Spirituality and the environment

Since taking more of an interest in scepticism and reason, it is somewhat inevitable that eventually I would take a closer look at some of the beliefs I have held in the past in the new light of my improved rationalism.  

I think I have always been sceptical of religion, more so as I have educated myself on the matter.

But when it comes to politics, like most people I’m sure I’m led by my heart as much as my head.

After a brief flirtation with the liberal democrats in my late teens, I went to university and became your typical lefty student involved with the Anti Nazi League, Anti Poll Tax, and Animal Rights movements.

I’m still broadly left wing but hope that my beliefs are more driven by reason than hippy idealism.

To look at me as a student, the word “hippy” wouldn’t have been far from your lips. I still hate to wear a shirt and tie, but I’ve never really liked the hippy label.

I think it really only applies to a specific time at the end of the 60’s and start of the 70’s when people were really motivated by radical social upheaval – the backdrop of Vietnam and the emergence of a distinctly new type of youth culture providing the impetus for genuine change.

But as the hippies grew up and went on to create multi-national ice cream companies, they left behind this legacy of a vague group of wishy washy individuals trying to meld some deeply held revolutionary convictions with a pick and mix eastern mysticism.

  

The guardian recently ran an article raising the importance of spirituality in the environmental movement.

Here are a couple of quotes:

The hippies were fond of speaking of Gaia, Mother Earth, as a living organism. But as the environmental debate eventually reached the ears of politicians and scientists, it moved away from talk of spirituality and began to concentrate solely on a rational, scientific analysis of the effects of climate change.

“Look at what realists have done for us. They have led us to war and climate change, poverty on an unimaginable scale, and wholesale ecological destruction. Half of humanity goes to bed hungry because of all the realistic leaders in the world. I tell people who call me ‘unrealistic’ to show me what their realism has done. Realism is an outdated, overplayed and wholly exaggerated concept.”

 

“Realists” seems to be a very broad category of people to blame for all the worlds ills. Any way, this was my response:

The implication here seems to be that if you aren’t “spiritual” then you don’t truly understand the needs of the planet.
I’m more of a rationalist, and at the same time as understanding the need for respecting the planet and moving towards a less consumer based society, I would also be sceptical of this wishy washy spiritualism that supposedly gives certain “enlightened” people a direct line to the earth’s “energies”.
Your spirituality may give you a sense of personal fulfilment and motivate you as a steward for the planet, but that doesn’t mean that the non-spiritual are any less capable.

I acknowledge that some spiritual leaders have some wise things to say about the planet, but I don’t get this reverence for spiritual wisdom above reason and evidence.

I loved the episode of Penn and Teller’s “Bullshit” where they got a load of people at some concert to unwittingly sign a petition against water. Sure – an emotion driven response will get you motivated to act – but I’m always going to want the facts somewhere down the line.