I’ve been thinking recently (anthropologically) about human concerns about the future. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about the global warming / climate change topic.
For those who have studied comparative religion, there’s a term ‘apocalyptic’, which means, religions or denominations which focus on a postulated or predicted ‘end of days’. In early Christianity, for instance, there were many followers focused on the imminent return of Christ. Similarly, in the era of American new religious movements and Christian variants for the last two hundred years, many have focused on an upcoming ‘big event’, day of reckoning, cataclysm, or other major transformation.
Perhaps one of the fastest growing belief systems of the 21st century is skepticism. The 2008 ARIS survey provides a statistical breakdown of the group of people who identify themselves as having ‘no’ religion. Generally the survey shows that they are agnostic or deists (god exists but doesn’t interfere with life) rather than atheists (no god) or theists (an interfering god).
The net result of this is that you have a large population in the US and perhaps more around the world that do not concern themselves with religious endgames, but rather, ecological endgames. Whether these ‘ecoists’ strongly believe, somewhat believe, or challenge global warming, the fact is that the secular apocalypse is climate change.
I fly a lot and so I find myself trying to ignore a lot of CNN in airport terminals. When they aren’t revealing the latest poor life choice of a celebrity, they spend a good time fanning the flames of debate over climate science, at least recently.
I believe that the awareness that things could all change suddenly is a rational awareness. I believe that the human urge to predict a future – even a catastrophic one – is reasonable. When it gets caught up with religious belief, fervor and individual divination, the predictions can be far off.
There’s also an interactive aspect, in that the human race does have a tremendous influence on our endgame. While we could be wiped out by an asteroid by no fault of our own, we theoretically could take responsibility for a threat even that large. And we certainly can take responsibility, as a race, for the continued health and energy of our own planet.
I think the parallels between human secular “realities” and religious “beliefs” are too close to ignore, and I believe worry about the outcome of our race is a very, very traditional concern, even if filtered through a new belief system.
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You make a lot of (very nicely and succinctly) reasoned points.
I got to the end, though, and felt a little left hanging — based on your lead-in, I guess I was counting on some sort of conclusion, recommendation, thesis-statement, proposal, etc. (Or at least a more explicit one.)
Perhaps your strongest statement is “the awareness that things could all change suddenly [for the worse] is … rational”. (Ask the (former) denizens of Pompeii, Krakatoa, the 230,000 dead from the 2004 tsunami, the 1931 China floods (over 1mm), the 1970 Bangladesh cyclone (500k)…etc. — and those were purely non-anthropogenic events. I won’t even get into famine, disease, or war.)
I *think* you’re saying something like: “whether based on a ‘traditional’ religion or no — and whether it’s anthropogenic climate change or a bad Hollywood plot come to life: collectively, as humans, we have rational reason to worry about a Tunguska-scale event. Can we drop the religion-based differences — and agree that we should be proactive about such stuff?”
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