Modern man has shucked off most of the restraints of traditional religion. While a majority of people still say they believe in God, or at least in some form of higher being, they have rationalized their belief system so as to owe no real tribute to their ill-defined deity.
No longer are they bound by the sanctions and rules dictated by the old-time religions.
But instead of enjoying their “liberation”, their “freedom” from the inconvenient "thou shalt nots," they're embracing a different sort of puritanism and welcoming equally suffocating restrictions in regard to the new gods of health and the environment.
These new faiths, in practice, are amazingly similar to the old.
They have their own schedule of sins and vices and are just as intolerant and judgmental of those who stray from the path of righteousness. They also will go to extremes to impose their doctrines -- witness New York City's recently-passed law forbidding city hospitals from sending new mothers home with baby formula, to push breast-feeding (it's amazing what news stories catch your fancy when a child is introduced into your life).
Skeptics are demonized as heretics. To question the causes and impact of global warming, for example, is blasphemous, and many in the scientific community are finding the price for expressing doubt is banishment.
The new religions are no more tolerant of non-conformity -- smokers are shunned the way libertines once were. And they are equally instilled with an evangelical zeal to spread the faith. "Fan the flame!!" (or should we say "put out the flame" or........)
Like their predecessors, the obsession of the new religions is controlling the behavior of the flock. The real agenda of the campaign against global warming is to achieve the longstanding goals of environmentalists to force people onto mass-transit, draw them back from far-flung suburbs and minimize their ability to profit from the earth.
The new religions give new interpretations to several of Catholicism's seven deadly sins, including:
- Pride . The vanity of individualism is discouraged as a threat to the collective good. Lifestyle choices must conform to the standards of propriety set by all-knowing spiritual leaders (think Al Gore).
- Gluttony . Consumerism and overconsumption are the great evils. Frugality is a virtue, and piety is attained by the Carteresque measure of living a smaller life, accepting less. Traditional religions reward sacrifice and self-denial with immortality (allbeit heretical in it’s own rite); it's not yet clear how the new faiths will incentivize deprivation.
- Greed. The notion that American ingenuity and productivity entitle this country to a bigger piece of the pie is unholy. We're expected to feel guilty about our prosperity, pressured to give away our wealth.
- Lust. While these new faiths don't meddle so much in your sex life -- nearly any sexual practice is OK, as long as it's "safe" and consensual -- if you hunger for big trucks, big houses, big cigars -- your wages are damnation.
Unfortunately, there is no rabid oppession and acceptance of a separation of church and state to protect non-believers from being pressed into observance as their is with the "Old-Time Religions". Canonical law is written by secular legislatures and enforced by public agents.
An agnostic -- or Mother Earth forbid, an atheist -- living in this new religious environment may find life as uncomfortable as did the “witches” of Salem.
2 comments:
I agree with you, sort of. You gotta remember I'm an apathetic anarchist, with the emphasis on the apathetic.
I work in health care now, and I think most health care professionals are dicks. I admire the people who make things difficult for them.
I don't have the suspicions of enviromentalists that you do, but it's always important to have a dissenting opinion.
In the end, maybe Bukowski had it right..."Don't Try"
I would have to say, that's an interesting epitaph for someone to want to make sure the rest of history remembers about them.
Not sure it was worth it though....
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