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We're doomed without a green religion
Andrew Brown
London
Guardian
Monday, Nov 9th, 2009
The justification for burning heretics was perfectly
simple: dissent threatened the survival of society. Nothing
was worse than anarchy. This is a viewpoint most people in the
West today find pretty much incomprehensible. It is a self-evident
truth to them that morality must be a matter of individual choice.
And if you believe that, the arguments around the Tim Nicholson
case are very difficult to resolve. If there is a moral imperative
to preserve the human race, or as much of it as possible, collective
consequences must follow. It is not enough for us to do the
right thing. Others must as well. If you don't believe that,
then there is no point in agitating for success in Copenhagen.
But if collective consequences follow, others must be forced
to do things against their will by our moral imperatives. This
is exactly the quality that is supposed to be so very obnoxious
about religion.
The idea that morality is and must be a matter of individual
choice is taken as axiomatic in these debates. It is thought
true in the sense that it is held to describe a fact about the
world. Very often the same people who believe this will also
believe, and maintain with equal vehemence in other contexts
the belief that morals are merely opinions, or at least that
there couldn't in the nature of things be moral facts: true
or false statements about whether something or someone is good
or bad.
This was neatly if not nicely expressed by one of the commenters
on Tim Nicholson's article here, who said
You may believe less flying and driving, and more wind farms,
and so on to be moral imperatives. I don't. You are entitled
to your beliefs, and should not be persecuted for them. But
they are just beliefs. You want to argue the politics of how
to respond to climate change: great. But you can stop wrapping
your proposed solutions up in 'moral imperative' cotton wool.
Full
article here
"When the people find they can vote themselves
money, that will herald the end of the republic."
- Fall Of The Republic - Buy
the DVD here
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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