan of Imperial Emperor Norton I). Livonia City Council Candidate Glenn Moon on the other hand, not only says things that no mentally competent person would ever say, but he says them in a manner in which prepositions are completely optional and has invented his own nomenclature. Continue Reading
I came across something rather interesting online the other day, and I’ve now had some time to dwell on it. It’s a video of Australian Professor Ian Plimer discussing what he calls a new religion in radical Environmentalism. For those interested, here’s the video (about 5 minutes long).
Now, professor Pilmer has made some very interesting points here. Regardless of how you feel about global warming or any other environmental subjects, its hard to argue that the paralells between the formation of major religions and environmental fundamentalism. For those who didn’t feel like watching the video, here are some of the main points.
Religion doesn’t have to be part of a church
Religions gather support by fear, that if we don’t change our ways we are in trouble
Religion must make sacrifices in order to save ourselves
Religion tries to make sense of what is currently going on in the world
New Religions come through during the decline of old ones
Religions label non-believers as heretics and refuse to accept their arguments as valid
Modern environmentalism fits all of these and more. Desipte the fact that there have been thousands of global warmings and coolings over time (and at least four threats either way in the past hundred years), we are being told that this time, we have something to fear, that we have comitted great sins (co2 releases, pollution) and if we don’t repent immediately (pay the government to “fight” global warming), we are going to hell (the world will burn with all of us on it). It’s not hard to see where things line up. Despite science disproving global warming, the environmentalists only listen to the science that wants to prove it. Many of the followers are fundamental and very radical in nature, outright demanding that man act NOW or you are seriously part of the problem.
In short, the professor is right: anyone who blindly believes something without examing all sides is no better than the other. The Environmentalists are no better than the Creationists. Those who attempt to shove global warming down our throats are no better than those who tell us that man lived at the same time as dinosaurs.
However, where I differen from Professor Pilmer is on the accusation that this is, in fact, a new age religion. Something that just came out of nowhere, has caught fire like some sort of fashion fad or the latest Hilary Duff. When in fact, environmentalism is not new, the people who believe in this have been around since pre-christianity, they are just flying under a new banner.
The modern environmental movement is nothing more than a revitalization of the wiccan paganism that thrived before Christianity. As Christianity spread (after it came about of course), it had ripped through the big cities, saying that they had seen the truth from a savior and were willing to spread this messgage at all costs. Those in the cities took larely to these new ideals (eventually) and those who didn’t get the message quick enough were the rural farmers and people who had for many years, simply worshipped the land. They were labeled as heretics and ignorant non-believers who were merely clinling to ways of the past, as there was no “proof” for what they believed in worshipping something just because they always had, and that the proof lied in what the Christians had seen in Christ.
Well ladies and gentlemen, it’s the exact same thing today. One thing has remained constant is that religous history tends to repeat itself over time, be it from similar themes in different faiths to the destruction of the old religion to make way for the new one.
And it’s happening again.
Global warming theory spreaded quickly through the liberal cities of the world, and if you look around today, where are the most die-hard Bible-thumping Christians? They don’t live in the city. They don’t live in the suburbs. They live in the rural areas. They’re the people who have “Christ is Lord” written on the roof of their barn, which you can see plain as day while driving down the interstate. And just as Christianity converted the city dwellers and moved outward, environmentalist pagans are started from the inside and are working their way out towards the forestral frontier (which may be the final frontier) of Christians.
Except this time the tables have turned.
This is the old Pagan forest druids, the native American tribes, and Wiccans, and the countryfolk of old reborn into a modern, liberal, focused machine. And they are having their revenge on those who persecuted them in the past, only instead of being a religion with a church, they are calling themselves lightened to science. This all despite the fact that the average Buddhist has a better understanding of enlightenment and the average Scientologist has a better understanding of science (its ironic, but in a sad way).
Due to the nature of this beast, being political and not theological, they have adopted a political mantra as well. Each religion needs a Hero and a Villain, be it Zeus and Hades, God and Satan, or The Flying Spagetti Monster and a giant fork.
The hero of Environmentalism is the Earth, but if that is indeed the case, who is the villain?
There are essentially two villains in the environmentalist religion. The first is a carry over from the ancient pagan days, where it is simply man that is the cause of the problems, and that we must in a sense hate ourselves and what we are in order to save things.
This is equally as ridiculous as the episode of The Boondocks were Uncle Ruckus formed a church telling african-americans that God “hates darkies” and you must reject yourselves to be saved and enter white heaven. Video to illustrate point:
The second villian is a new one. The claim is that we are not just problems in ourselves, but we have created an industry that nurtures and promotes the destruction of the Earth (or in this case, God, however you want to look at it). That industry is production of goods and services. It is a system that encoruages us to make as much as we can, get as good at is as we can, and profit as much as we can. The environmentalists have a devil in the form of Capitalism. This is why they are looking at the government to save them from the horrors of “global warming” and the system that they are saying caused it.
Hence, we can gather two points of conclusion:
Anyone who is a radical environemntalist cannot rightly identify with any other faith.
You cannot call yourself a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, or anything else if your time of worship is spend worshiping the earth and little to nothing else. Your God is the planet, nothing else.
Anyone who is a radical environmentalist is a socialist and/or a communist. Anyone who attacks the free market and competition in favor of strong government controls to preserve nature is a socialist. Rightly so, the more extreme position of everybody working together to achieve a positive society in so there is no competition, is a communist.
Nature has it’s ups and downs in temperature, just as the stock market does in it’s own nature of working. These entities regulate themselves and always have, government interference will not make things any easier and will only be used to strengthen the power of those already in power to opress the people in to doing what they want. Except this time, it isn’t the King of England demanding that his country be Catholic, it is people like Al Gore demanding that we all give ourselves to the Earth. Either way, Capitalism is wounded with every stride this new religion makes.
And if history continues to repeat itself, we are in serious trouble.
So after watching something on the History Channel about a month ago about Area 51 (this is what you do when you’re sick of movies and have to sit there for 6 hours a day), I started to really wonder why this whole thing is completely secretive. What the real motivations are behind it all.
A few popped to mind. First would be the panic that would be caused by the entire ordeal. People would immediately freak out over the thought of aliens among us, and the conspiracy theorists would run rampant with “Who is an alien” commentary. But that could ultimately be supressed by the government assuring the people that it is no big deal, we have nothing to fear, etc. That in itself could be taken care of.
Then there was the threat of World War from other countries, say China for example, looking to get their hands on alien technology, but ultimately, this isn’t much to fear either. These are some of the most top secret facilities in the world, and it’s hard to imagine a world superpower going after this technology not knowing what it is, what the capabilities are, or what you can do with it. It’s hard to start WWIII on just a hunch, even if it is about this. So that is something that I doubt we would really have to worry about.
The biggest problem would be resulting in a massive world panic. I’m talking BILLIONS of people immediately thrown into hysteria. And it won’t be the fear of the aliens that does is. It’s the fear that they could be wrong about everything that they have believed in their entire lives.
Have you ever known someone who years after being a religious person who all of a sudden wakes up one day and says “What if there really is no God”? It’s not usually a pretty sight to watch someone come to terms with the fact that everything they’ve supported their entire lives may be complete hogwash.
Many will attest that religion and morality go hand in hand. The thought, simple enough, that “if you live a horrid life, you will go to hell” just might be eradicated if there is no eternal punishment for those who commit evil deeds. As such, the typical orthodox perspective on it is that without religion, we would be a bunch of sinning sods who will do as we please without care for the consequences. Now, I personally feel that as a society we have evolved to the point where we can act on our own moral convictions without 10 commandments and a list of sins to guide us into what is right and what is wrong. I think we can figure it out.The government, however, I’m sure has some reservations. The US government was founded on many Christian ethical practices.
As a people, we have been slow to adapt to new things. In the 1530s, we still believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth until Copernicus said otherwise. Yet today, 20% of Americans still believe that. Yet still, as a society we are on the fence about Evolution, regardless of the age bracket, gender, or race of those we ask about it.
Now, the existance of Aliens would mean that any and everything could be thrown into the hat as far as religion goes. Did they create us? How many more of them are there? Are there infinate worlds and universes? What does this mean for the story of Genesis? The questions go on and on, but the bottom line is this: The existance of a being from another planet opens the door to question our very existance and destroy the fabric of many of the world’s religions. Once you question the very core of someone’e belief system, the whole system starts to crumble. How would the Pope, the Dhali LLama, and other religious leaders react to the presence of these beings? The whole thing would unravel as there would be too many questions and nowhere near enough answers, leading to panic worldwide.
Panic means that people do stupid things spur of the moment. Religious panic, menas there will be really stupid things supr of the moment. Don’t think so? Think of the last time you saw someone on the news doing something immensely stupid for a religious cause.
A worldwide panic of people coming to terms with the fact that their religion might have been nothing all along.
Or wose yet, you bet on the complete wrong horse and the Raelians were right!
Can you even fathom this? The world war following it all would be inevitable. Fundamentalist governments would be put in an interesting place, from Northern Ireland, to Tehran, to Washington DC and Mexico DF, anyone that has ever run for office touting their religious background or running on a faith based platform would have an interesting time coming up with a way to figure things out. Assuming we don’t decend into anarchy in the meantime. Because the first thing I mentioned of aliens freaking out among us will come only after the religion argument fades into play.
The sequence of events looks like this
Public knows about aliens
Disbelief
Governments prove aliens
More disbelief
Real life examples of aliens
People start questioning things
Start to accept it as a possibility
Start to question faith
Start to panic
Conflict begins, confusion ensues
People do some really stupid things, like war, random violent acts, etc.
Civilization as we know it crumbles
There we go: the 12 steps to destroying society, in all of it’s glory. Balance the people’s right to know with the fact that there are billions of people who can’t handle the truth and tell me what we should do about it.
I’m not making an speculation on the existance of ETs, flying saucers, etc. But if there is, I can understand why we will never know about it until the invasion. Which I highly doubt we will be able to adequately prepare for anyways, so I’m not too worried about it.
