Comment by lionhearted | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lionhearted | Hacker News Reader

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I would strongly recommend this 4 minute video to everyone on the issue:

"Michael Crichton on Environmentalism as a Religion" - the video talks about how environmentalism offers salvation and a complete belief structure for many people, but that the religion/faith aspect of it gets in the way of science. Regardless of your views on the environment, it might be insightful for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv9OSxTy1aU

As for China, I lived in China for a short time a few years back. I wasn't convinced at all that they're the next world power - the government and infrastructure were so far behind the West that I didn't think it'd happen. But watching how China adjusted when the U.S. banking sector fell apart last year has convinced me that they're going to the top.

The American government printed a lot, which should make our U.S. Dollars fall relative to other currencies, including Chinese RMB. China in turn printed about the same amount of money and invested it into Chinese infrastructure and tax breaks for their businesses - driving the cost of Chinese goods even lower.

They're building the same sort of infrastructure and industrialization that the United States did during the Cold War. They're also liberalizing and gradually loosening and eliminating central government while we're currently expanding the role of central government. Considering their population is three times larger, if the United States want to keep military parity with China over the next 30 years, they'll have to change their economic policies or they're going to go bankrupt. There's some difficult choices facing the USA soon - China is definitely on the rise.

They face some hurdles - can they integrate and keep friendly the Cantonese, Xianjianese, Tibetans, Macanese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kongese to some extent into the primarily Mandarin Han government? The effects of the One Child Policy will be interesting to see - the gender imbalance and all. China breaking into Civil War is a very real possibility in the next 30-50 years, but if they don't, they're on the rise globally and will be the next world power.

environmentalism offers salvation and a complete belief structure for many people

Environmentalism is but one piece, but you're right that we're dealing with a religion here. Moreover, the narrative of sin and redemption is not a coincidence: progressivism (including its environmentalism subset) is not metaphorically a religion; it is a real, living (nontheistic) religion,* the clear intellectual descendant of mainline ecumenical protestant Christianity. A century ago it was the WCTU and the YMCA; today it's NOW and Greenpeace.

*If a nontheistic religion seems like a contradiction in terms, the problem is merely linguistic; English lacks a good word meaning "all religious beliefs minus the supernatural stuff". Whatever you call it, a nontheistic religion can't help but show its roots: a nontheistic sect of Hinduism, for example, would still be identifiably Hindu, despite the absence of gods; it would likely lack a sin-redemption narrative, but would probably include some sort of caste system.

What is your definition of "religion"?

Progressivism doesn't have any of: rituals, priests, official buildings, sacred texts, gods, other supernatural beliefs, holy places, concern with an afterlife, elevation of tradition over reason, use of altered states of consciousness, seemingly-arbitrary restrictions on speech or conduct. Of course many religions lack some of those things, but it seems to me that this it's things like these that distinguish religions from non-religions.

You can, of course, squeeze some features of progressivism until they kinda-sorta match some of those. Caring about the welfare of people in the future is just like believing in an afterlife! The peer-reviewed scientific literature is just like a body of sacred scriptures! Leading progressive politicians are just like priests! The allegedly melting polar icecaps are just like hallowed sacred places! The trouble with this (aside from the obvious fact that it's bullshit) is that applying the same principle generally would lead to classifying too many things as religions. (US-style conservatism: folks like Beck and Limbaugh are just like priests! Teabag protests are just like religious gatherings! The US Constitution is just like a religious text! (And requires interpretation by the right people to be rightly understood, of course.) Science: controlled experiments are rituals! Universities are temples! String theory is dogma handed down from on high! Software development: RFCs and ISO standards are sacred texts! Famous hackers are priests or even demigods! That mental state in which code just pours out of you is a mystical experience! Unit testing is a ritual! GOTO is a taboo word!) Bullshit, the whole lot of it.

Sure, lots of things resemble religions in various ways: any status hierarchy is a little like a religious hierarchy (that's even where the term "hierarchy" comes from), any body of ideas that's been developed over time is a little like a religion's official doctrines, any activity that's done in standard ways is a little like a ritual. That isn't because science and conservatism and stamp collecting and democracy and environmentalism are religions, it's because some ways of doing things come naturally to human beings and/or are obviously sensible, and we find them in religions and in non-religions alike.

> Moreover, the narrative of sin and redemption is not a coincidence: progressivism (including its environmentalism subset) is not metaphorically a religion; it is a real, living (nontheistic) religion,* the clear intellectual descendant of mainline ecumenical protestant Christianity.

I've heard that, but never found a reasonably objective source that references primary sources. I've read a couple pieces: The general gist I got is that North American Christianity split into two basic movements - Fundamentalist Christianity, which emphasized that the Bible was literal and the ancient rites were necessary to be followed, and Progressive Christianity, which said that the Bible was not literal and was more inclusive and open to discussion. But I've not found any primary or objective secondary sources on how this went - you sound knowledgeable, do you happen to know any?

> If a nontheistic religion seems like a contradiction in terms, the problem is merely linguistic; English lacks a good word meaning "all religious beliefs minus the supernatural stuff".

Yes, that I'm very aware of. I've traveled a lot, and you can clearly see that most non-religious people still inherited their basic religious beliefs of their culture. Very few people actively study ethics and come to independent decisions from their peer group - most people inherit their base ethics from their surroundings, and since religions were the way that most people got their ethics for a very long time now, it's mirrored quite well even in non-religious people. People with formerly Confucian surroundings tend to have a very strong family emphasis, which was a fundamental tenet of Confucianism. People with Jewish surroundings tend to get a very strong scholarly emphasis, at least partially descending from the heavy emphasis on Torah studies. Places that had a heavy Christian presence often are more ashamed about sex, pornography, and nudity than places like Africa and Japan which had did not have those same religious views on sex.

The fastest growing religions in the world are nontheistic - this will enter common thought in the next 50-100 years as the power of formal religions continues to decrease and more nontheistic religions gain followers. And that's not a bad thing, but you still absolutely need to insulate public servants and scientists from their religious beliefs, lest they impose their morals on their science and law, thus leading to - well, most people are aware of the impact religion had on law and science throughout the ages. It's a little bit of a dangerous time now, because there's no separation of nontheistic churches and the state.

>>But I've not found any primary or objective secondary sources on how this went

It's definitely true. Progressivism is the memetic leftover of north-eastern US Mainline Protestantism. The poster above you makes the mistake of comparing it to actual religions, when progressivism has evolved to drop the religious components, which still makes its followers the cultural descendants of creepy religious maniacs even though they don't believe in a God (also, as a side note, consider that this makes progressives not "anti-American" as right wingers make them about to be, but "ultra-American" in the sense of trying to make the US progress into a more 'pure' and ethical state, as the Puritans wanted it to be. Edit: also consider that this might make the right/left 'culture war' more of a religious war between two protestant-influenced sects). This was mainly done for political power. Think about it, there is supposed to be a disconnect in the US between the state and religion, what better way for a memeplex to adapt to its environment then to drop the supernatural bits, and focus on propagating the values, mores, and aspirations of its believers through political power.

You asked for evidence, here is a number of excellent sources:

The main book you should read is "The Puritan Origins of AMerican Patriotism." That pretty much lays out the argument.

Also check out "The Making of An American Thinking Class: Intellectuals and Intelligentsia in Puritan Massachusetts." It makes the case that Puritans are the forefathers of American radicalism.

I also recommend these:

God's New Israel: Religious Interpretation of American Destiny.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Authoritarianism.

Hellfire Nation: The politics of sin in America.

Also check out Michael Burleigh's two books on political religions (Earthly Powers and Sacred Causes). This isn't an aberration of history. Religious movements often drop their supernatural components under the guise of 'reason' and 'rationality' so as to adapt to the culture and politics.

And if you are still not convinced, here is a large list by an American urban historian: http://www.amazon.com/A-History-of-American-Radicalism/lm/R2...

Edit: I also forgot to mention there is a blogger that writes about this topic often. I generally disagree with a lot of what he says, but he comes up with a number of primary and secondary sources for this historical hypothesis.

Here is one post that sums it up: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/07/univers...

And the multi-part Open letter series is also good: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2008/04/open-le...

Great links, thanks!

I've seen some people use "myth" and "cult" to describe the theistic and worshipful aspects of religion, respectively. Unfortunately these words both have other, more common meanings with negative connotations, so using them in any sort of open discussion tends to raise some hackles.

> I've seen some people use "myth" and "cult" to describe the theistic and worshipful aspects of religion, respectively. Unfortunately these words both have other, more common meanings with negative connotations, so using them in any sort of open discussion tends to raise some hackles.

Strongly agree - do you have opinions on good words? I'm currently using "mysticism", "ritual", and "canon", which are often used by religions themselves. They don't seem completely neutral though.

I think this has the potential to be an area of language that changes quickly, so we all look ignorant in 50 years when our writings are read, similar to how the terms for different races have changed a lot. My grandmother is almost 90 and calls a man of Chinese descent a "Chinaman", and I have to say, "No Grandma, we don't say that any more." And she's got a bit of a sense of humor, and says, "I listen to the radio, and they say Irishman, but Chinaman is wrong?" And I don't know how to answer that, since the Irish got all sorts of hell in the States too, and Irishman used to be derogatory, but now it's not and it's okay usage. I think the words used to describe religion are likely going to go through that, and references to myth (bad), cult (bad), mysticism (okay), ritual (okay), canon (generally positive) might all be passed by other words.

Michael Crichton also got conned into believing in spoon bending. http://www.michaelcrichton.net/qa-travels.html

I have been to one of Jack Houck's spoon bending parties (which Crichton talks about), and as a result I just can't take anything he says seriously anymore. Anyone who goes to such a party with an open mind will have to conclude it's a load of baloney. Only those who really really want to believe in that crap will come out thinking there is something to it.

> and as a result I just can't take anything he says seriously

Just in case you did not know, Michael Crichton passed away in November.

For a more comprehensive interview on Charlie Rose,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AA5aIdOqlw#t=22m3s

His definition of a religion is meaninglessly vague. By his definition, shopping at stores after looking at ads is a religion, as is my job, and school.

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