It's secularists vs all others on taking climate change seriously

Don't let anybody tell you it's fundagelical Christians vs other Christians. Not even scholar of religion Ryan Burge. 

Don't let him, or even more, #BlueAnon Dems, riffing on him, tell you it's Democrats vs. Republicans.

Burge's own data refutes him. 

At a recent Roaming Charges for Counterpunch, Jeff St. Clair confirmed, with link to the original AP, that it's not Democrats vs Republicans.

Americans are less convinced that climate change is caused mostly or entirely by humans compared to data from recent years, declining from 60% in 2018 to 49% this year. Americans are less convinced that climate change is caused mostly or entirely by humans compared to data from recent years, declining from 60% in 2018 to 49% this year.

Followed by the nutgraf:

Democrats and independents are becoming less convinced that climate change is caused mostly by humans, while Republican attitudes remain stable.

So, most of that 11 point drop is from Dems. (I'd already anecdotally seen that in comments on a Nate Silver Substack.

That said, I talked more about that before diving into Burge on my main blog, and I want to go more here than I did there about the religious vs secularist angle here.

Religion scholar Burge, both an academic and a congregational pastor, looked at this issue from a religion angle, based on recent Pew survey data. Christians of all stripes take climate change no more seriously than do non-Christians of other world religions. But, that's not the biggie. It is that religious people in general take it less seriously than agnostics and atheists. And, Religious Right smears aside, your average Democrat is about as likely to be religious, and almost as likely to be Christian, as your average Republican.

 

As you see, this difference is HUGE.

Forget about BlueAnon Democrats, or even Burge to some degree, trying to spin this as evangelicals vs others. (I commented multiple times there, posting a link to my main site blog post the last time, and identifying as secularist, with a graduate divinity degree, and also as non-duopoly leftist, and politely but firmly calling out Burge for what I saw as bad framing. No response.) 

By percentage points, the "all religions" vs "agnostics" gap is bigger than "evangelicals" vs "all other religious." And, related to that, it's also not Democrats vs Republicans, and forget about that spinnning too. It's secularists vs. religious. By degree of difference, on the "extremely serious," the separation between atheists and either "nones" or "world religions" is GREATER than that between evangelicals and non-evangelicals.

Burge runs the religious breakdown through the parties filter, and in this case, I don't think that's good framing. More to the point, I don't think it's "fair" framing. He uses "independent" to cover anything not D or R, first. Second, he doesn't do a by party (plus independents, even if separating them by political stance) breakout of religiosity. It's true that "nones" are more Democrat than Republican, but that's also not as much as some might think, and "nones" is a catch-all anyway. Pew looks at "belief in God," but also with the same three-way breakout of politics.

I know that Burge has limited data on politics and religion when Pew has only the standard three-way breakout. He had the choice of doing less extrapolative guesstimates than he did, given that.

That said, he does also look at age issues related to this. In all religious groups, the younger are more worried than the older about climate change — except atheists, where it's even across the board.

That said, here's where I go even further in this direction in my main blog.

So, why do other world religions take this no more seriously than Christianity? 

This is speculation, but here's my thought.

Part of it may be this is a religious consensus in America, and other world religions are going along with Christianity: god will deliver us.

Part of that, though, may be already held doctrine or metaphysics within the other world religions.

Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jews, broadly speaking, hold to some sort of quasi-armageddon ideas, even if not like the Jews of Qumran.

Islam also believes in a last judgement of some sort.

In both cases, per Isaiah as well as Revelation and words likely in the Quran, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. That said, the afterlife is pictured as in heaven/paradise, so a new earth doesn't matter anyway. Now, the more liberal-minded in these traditions, as with more liberal-minded Christians, may still preach the idea of "stewardship" not "dominion" over the current earth, but, believing in an afterlife, still don't have the same framing as secularists. (I use that term both because it identifies what I accept, not what others say I don't believe, and also because tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of Theravada Buddhists are also "atheist" by definition.)

And, with that, let's transition. 

Buddhism can ultimately preach the dogma of maya about climate change as part of maya about this world in general, especially suffering in this world. Yes, it can also talk about looking for Buddha-nature in every sentient being, such as, say, pika threatened with mountain-stranding species death by climate change. But, it's probably still maya at bottom.

Hinduism? A cyclical world. Eternal recurrence. So, climate change may be a problem now, but, in the long long term of Hindu eons? Nope.

That may be true of other religions, more "indigenous," of present or past that have similar ideas on the cyclical world of nature.

Modern New Ageism? Maybe the Marianne Williamsons of the world believe we just need to focus enough to "manifest" a world free of the worst of climate change. And, yes, cult of Marianne, as I've said on my main blog, she does believe, or has believed, in the idea of manifestation.

We secularists?

An issue like this is precisely why I became a leftist, not a liberal, when leaving the conservative Lutheranism, and conservative Lutheran socio-political mindset, of my upbringing as I was finishing up my seminary time.

THIS WORLD IS IT.

Period.

What else is there to say?

One final thing.

The "Nones."

Burge, and many others, in talking about the continued rise of the Nones, note correctly that most of them are the "spiritual but not religious types." In other words, they still have religious-type metaphysical beliefs. Also, many appear to be simply Christians without a denominational home. And, another piece by Burge shows that religiosity and spirituality track each other fairly closely. With all that in mind, that's background to why the climate issue shows why, at least on this political issue, the "rise of the Nones" is no big deal.

That said, the Nones, while once rising, plateaued during COVID; I haven't seen data since COVID went to endemic to see if that pause, or even slippage, has changed back to a renewed rise.