Opposing Religious Attitudes in Everyday Life

Opposing Religious Attitudes in Everyday Life

Is religion the only thing that can save us from global climate change?

By Marilyn Ross Adams – (Copyright 2013) – 5/30/13

A wonderful conference on stopping global climate change happened in Chicago this February sponsored by some great environmental organizations, such as Bill McKibben’s 350.org, and by local area groups, including churches.  I agree 100% with the purpose of the conference, but I was out of town that day and couldn’t go.  So I was glad to read an article about it written by one of the main organizers for his sponsoring church’s newsletter (a relatively progressive Chicago-area church).  But the article turned out to be more about the writer’s response as a religious person to the religiosity at the conference than about stopping global climate change.

The writer reported that a former pastor of his sponsoring church spoke at the conference and focused on the role of faith in dealing with environmental challenges.   The pastor quoted Gus Speth, a founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council and the World Resources Institute, who once said that the serious environmental problems of global warming, environmental degradation, and eco-system collapse could not be fixed by science.  Speth said that “The real problem is not those three items, but greed, selfishness, and apathy.  And for that we need a spiritual and cultural transformation.  And we scientists don’t know how to do that.”

So the pastor offered the conference his fix for this problem.  He said that progressive religions “provide a deeper ethic in meeting the crisis we face.  Religions have a way of unmasking the lesser gods that rule our lives.  The gods of selfishness, greed, and apathy.  Gods of despair, gods of false salvation through idealistic or violent political systems, the petty god of religions seduced into self-righteousness.  The gods of self-satisfaction, patriotism, arrogance and pride.”

The pastor finished his speech by saying “As a Christian, I know that it is in the gathered community that I hear the word of forgiveness and the power of hope to go on fighting for that vision of goodness.”

Well, how about that for being “seduced into self-righteousness” and “self-satisfaction.”  As if religious people are the only ones capable of decent thoughts and behavior – the only ones who can stop global climate change!

Of course I had to write a reply, and here it is:

Religious folks do not have a monopoly on living ethically aware lives.  I am an atheist and humanist, and I’ve found that people of my persuasion are quite good at unmasking selfishness, greed, apathy, despair, violent political systems, self-righteousness, self-satisfaction, arrogance, and pride.   Over 15% of our population now admits to not having a religion any longer (and the number is growing).  Let me tell you, it takes a lot of courage, reflection, and analysis of our culture to conclude that we don’t need a god or threats of hell in order to behave ethically, morally, humanistically.  We understand implicitly the necessity of people working together in cooperation and peace in order for our species to survive.  We do not need religion to have the power of hope to go on fighting for visions of goodness.  So please, do not exclude us from the work of saving our species – and the birds, whales, apes, and butterflies. 

The church actually published my response on their website, thus proving that they are progressive.  I hope they will really be progressive and learn that their way is not the only way.