Frank Furedi
Getting God to do their dirty work
In seeking to use religion to force people to change their eco-unfriendly behaviour, greens are debasing both religious belief and scientific truth.
We live in world where the cynical manipulation of people’s fears and anxieties often overrides informed public debate. Principles and beliefs seem to have become negotiable commodities, and all too often the search for truth gives way to doing ‘whatever works’. In recent decades religious figures have, at various times, embraced the authority of science, therapy and the environment as a way of communicating their messages. Indeed, the old statement ‘our faith demands…’ has increasingly given way to the claim that ‘the research shows…’. If Christian fundamentalists can reinvent their dogma in the language of ‘creationist science’, how long before atheist scientists seek to justify their moral crusade in the language of religion?
Well, Lord May, president of the British Science Association, has risen to the occasion with his call last week to mobilise religion as part of the crusade against global warming. May said that mainstream religions should play a key role in convincing people to become more aware of environmental issues and to change their behaviour in order to ‘save the planet’. By making this opportunist demand for the effective rehabilitation of God, an atheist moral entrepreneur has shown that it is possible to debase both religion and science at the same time.
Religion for urban atheists?
Was Michael Crichton right to characterise environmentalism as the religion of choice for urban atheists?
And is Frank Furedi right in his claim that Lord May is debasing both religion and scientist simultaneously in his call to mobilize religion as part of the crusade against global warming?
Instrumental religion?
I think one can make the argument that both Crichton and Furedi are right. If so, people like May are idolaters. They have elevated their own understanding to the position that God occupies in monotheistic religions and they are trying to coopt a simplified “God” to take part in a kind of moral blackmail to push people to adopt their version of “environmentalism”
Another example of this kind of mindset is the increasing tendency by the government in the UK to see religion as a tool of policy. God wants you to adhere to this or that government agenda is the message.
Be concerned with the needs of the age you live in
But religion is sui generis. The Baha’i understanding is that God’s will is expressed through the Revelation brought by the Manifestation of God, “the All-Knowing Physician”, for the age in which we live.
Baha’u'llah says, “Every age hath its own problem… The remedy the world needeth in its present day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in…”
One of those needs may be to find ways of mitigating the effects of climate change (whether human-caused or not), but it is not for “moral entrepreneurs” like Lord May to abandon their atheist principles and to try to use religion to serve their particular ends.
Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, religion, atheism, climate change, global warming
Posted via web from Barney’s posterous
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{ 3 comments }
This is an interesting article. I never really looked at it that way. I have welcomed the influence of Faith based groups addressing environmental issues. Our environmental problems are rooted in values: not cherishing the Earth, not caring about future generations, unjustly forcing poorer nations to disproportionately pay the price of wealthier nation’s overconsumption… An increase in spiritual values is a natural solution. Faith is a powerful motivator of change.
I suppose the point being made here is that someone is insincerely using religion for manipulation.
But is there a place for sincerely applying principles of Faith to environmental protection? I certainly think so.
I absolutely agree that Baha’i principles and teachings tell us to take care of the Earth and its precious cargo of life. We also need to empower the poor and powerless to reshape their own lives. What the article objects to (and what I object to) is the use of religion in an instrumental and insincere way by those who regard religion as nothing but the left-over superstitions of a past age in order to put the frighteners on people and to get people to see things in a particular way. This has nothing to do with the the way Baha’u'llah teaches us to live and to be of service.
Thanks for your insightful comment, Anne.
We hear often enough that climate change, peak oil and population growth are global issues that can only be solved by global actions. This does not mean that spiritual values and local initiatives cannot have a very big effect in changing people’s mindsets and encouraging all of us, individually and in our local communities, to take small steps to address these issues.
Religions must get involved because these are issues that are fundamental to the future of the world. Whilst I agree that Lord May’s comments demonstrate a very simplistic view of religion, it is nevertheless true that spiritual values can and do inspire people to become involved in environmental issues. My local Transition Towns steering group contains committed Christians of more than one denomination, a Baha’i and a Quaker, among others. They have become involved because their own values require them to, and not because their chiurch has ‘told’ them to. If religious people are not inspired to participate actively in environmental groups and initiatives, where is their concern for the future of mankind?
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