Like many who visit HN, I am an atheist. I am coming to believe, however, that the production of CO2 is the greatest sin, in the religious sense, that exists today
Yes, global warming has become the religion of leftists.
Leftists like Bill Gates, Newt Gingrich, John Hunstman, Frederick Smith, Susan Collins, Tim Pawlenty?
Cap and Trade was a free-market republican idea originally [1], but now that it's being advocated by the 'Leftists', it's become much more politicized.
A plurality of scientists agree that steps should be taken, the FUD denial is all paid for by a dozen companies who stand to profit from additional delays, yet it's somehow comparable to 'religion' to think that we should take action?
Cap'n Trade was, is, and will always be a guaranteed frenzy of corrupt corporatist rent-seeking. Both varieties of Coke-and-Pepsi Repubmocrat eat from that trough. I actually wish they'd pass a carbon tax, only to forestall the disaster that Cap'n Trade would be.
It's not just global warming, it's also the "food safety" button - the GMO scaremongering and the whole "organic" deal.
Both conservatives and liberals get very religious about what people put in their bodies; the two sides differ primarily on which orifice concerns them the most.
You can deny the categories all you want, but that doesn't mean you don't fall into one of them. Ideology does make a mess of things, but that doesn't mean that the causes gripped by ideology are incorrect. (On either side.)
No one group of humans has a monopoly of being 100% free from bullshitters. There's a large group of mostly silent atheists who are perfectly reasonable, just as there are groups of less-silent lunatics.
True enough, but this observation cuts both ways. There are also large groups of mostly-silent religious people who are perfectly reasonable, to a point. Like the atheists, however, many religions allow the prudentialists, perfectionists, and guilt-trippers to shit all over the place. No thanks, to both of them.
I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.
At this point in time I'm more interested in the experiences of living and learning. I don't care enough about "ultimate" questions or answers to accept or reject them. I don't need to be right about this; tomorrow I might decide to be a hardcore fundamentalist X, for any value of X. When I talk to friends and family who have beliefs (or not) of any sort, I try to emphasize the good parts of their systems: those parts that seem the most likely to help them in the ways they need help. I also critique those concepts that don't seem likely to help, but only for that reason, not because they're "true" or not.
I've probably said too much; this is really off-topic for HN.
"One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we've developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything."
Yes, global warming has become the religion of leftists.