Gaiaism is spreading

I came across a blog post about a guy who discovered that his daughter’s kindergarten teacher is making her class recite a Gaian prayer:

I promise to be good to the earth and to all life on this planet. To all growing things, all kinds of animals, and all races of people. I promise to protect all life on this planet, To live in harmony with nature and to share everything fairly, So that all people can live with one another in good health and peace.

If the teacher were making kids recite some Christian prayer, she’d be fired, but she can get away with preaching the Gaian religion because Gaiaism is the new religion of the elites, but it’s a religion masquerading as something other than a religion thus avoiding the First Amendment which would normally prohibit a public school teacher from preaching religion.

Bloggers need to get this identified as a religion so that the Constitution can protect us from it.

Comments

[Linda]

It's absurd to define this is as a religion. Religion involves irrational belief, faith in some higher power(s) & superstition. All this teacher is preaching is the ideology of non-violence against all other life forms. That may be pushing a political agenda, but it's not religion as the term is commonly understood.

[White horse a coming]

Half Sigma: Gaiaists

Neo-Nazis: Jews

Obama: Whites

[White horse a coming]

I might add thats observation, and not critism.

[Farrout]

Linda,

"Religion involves irrational belief..."

Exactly. How exactly can one "protect all life on this planet", including "all growing things", and yet eat? It's an emotional, fuzzy-headed belief system, that at its core is anti-human. It's a greater threat than Scientology, since it has infected the political elite in Washington, not actors in Hollywood.

[sabril]

"Religion involves irrational belief, faith in some higher power(s) & superstition."

Seems to me that believing against all evidence that inherent mental abilities are distributed evenly among all races and ethnic groups; putting irrational faith in the United Nations; and driving a Prius might qualify.

[Bellisaurius]

I can see where one might not think this is a religion, but rather the equivalent of saying I'll be nice to my parents and the folks around me. I think were the phrasology just to include words like earth and animals, it'd probably pass muster.

However, as the word "nature" get's included, a certain irrationality creeps in, as nature is rather undefined, and in the breadth of its idea easily encompasses a "god", of at least a pantheistic sort.

Personally though, the political agenda part bugs me a lot more than the religious, but political agendas in religions bug me on principle...

[Ray]

Gaianism is an infant religion for the infantile. While it lacks belief in a higher power or a holy book, these things may come in time. Don't most religions take a few hundred years to develop all of their sacred rituals? Gaianism already treats the earth and all life on it as sacred and has an unwritten creed that states that all humans are equal (but some are more equal than others.) This little prayer shows that the unwritten creed is starting to become written doctrine. Children are to be indoctrinated. As a Christian I regard Gaianism as an outgrowh of a false touchy-feely wishy-washy brand of Christianity. Do we really want a religion free society, and is such a thing possible?

[The Usual]

Some information on the priestly class:

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/celebrity/article6931572.ece

"Gaianism already treats the earth and all life on it as sacred and has an unwritten creed that states that all humans are equal (but some are more equal than others.)"

More equal than others? Yea verily, Ray...

[HS: SWPLs love international travel.

Gaians seek government action to prevent people from unnecessarily using carbon. Otherwise it's not fair that they'd have to stay home and watch Copenhagen on TV while evil capitalists are spewing forth far more pollution.

For Gaians, I suppose that going to Copenhagen is like a Muslim going to Mecca.]

[sabril]

Part of the problem is that this "pledge" is full of codewords for the left-wing agenda.

[Eric Stratton, Rush Chairman]

"...to share everything fairly, so that all people can live with one another in good health and peace."

Boy, that's getting awfully close to "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Who says the green tree doesn't have red roots?

[dearieme]

Aw, stop being so negative. Just improve the bloody thing. For example:-
"To live in harmony with nature RED IN TOOTH AND CLAW and to share ....".

[Abe]

I think it bears asking: would the world be better of if Gaiaism replaced Christianity?

[HS: But Gaiaism isn't replacing Christianity, rather it's converting over people who don't really believe in Christianity, or who were unitarian universalists in their beliefs (but who didn't necessarily name themselves so).

Religions are dangerous because the leaders of the religion have great power, and who knows if we can trust the future leaders of Gaiaism?]

[DT]

HS calls it: this is a prayer of the new religion of the elites.

The question is how do we get the masses and the courts to recognize Gaiaism as a religion? I agree with HS that it's critical to be Constitutionally protected from Gaiaism. Just look at the damage done by the AGW article of faith. (I say faith because the AGW models have been clearly falsified, so predictions from them are no longer science.)

Side note: Jews and Christians always recognized the worship of nature to be a competing religion.

[Erik]

Even if Gaianism were replacing Christianity, I think it would be a bad thing in the short and medium term, as Christianity has gotten over some nasty things like inquisitions and crusades, and is now an important part of the Western social order, although decaying. This is the dark side of Ray's comment that Gaianism is an infantile religion: as it grows, it's likely to reinvent various nasty things. Christianity had 'Do Not Steal' and 'Be Charitable', whereas Gaianism will end up more like 'Steal For The Planet'.

[sabril]

"I think it bears asking: would the world be better of if Gaiaism replaced Christianity?"

I don't think so, since Christianity has become pretty harmless since the days of the crusades and inquisitions.

For example, what disasterous policy decisions have been made recently on the assumption that Jesus was the Messiah?

On the other hand, Gaianist beliefs are causing a lot of harm right now.

JMHO

[Justin M]

If gainism is a religion, then there is no meaningful difference between the words "religion" and "ideology."

It's worth thinking about whether or not there really *is* a difference between religion and ideology, but I think a closer analysis would ultimately reveal that there is. Key distinguishing features of religion would be that they are invariably tied to the supernatural (gainism may be tied to *falsehoods* masquerading as verifiable truths, but this is different than a belief system which adheres to openly unverifiable, supernatural truths), and that they invariably involve complex rituals which are openly established as such.

[Park Slope Pubby]

Christianity has stood the test of time. I know all the yuppies on this blog think automatically of the Fundamentalists when you hear the word Christian, but stop and think. Christianity correlates with the West. Christianity's founder (Jesus) said, amongst other things, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and render unto God that which is God's" thus starting the separation of church and State. He also said, "You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free."

Christianity correlates with almost all the advances of the world, including science (see above comments on truth), medicine (most of Jesus' time on earth was spent healing), art (start w/ all the great Madonna paintings, etc), music (start w/ the Messiah, etc), the printing press (first used to print the Bible), etc etc etc.

I know that correlation is not causation, but the correlation is certainly strong. Gainism? Not so much.

I honestly wish that true Western Civilization were still taught. If it were, we would understand our Christian heritage, and the beauty of the Christian message. No other religion (Islam, Hinduism, Buddhims, Gainism/Paganism) can claim one one thousandth of this contribution to world advancement.

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"I know all the yuppies on this blog think automatically of the Fundamentalists when you hear the word Christian,"

As a proud Yuppie let me say that I agree with your sentiments on Christianit.

There is far too much discounting of the enormous contributions Christianity has given to civilization among hereditarian conservatives (even though I engage in occasional bashing over absurd Christian positions on abortion and sex in general).

[Muff]

"Religion involves irrational belief, faith in some higher power(s) & superstition."

In that case Buddhism isn't a religion, either.

I think "religion" is a term that cannot adequately be defined objectively.

I think Gaiaism is indeed a religion by my definition. I once listening to a radio show with a fungus expert environmentalist, and he brought up how wonderful it is that the Native American religions value protecting the environment. Hence, we should care about the environment too. That's religious.

"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and render unto God that which is God's"

But he never defined what belonged to Caesar and what belonged to God. I think Jesus was trying to give a trick answer to a trick question rather than promoting some sort of secularist philosophy.

[Kerry Reed]

I think you are all taking this far too seriously. Firstly religion is any belief system. One thing you good Christian Yuppies are missing is that a lot of religions have been splattered thoughout history. For example, isn't it true that the good christians raided other nations, destroyed their belief systems, made them follow the 'one true faith' and countless other actions against 'non-christian' people. Oh and for the record these events are scattered throughout the pages of history. What is wrong with preserving the Earth. Care for the Earth and the Earth will look after you. For example, Christmas Island destroyed their natural fauna in erecting their monuments and have devistated the land as a result. Isn't looking after the hand that feeds you not important. Furthermore, the Earth doesn't belong to you it belongs to no one. Keanu Reeves was right when he said the - if you die the Earth survives, if the Earth dies you all die...Oh and by the way there are countless documentated evidence that suggests Christianity was only founded a few thousand years ago, where as other religions have been around long before the birth of Jeaus....That too is in your history books, that is if you care to look further than your noses....
Oh and furthermore, don't all good religions preach of loving one an other...
I have read this poem and find no connections with a particular religion. I think that once again fear and superstition have taken over common sense. May be we should all learn to live together in a more harmonious enviroment rather than finding more things to hate others for. Who cares what religion you are, learn to live and let live. IF no harm comes from this then what harm is done....And before you reply think back over your own history...all those 'christian raids' where people were raped, killed, and posessions taken from them all in the name of a religion...Oh and one more thing jsut to let you know Paganism has been around for over 5000 years longer than Christianity and that is in your own texts....Your own Moses parted the red sea...with magic...
The bible also suggests that we as humans are not to judge others, that they will be judged accordingly. (Let he who has never sinned cast the first stone...) MMMMM food for thought.