Easter Musings on Life and Environmentalism
Posted by jennifer, April 9th, 2009 - under Opinion.
Tags: Philosophy
MANY in Australia and around the English-speaking world will celebrate Easter this long weekend. I usually go to Church on Easter Sunday. I’m a Christian by culture while an Atheist by choice. I am inspired by the natural world, its beauty and natural order, so perhaps I am also an environmentalist.
Easter can be a time for reflection including about the world around us and how we choose to live our lives.
Practicing Protestant and climate change sceptic, Graham Young, reflects on the meanings of being a modern Christian today at e-journal Online Opinion. He writes:
“Christianity is not even a broad church, but often a seething mass of denominational theological debate. While one cannot condemn science on the basis of ‘eugenics, nuclear warheads and pollution’ no defence of science would be complete that did not deal with these things either.
“Likewise a defence of Christianity that refuses not only to deal with religious extremism but the sort of evangelical Christianity that dominates outside of Europe, Canada, Australia and the north-east and the west coast of the USA, is flawed. All Christians are not creationists, but many are. This cannot be ignored.”
Many at this weblog suggest that environmentalism is illogical and fanatical, while others defend it as science-based. Like Christianity and other belief-systems with large and diverse followings Environmentalism can be difficult to define.
There are those like Tim Flannery who have been influenced by James Lovelock’s Gaia theory and see a natural order that can be easily knocked off-balance by human activity.
I understand that Al Gore, while a committed environmentalist is also a committed Christian who believes in creation. Perhaps for this reason he is so concerned about the idea of man despoiling the earth through greed.
Then there are Pagans who see the religious power of the natural world in the range of experiences it can symbolize. These people ascribe emotions to the natural world and use the turn of the seasons for their own narratives.
Many environmentalists love to hate the developed industrialized world with a loathing justified by their Romantic view of the natural world and subsistence economies. This approach has its origins in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe.
There are those who, like me, subscribe to the Darwinian model of evolution and see competition and adaptation, sometimes against a backdrop of catastrophic climate change, as fundamental to understanding and accepting the nature of life on earth.
These different approaches inspire a particular attitude to life.
Like many Christians, many Environmentalists believe that through their individual and collective actions they can help create a better world. It’s a worthy ideal. But we tend to differ radically on how this might be achieved – a better world that is.
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Notes
‘A Friendly Letter to Skeptics and Atheists’ reviewed by Graham Young http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8753
A Friendly Letter to Skeptics and Atheists: Musings on Why God Is Good and Faith Isn’t Evil by David G. Myers
http://www.amazon.com/Friendly-Letter-Skeptics-Atheists-Musings/dp/0470290277
The photograph was taken yesterday by Jennifer Marohasy standing on the edge of the Jamieson Valley, Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia. Click on the image for a larger – better view.
And that brings up an interesting point. Much is made of each country’s current CO2 emissions, and this is important as it is proportional to the challenge ahead. But what of the historical ownership of the human created CO2 in the atmosphere? What is each county’s accumulated CO2 emissions going back, say 200 years? What is each countries moral imperitive to act? If there is a God, and he is watching, what would he be thinking about our wasteful ways?
Now Motty how could anyone defame you – by the nature of your own blog pronouncements you have already defamed yourself. What reputation have you lost?
But now you have defamed me saying I’m a “netporn self abuser”. But that’s OK – I can take it without complaining. The hypocrisy of extremists is most fascinating.
However remember I’m on your side – you just haven’t worked that out yet. Who else takes the care and time to look after you. Who else corrects your errant notions on forest sediments, kangaroos and PIGs. You should pay me for services rendered.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gncBKNAqcds&feature=related So what’s it like? LOL
My religion is simple: “God helps those that help themselves”.
IOW PLAN B!
Gaia would look after us up to a point but would kill us by the million quite happily.
Any similar philosophies spring to mind here?
When we get into plague proportions as we currently are, I think my religion works.
Current undiciplined newthink is gonna do a Gaia on us before long.
What Wes had to say about Gaia in January:
Comment from: wes george January 18th, 2009 at 2:43 pm edit
“…Those, who, like Palaeontologist Peter Ward, reject the notion of ‘Gaia’, and subscribe to the ‘The Medea Hypothesis’ that there is no balance of nature are likely to favour geo-engineering solutions including to climate change…”
The Gaia hypothesis isn’t automatically against geo-engineering of the biosphere, assuming a suitably reasonable need is established beyond dispute and the outcome is well understood. This case lacks on both accounts.
The Gaia hypothesis has been misappropriate by Greenies as an essentially “conservationist” concept. In fact, the theory’s radical trans-nature implications when understood must be deeply disturbing to anyone seeking to defend the environmental status quo.
Gaia is defined as living entity precisely because the biosphere is so radically at non-equilibrium. Earth’s biosphere has more in common with a mammal’s body than with the other planetary bodies of our solar system.
Our greatest cities, as view through the eyes of an alien visitor in orbit would not appear be any more “unnatural” than a termite mound or pods of whales, although extremely important as an indication as to the course and speed evolution has embarked upon on this world. We are no more foreign to the biosphere than our cerebral cortex cells are to our own bodies.
That’s the most important bit of the Gaia Hypothesis–it implies the utter naturalness of humanity and all our undertakings. For if Gaia is, even only metaphorically speaking, a living organism, then humanity is the dawn of conscious self-awareness in a “being” that has lived over a billion years unaware of its evolution.
We are the Earth’s sentience. The first complex system of cells to be able to vaguely comprehend the vast empirical gestalt of our place in the universe.
Just as Homo Sapiens will be the first phenotype on this planet to take control of its genotype, we also represent, more stunningly, Gaia directly managing her own evolution for the first time in the history of planet Earth.
Modern Western science, which began with the Enlightenment, which began with someone painting a bear in a cave a few tens of thousands of years earlier represents the single greatest quantum leap in evolution since proto-mitochondria was incorporated into some primeval cell structure.
This isn’t hubris or an over-simplification, but a fundamental fact of ontology that brings with it a heavy burden. We are no longer children playing in the Garden of Eden with our fire sticks, but master of our own destiny and with it the destiny of every living system on this planet.
Now we face a “trans-human” future. We may already be one of the last generations of purely human human being left. Nature will be redefined.
This is probably a universal discontinuity, which has occurred many times in our galaxy’s history. The fact that our galaxy doesn’t seem to be seething with interstellar “civilizations” seems to indicate that it’s a paradigm shift that few “Gaias” choose to continue upon. But that’s not the point.
We are perched at the greatest, and perhaps the riskiest, moment in the history of our planet, a moment when evolution will accelerate biologically, environmentally and technological to a pace only limited by our wildest imagination. In fact, from a geological timeframe we ARE the most important, riskiest moment in the history of the planet.
Geo-engineering? We’ve been at it since the first human hand step out of The Dream Time put the fire stick to the bush.
Hi again Jen. I too have long enjoyed the passage from Huxley which you quote. And yes, it does imply acceptance of free will by him here. My problem is that elsewhere Huxley advocated a deterministic materialism. This does not allow free will. The criticism was raised back in Huxley’s day. Huxley never really faced it. He continued to advocate determinism one minute while speaking the language of free will the next.
David, Can you give me a Huxley quote advocating a “deterministic materialism”?
Nice rave Dennis – I realy enjoyed and can relate to that I think.
I suppose the sun, galacy et al are involved as well, that’d have be wouldn’t they.
maybe we just imagine it all.
what you see is what you get.
I like the kind of gaia you meet at the pubba who buys you bee-er
MattB,
That’s the kinda gaia I are.
“the god of lonely, pathetic, under achieving, late night, netporn self abusers”
Judging by some of what you have written here over the years Ian, I would think you are being totally honest about yourself. So sorry you have to live in the past about the good ole days. Keep livin’ in that fantasy world.
Speaking of which…”Every poster will be judged by others based on their knowledge of the subject and as to their veracity.”
No, that is where the topic of this piece comes in…belief systems. The non-denialists here are judged not on their knowledge but on the fact they don’t believe what the denialists do. Having used the word denialist I will now be crucified for using a term they choose to associate with a WWII atrocity. They will ignore the actual point of the comment and focus instead on how they have been perceived, relying on their usual barrage of abusive terms and phrases like Ian, Hissink and so many others do habitually. This belief system also allows them to be amazingly hypocritical and also totally blind and irresponsible. No to mention bereft of knowledge.
Meanwhile Jennifer goes to church as an atheist, constructs ideas in public about posters she has likely not met and continues to make crap up. Ms Marohasy you have your own followers right here and your very own non-believer’s religion.
Phil, Tell us a bit about yourself? What do you believe in?
Thanks for repeating that line again, Phil. I thought it deserved an extra run too.
Jennifer, you are joking right? Why break with habit and ask me? Just assume.
A happy and honest Easter to you too Phil.
You claim above: “That the non-denialiats here are judged not on their knowledge but on
the fact that they do not believe what the denialists do.”
You then go on and make the sweeping accusation of deniers. “This beilief system also allows them to be amazingly hypocritical and also totally blind and irresponsible. Not to mention bereft of knowledge.”
The fact that you use the word denialist and then use the accusations above tells me you do not understand the word hypocrisy?
Most posters on this site in discussing climate change and radical environmentalism readily use reasoned argument and supportable examples to support their case.
We are each of us in search of supportable truth.
Most have open minds, receptive to new ideas and able to rationalise argument and data.
My observation over many months is that personal abuse is reasonably shared by both sides of this debate.
So Phil, if you have some worthwhile comment supported by facts to assist your “belief system” lets hear it, but please spare us the self serving sweeping statements.
If you would like an example of what makes me use this site, have a look at the full page colour presentation in News Review of the weekend Herald.
PROGNOSIS FOR A PLANET. With this outlandish statement:
“Which leads me, personally, to the bleak conclusion that the human race is stuffed. My children are going to live in a world in which major cities are flooded, fertile plains become deserts, populations run out of food and water, rivers run dry, fishing grounds become dead zones, our rainforests and living coral reefs become curiosities of history.”
All this from John Collee, a writer of screen plays.
Quick, pass the cycinide pill before it’s too late.
All this and more expressed with NO supporting data or scientific facts.
Only a false graph of Artic sea ice.
However the real problem is that any attempt to present a more balanced picture or contrary point of view will be strenuiously resisted by Fairfax.
Sensationalism trumps truth every time.
Maybe Phil, you have some views on this subject that would rise above name calling.
I hope so.
Pikey.
thanks for the link Ron – I just read it!!
Tim Flannery is one camp – James Hansen the other?? He should stick to writing fiction.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/global-warming/poor-prognosis-for-our-planet-20090411-a3jx.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Hi again Jen. Easter greetings to you and all readers.
Jen asks: can I give a Huxley quote where he advocates deterministic materialism? I enclose several Huxley statements along these lines. Some are direct quotes and some are paraphrased. Both types of quotation are reproduced as they appear in William Irvine’s well-known biography of Huxley (and Darwin) entitled Apes, Angels And Victorians (1956, Weidenfeld & Nicholson), a work largely sympathetic to Huxley. In these quotes, Irvine’s text is in double quotation marks; Huxley’s own words are in single quotation marks; the parts without quotation marks are my comments.
p.103: “Huxley’s strategy against bishops and archdeacons was not free from inconsistency. When on the offensive, he tends to be an uncompromising materialist, insisting on the primacy of matter and the absolute determinism of natural law.”
This materialist determinist stance would of course be problematic for free will, as was pointed out by contemporaries like Balfour (Irvine p.275-276.) Faced by such awkward questions, Huxley would shift his position to a “fluid” one (Irvine’s term), so fluid as to constitute the “inconsistency” of which Irvine wrote in the passage above (p.103). Thus in Huxley’s response to Balfour, when “(a)ttacked for his more dogmatic position, Huxley once more escaped” by shifting to his fluid position (Irvine, p.277).
p.193: “mind itself is but ‘the result of molecular forces’”, says Huxley in a lecture. He also says here that “(i)ntellectual progress consists in the gradual victory of matter and causation” . . . He does try to qualify this later in the lecture by applying some of his fluid position, but the result is obscurity, as Irvine notes.
p.203: “Huxley has nothing but approval for Hume’s determinism.” This refers to a book by Huxley on Hume.
p.219: “Huxley . . . reduc(es) consciousness to a mere reflection or echo of molecular movement” – from a public lecture.
p.244: in a written article Huxley states a belief in ‘determinism’. Again Huxley does add some of his fluid qualifications; and again the result is a confusing mixture as Irvine comments.
Hi Janama,
Calling Tim Flannery an environmental scientist is akin to calling Osarma bin Laden a world peace activist.
Flannery, Gore and Hansen and others, are not environmentalists with any desire to make the world a better place by improving the environmental knowledge of our comunity, to the end that our democratic decision making process is based on truth.
They use unsubstantiated sensationalist claims to sell books and CD’s to a gullible public.
That their works are not critically scrutinised by our lazy MSM, results in bad decissions being made that are not in the interests of future generations.
Pikey.
David,
All or most of the above appears to be you quoting someone else’s opinion of Huxley. That is not fair.
Indeed I consider it rather unfair of you to not provide a reasonable passage in Huxley’s own words.
He wrote many letters. Indeed he wrote a lot. Surely if, as you suggest, he did not believe in free will he would have written something along those lines that you can quote to us?
Pikey
I also read the large piece in the SMH this weekend about the earth warming and how the planet shows all the signs of a person with a terminal disease. Absolute rubbish in a broadsheet read by Sydney’s educated!
Correction if I may Jennifer,
Anyone of any reasonable education would by now be aware that the Fairfax press has for some time abandoned any pretext of committment to truth and balance.
About 2 years ago I received an email from a highly respected Fairfax journalist to tell me he was resigning his post at Fairfax and inviting me to a luncheon as a wake on his career.
When I rang to apologise for not being able to attend and ask him why he was resigning, he replied as follows:
“Fairfax has become a sheltered workshop for a group of self opinionated people who believe that journalism gives them some right to infuse into everytjing they write, their own personal predjuce and political opinion. Truth is no longer a requirement at Fairfax press.”
While this was damming, what was even more distressing to me, a lifelong subscriber to the SMH, was the fact that his comments only confirmed my opinion of the previous few years.
Sadly we have a problem with our MSM that is having a detrimental affect on our democracy.
We need bloggs such as this to start the movement for TRUTH IN OUR MEDIA.
Keep up the good work and don’t be cowered by abuse.
Pikey.
Hi Jen, yes, again!
I don’t have Huxley’s collected works in front of me, but I consider Irvine’s biography provides ample evidence that Huxley himself professed to be a determinist. In particular I refer to these direct quotes from Huxley himself:
Huxley directly used the term ‘determinism’ for his belief system on at least one occasion, in the direct Huxley quote I gave from p. 244 in Irvine. Also, determinism is affirmed in Huxley’s own words, twice, in the passages I quoted from p.193 in Irvine. True, Huxley on these latter two occasions does not directly use the word determinism; but the terms he does use clearly have the same meaning as determinism.
Huxley attacked religion because it was incompatible with determinism. But determinism is equally incompatible with free will.
Ron Pike, are you Ian Mott? There are some astounding similarities.
Two critical issues for those of spiritual bent and for atheists as well are;
1 First is the shift in religious focus from the demands of how to become a better person, as exemplified by all the great religions to date, and the green demand to “save the planet”.
The objective of “being a better person” is incremental and requires constant effort throughout one’s life to achieve a broad range of desirable traits from self discipline to compassion. But the desire to “save the planet” places no defined expectations on individual or community behaviour. Deception, greed, theft, sloth, envy, negligence and even manslaughter of both humans and wildlife can be excused so long as a vague intention to further planet salvation was loudly proclaimed as justification.
And it is long overdue to note that the green religion has no associated moral code that governs or guides the manner in which they will work towards their objectives. The end justifies any means.
2 The second is how we cope with being governed and administered by people who do not believe that some ultimate, all knowing arbiter will pass judgement on their misdeeds.
Prior to last century almost every culture was governed by people who held the view that, no matter how high their station in life, their actions were always under the scrutiny of a supreme being and they would eventually be brought to account for their actions. It is what moved Voltaire to say, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him”.
It is no coincidence that the first century in which this belief was subject to serious challenge produced Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin and Ratco Maladic. But their extremes were only possible because they had an entire chain of authority that also thought the same way.
This is not to say that belief in an ultimate arbiter prevented appalling injustices in earlier centuries. Far from it. But the very worst behaviour always required an elaborate body of rationalisation, and often demonisation of the victims, before such outrages took place.
And historical research is now uncovering the extent to which such excesses were driven by physical and mental illness, like syphillus, and poisoning, from the use of lead pipes in water supply, in a context of dealing with famine and plague. At the community level, hunger, malnutrition, poor sanitation and grossly inadequate housing played major roles, as they still do in many parts of the world.
But throughout these earlier times the decision makers wrestled with their consciences. An ultimate arbiter was part of most executive actions. And it tempered decision and exercised a brake on raw power in all but the most desperate of circumstances.
With the loss of this notion of ultimate arbitration we now have the green movement claiming that we are in the most desperate of all circumstances, where the very planet itself is supposedly under threat. And this extreme threat is used as pretext for discarding all the hard fought for, and sacrificed for, principles that defined a better person, and just and equitable governance.
In any situation where belief in an ultimate arbiter can no longer be assumed to be present then our society must develop a system of government disclosure and transparency that is robust enough to serve the same purpose. It is no good making futile demands for a return to our earlier religious values when a false oath, before a God they do not believe in, is such a readilly available option for abusers of the system. In particular, the notion of privacy and confidentiality, for all persons involved in governance, must be fundamentally reviewed.
It is no longer acceptable to allow important information on governance to be withheld from public scrutiny for 30 years or more on the basis of it being presented to Cabinet in the form of five cardboard boxes full of unread papers on a hand trolley. All material, including Cabinet submissions, must be made available for scrutiny. Restrictions could still be retained as to appropriate persons to whom such disclosure could be made, and the sort of circumstances in which the information may be used. There would also need to be substantial penalties for the misuse of such material.
The head of power for such measures must rest with the primacy of parliament. It is already recognised as a fundamental contempt of parliament to mislead the house in any way. And it is already accepted that a misleading of the house can take place by way of omission of relevant material. Yet, a government is granted the power to withhold highly relevant material for 30 years or more, merely on the basis that the material was presented to Cabinet.
If a Cabinet is discharging its powers properly then every last bit of material presented to it is relevant material. And if decisions are being made by a Cabinet after which the Parliament is expected to ratify then the parliament must have access to all that material.
It may mean that some sessions of Parliament would need to be closed to the public so that sensitive material can be considered. It would follow that any disclosure of such material outside the chamber would constitute contempt of parliament. But just as both sides in a court case must always act as servants of the court, both sides of parliament must act as servants of the parliament.
At the moment we have a system that was drawn up at a time when almost every member of parliament held the belief that they were individually and collectively accountable to an all knowing arbiter. That condition no longer applies and even if it still did apply it is a very simple step for anyone who does not hold that belief to convey a false impression that they do.
And as far as those people are concerned, the only moral brake on their actions are their own ethics, which are always subject to revision, and the risk of their misdeeds being discovered.
The system could be strengthened by a requirement that each piece of legislation, policy or head of appropriation, should outline the relevant facts and considerations that have lead to the decision. These could include confidential elements that are referred to only by reference to a confidential register, as well as the publicly available considerations. And if it is subsequently discovered that any of the public or confidential considerations were false or in error, then the legislation, policy or appropriation would be struck down.
That is, the parliament would be bound to strike down legislation it had previously passed if a confidential consideration (known only to parliament) was subsequently found to be false. And a failure on the part of a majority to strike down such legislation would become grounds for an opposition to release the relevant information to the public for proper scrutiny.
Ian – you forgot the shift from being a better person to believing in Jesus and doing whatever the heck you want…
MattB, I may not be a practicing christian but your implication that most believers in Jesus are in the business of “doing whatever the heck [they] want”, tells me you have had your head so far up your own backside that you have lost sight of daylight.
Most of my working life has involved the detection of lies and bull$hit in job applications. And I can confirm to all that dishonesty is a muscle which, if exercised often will become an involuntary muscle. Conversely, honesty is also a muscle which becomes an involuntary one when it is exercised often. And the reason why shonks and spivs prey on religious communities is because they are really poor liars and are therefore poorly equipped to detect liars in their midst.
And from my experience honest people voluntarily give you all the information you might need to make a decision while the dishonest are invariably selective with the facts and even question your need to have them. They just can’t help themselves.
I have never had a pro-religious bias because I have always applied the appropriate techniques to all. But I can confirm that a much higher proportion of religious folk, be they good christians, good muslims, good hindus or good buddhists, tended to pass the tests that were set for them.
My attitude to the green movement, government officers and certain parts of the research community, has been shaped by detailed, proven and specific assessment methods and too many of them have failed dismally.
Hey Phil,
Still can’t rise above useless sniping!
Why not add something worthwhile to this discussion.
However I certainly cannot remember bell ringing bonking in Rome as a younger man. But I do know that is something I would not forget.
Pikey.
Poor old Phil is struggling with reality, again. First he suspected that I was really Jennifer and now he thinks I’m Ron. But both Jen and I appeared on the same stage before 500 people at a conference a few years back and there would be more than 2000 people who have met both of us in person. And it would be an impressive feat indeed, to disguise her tits on my chest, or my neck on her shoulders. There is no way that both of us were rugby front rowers.
And if Ron is me then it was a very interesting phone conversation we had with ourself the other week. But such conversations with himself might be the norm for our mate Phil.
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