Can a pagan religion survive without a supernatural element? Astrophysicist Sarah Salviander, one of the scientists who star in The Story of Everything, suspects that it can, as we can see in Europe today as many die for lack of air conditioning.
“Guilt, but Little Love”
In secular religion, there is abundant guilt and atonement, but little love and forgiveness. The rituals of atonement are harsh, sometimes to the point of death. Mercy? You deserve no mercy. The Earth will not take the punishment for your sins as Christ did. You will. You are the sacrifice for the sins of humankind.
If you don’t know what this is about: France has already recorded 1,000 excess deaths due to the recent record-breaking heat wave. The use of AC has been politicized in Europe to the point that most everyone, including vulnerable people, are discouraged from using it even as conditions become intolerable. Why? Because of carbon emissions. Even as China releases 2x more emissions than the entire EU, the EU must sacrifice. You can’t convince me this isn’t pagan religion without the supernatural.
An Associated Press report supports her figures. She adds, “The increase was sharpest in areas under red warnings of extreme heat…. Those warnings blanketed about three-quarters of the country at the peak of the heat wave. The agency said that 85% of the deaths involved people aged 65 and above.”
An Interesting Question, Surely
The basis of a religion is not — as many think — assertions about the supernatural. At least not necessarily. It’s about how to understand our relationship to the universe.
A religion that sees humans as merely “an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet” would consider these unnecessary deaths hardly worth noticing in relation to exalted goals like stopping global warning. Those who embrace that religion may be willing to sacrifice themselves even if all of our natural instincts are dedicated to self-preservation.
That is how we can know it is a religion, one that is slowly replacing the monotheist ones in Europe — in which, incidentally, an AC would be seen as a special blessing from a beneficent Creator.
Cross-posted at Mind Matters.