cont ...

The very worldview of Gaiaism mirrors the Christian worldview: that the Earth and humans once existed in a state of grace (pre-industrial society), but through the acquisition of forbidden knowledge (science), underwent a Fall from grace (the Industrial Revolution). Humans now live in a state of misery and sin, although they may strive to do penance ("going Green").

But all is not lost! The millenarians of the Gaia faith ardently await the imminent Armageddon of "tipping points" and "environmental collapse" (as demonstrated by the various signs and wonders, from Antarctica to the Himalayas), following which a new Earth will arise, cleansed of the sins of industrial society (and, it would appear, largely of humans as well).

I love the way that climate change denialists and others who are inimical to environmental sustainability are always trying to reduce those who they see as their opponents to the status of dumb religionists.

If OLO is anything to go by, it is the anti-environmentalists who tend very often to be both dumb and religious.

CJ you write

'It's people like you guys who give Christianity a bad name, and inspire otherwise indifferent atheists like me to call for an end to the special treatment that religions get under our laws.'

Don't blame me for your corruption and sin. No doubt you have chosen to be blind long before I came on the OLO scene.

QED. Good timing, runner :)

Oh, CJ, you fail on so many levels.

Denialist? No, I absolutely accept the reality of climate change; one would have to be a dolt not to. I'm just a mite skeptical about some of the wilder claims of the Climate Change (note the Capital-C difference) dogmatists. Vanishing Himalayan glaciers, for instance.

Inimical to environmental sustainability? Not at all. I'm just inimical to useless, dogmatic nonsense. Banning plastic bags, for instance: stupid, unscientific and counter-productive. The whole farrago is based on a willful distortion of science.

Likewise, opposition to Genetically Modified Organisms. Absolutely no scientific basis, and in fact, an explicitly dogmatic and unshakable belief, as clearly enunciated by Friends of the Earth.

Dumb? Open to debate of course, but I like to think not. Religious? Not in the least. In fact, very much not so.

Although I *am* slightly amenable to the idea of a deity made of delicious, delicious pasta, who offers me the solace of a beer volcano and a stripper factory in the afterlife ;)

Fair enough, Clownfish. So what's with all the Gaia crap then?

It looks to me like a clumsy effort to reduce those who are legitimately concerned about the negative effects of climate change and environmental degradation to the intellectual status of dumb religionists like runner, who never fails to disappoint.

Yes, there are environmentalist nutters who probably do subscribe to something like you describe, but your inference that they are anything like a majority is patently false, as you well know.

Indeed, you claim to accept the reality of climate change and environmental degradation - are you a follower of the Gaia 'religion' or merely a Pastafarian, as you imply?

Ramen.