God is Everywhere, and Everywhere is God

From the pages of the Lafayette Journal and Courier we find once again some complete, unadulterated horseshit. It's like the Mid is full of ignorant, arrogant, self-righteous religious assholes or something. Who would have thought? Today's contestant is called Wally Dellenbach, and he resides in the one-horse burgh of Dephi, Indiana. The title of his masterwork is "Environmentalists have own religion."

I call bullshit.

The separation of church and state crowd are lathered up over some Hoosiers using their freedom of choice to buy "In God We Trust" license plates.

Nobody would give a shit if they were buying the license plates, if they were being charged extra for a special plate to benefit a specific cause or group, like the plates that support education or advertise membership in the Masons. What we're all "lathered up" about is the fact that these plates are being offered as standard. You actually have to specifically request a godless license plate when you visit the license branch to renew your information.

If a third party (namely, some church) had arranged with the BMV (that's what we call the DMV in this state) to have a special goddy license plate and it was an extra-cost alternative like the Boy Scouts or the Audubon Society plates, nobody would care. However, they are standard plates offered by the state and the state alone, and that makes them blatantly unconstitutional.

But there's a more insidious attempt at establishing a state-imposed religion. It's called "environmentalism." This attempt in getting the masses to worship the creation and not the creator is easy to identify.

People who want the planet to sustain life for more than the next generation or so are actually crypto-religiosos? Surely you have lots of proof for this assertion.

I have developed a guide to recognize environmentalism as a religion and here's how.

Great! Lay it on me!

Every time you hear a politician or a militant environmentalist speak on behalf of their god, the environment, apply this guide: Remove the word "environment" or "earth" and in its place insert "God."

...Okay. That's not the dumbest thing I've heard this week or anything.

I'll give you an example of environmental psycho-speak: "We have an obligation to be good stewards to the environment." Let's now remove "environment" and insert "God": "We have an obligation to be good stewards to God."

Here, two interesting things happen. Firstly, our pal Wally, who is trying with this Master's quality thesis to prove that environmentalism is a religion, has used the phrase "environmental psycho-speak," which, if he had half a brain, he would realize implies that religion in general makes use of "psycho-speak," something I'm pretty sure he doesn't, in fact, believe. Secondly, Mr. Dellenbach has created what is perhaps the worst litmus test ever for what constitutes a religion.

"Just put 'God' in place of a prominent noun! If it makes grammatical sense, then obviously they're a religion in disguise!"

Let's try a few more examples, shall we?

"Good Hoosiers should support the Colts and always wish them success" becomes "Good Hoosiers should support God and always wish Him success."

"I believe Steve Jobs is intelligent and worth looking up to" is now "I believe God is intelligent and worth looking up to."

"Giving your time and money to charity is a socially positive expenditure of resources" morphs into "Giving your time and money to God is a socially positive expenditure of resources."

So, using the Delly Willenbach Infallible Test of Religiousness, I have now proved beyond doubt that sports fans are actually a secret religion, that Apple owners are actually a secret religion (though I've often thought that myself, actually), and that altruism itself is nothing but a cover for an evil, authoritarian, heathen religion (I knew Ayn Rand was onto something; if only she'd known Mr. Dickinbox) (second joke: that explains the Religious Right).

I believe I have made my point.

Boy, the separation of church and state crowd would jump out of their skin if a politician referenced God in such a manner.

No, only if he used it as the basis for legislation. Stop beating your straw man; he's in pain.

Environmentalists are desperate to impose their religion on you. And the government has obviously signed on because you now hear, "We are going to raise your taxes in the name of the environment." By the way, there is a religious state license plate for the environmentalist with the name of their god on it. It reads "environment." And for $40 bucks you can screw it to the back of your hybrid and proclaim your salvation

I was unaware that the government was raising my taxes in the name of the environment. I thought they were just, for the most part, ignoring the massive scientific consensus that global warming is happening, it is anthropocentric, and it affects everybody on the planet.

And, once again, Dicky Wackenballs has argued himself into a corner: he seems to want to claim that the environmental "religion" is imposing on people through the government and one representation of that is an optional, extra-cost, alternative license plate some of the proceeds from which go to environmental research. What he probably thinks is a nice way to bring his ignorant screed full circle is really just a bullet into his foot.

See, if the "environmentalist religion" shouldn't be allowed to have license plates in its support, then His Royal Christiness doesn't get one either, "freedom of choice" be damned.

Well, thanks for coming, Mr. Worthless Fuckwit (yeah, I didnt' even try that time). As a consolation prize you win a vat of self-satisfaction and the knowledge that you will never be wrong.

I love it when religious people take this tack and try to claim that something they dislike "is actually a religion, too!" Evolution is a religion. Atheism is a religion. Environmentalism is a religion. They think this is a big insult, that it really takes their evil, godless opponents down a peg, when in reality it speaks badly of them in two key ways that I don't think any of them notice.

First, it shows that they, on some level, believe whatever they are attacking is higher and better than their own religion. What else can one infer when it is believed "insulting" to essentially say "Yeah, well you think you're so high and mighty, but really you're just like me!" In trying to bring science, atheism, skepticism, what-have-you down to their level, they are inherently admitting that they are on a lower level.

"You think that's science, but it's not real science. It's just religion."

How else can that be interpreted? They're insulting themselves.

The second major thing they do when they make these claims is to cheapen their own supposedly valued faith. If everything you don't like can be called "a religion," then what defines yours? What makes yours special? If everything is a religion, then what's the point of religion?

See, I was under the impression that religions are defined by their specific faiths and philosophies, their rites, rituals, and (often reprehensible) moral systems. If anything you want to "insult" can be "denigrated" by calling it a religion, then there's nothing at all special about yours; it's just another set of opinions held by a person or persons, one amony many, all of which are "religions."

But that won't stop them from continuing to claim the specialness of their religion. Religious people are old friends with Cognitive Dissonance and Poor Reasoning.