During his missionary travels St. Paul stepped off the boat somewhere--was it Athens?--and saw a statue to an "Unknown God." Then he delivered a sermon on that theme. That's what they did before blogging was invented. If he were a Vulcan missionary of Logic and Reason who had just made First Contact with the Earthlings of our times, he might see things like Earth Day, roll his eyes, and deliver a sermon entitled, "To an Unacknowledged God."

It has been pointed out many times that Environmentalism is a thinly disguised theology. Whenever I have mentioned that analogy to "Greens" they responded with discomfort and hostility. What interests me today is not how fair the analogy is, but rather, why the reaction is hostile. Why doesn't the analogy educe a wry smile from the Green, which is the spirit in which it was offered?

Perhaps the environmentalist sees him/herself in the vanguard of social progress, which depends on chucking out outdated beliefs like traditional religions. For many people, being irreligious is an important part of their intellectual self-esteem. Thus he/she is angered by the smirks of some wise-guy who thinks he has disinterred a hypocrisy. 

Leaving aside the Green's specific policies, I think he is fundamentally mistaken about human nature and religious or superstitious thinking. Gilbert Murray, the famous classicist of the early 20th century said:

“...the mind of man cannot be enlightened permanently by merely teaching him to reject some particular set of superstitions.

...the mind that has not trained itself to the hard discipline of reasonableness and honesty, will, as soon as its devils are cast out, proceed to fill itself with their relations.” [1]

Thus it is quite natural for the modern environmentalist--living in a sterile and secular age--to fill the emotional vacuum with new ideologies that, however secular and scientific they are on the surface, provide the same underlying rhythms that traditional religions did.

Why should this be insulting to the Green? Traditional Christianity put the individual's soul on the front lines of a cosmic battle between Good and Evil. Starting with Copernicus and ending with Darwin, science reduced Man to a purposeless blob of carbon-based molecules that evolved by accident on a small planet of a third rate star.

The Greens are reinventing Purpose, by recycling Christian notions such as the Crusades, paradise, sin, clean and unclean foods and products, divine retribution, and holy prophets, particularly of the apocalyptic kind. What's so bad about that?

In one of my favorite history books, written long before the modern Green movement, the author said,

“there is much reason to doubt whether the modern age as a whole is much more indifferent to the appeal of religion than the centuries of the past. The so-called Age of Faith, when every man gave lip-service to the Church…probably contained not much larger a proportion of genuinely religious souls...than are to be found in our Western world today…

The gropings and yearnings of so many of the “unchurched” today, not only the spread of various cults deriving their inspiration from Oriental sources, but even more the intense religious fervor with which men throw themselves into socialism, patriotic nationalism, etc., seem to indicate the continued presence in men of the needs and the aspirations which formerly were expressed in terms of traditional religion.”

If my psycho-analysis of the Greens is correct, it in no way proves that their science and policies are wrong. It is beyond the capabilities of the average voter and citizen to assess scientific theories, but they can look at history and guess whether a political group tends to use fear-mongering as a tool to get its way.

It is crucial in a well-governed democracy to keep Science separate not just from honest religions but also from political ideologies that emulate religions on an emotional level.

[1] Gilbert Murray, "The Five Stages of Greek Religion," Ch. 4, The Failure of Nerve.
[2] J.H. Randall, "The Making of the Modern Mind," Ch. 20, Religion in the Growing World.