Milton Reese LeRoy, 1922-2010

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 3 February 2011 4 Comments
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Question

Environmentalism, as measured by number of adherents, is the dominant religion in the United States today. Like all religions, it is based on myths masquerading as truth or fact. You are recognized as especially gifted in seeing through the fog of myth underlying Christianity. It is disappointing to note your inability, as demonstrated in the “Either Hogs or Hines” essay, to see through the mythical basis of Global Warming. There is voluminous scientific evidence refuting the claims that human activity, including carbon dioxide emissions, is causing climate variation.
“Wisdom is the ability to distinguish truth from myth”. (Origin unknown)

Answer

Dear Norris,

I find your letter so uninformed I hardly know where to begin. To suggest first that the number of people who are concerned about the damage being inflicted by human beings on our environment makes it the dominant religion in America borders on absurdity. Perhaps the number of environmentally-sensitive Americans is the result of the facts of environmental damage that confronts us every day.

Then to move on to say that since “environmentalism” is a religion that is based, like all religion, on “myths masquerading as truth or facts” as if these two sentences actually follow in some logical pattern, makes no sense, whatsoever.

Your claim that “voluminous scientific evidence” refutes the claims that human activity is the cause of climate change also needs to be exposed. That “scientific” evidence you cite is all but universally dismissed as fraudulent in scientific and academic circles the world over. There is a massive consensus on the part of the scientific community that there is an environmental crisis looming and that human beings are the major cause of it. The only people I have read that purport to offer “scientific” evidence to the contrary fall into two categories. They are either right wing politicians, who think environmental concerns are some sort of communist plot, or they are people in the employ of the oil and energy industries, whose vested interest is to keep oil profits high at the expense of our common environment.

I was pleased that California voters just this past year defeated by a 61% majority a proposition financed by Tesora Oil and Valero Oil, both of Texas, which quoted the “evidence” to which you refer, and the Republican Governor of California called them on the dishonesty of their claims.

Ignorance of fact can easily be overcome by learning the facts. When the ignorance manifests the reality that you have accepted as fact something that cannot be substantiated, the ignorance is far more profound.

John Shelby Spong

 

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