Analysis Of Michael Crichton's Environmentalism As Religion

Judeo-Christian beliefs as based on faith, and solely that. These groups and people do not need facts to back up their convictions, and each person will believe that “their way is the right way, [and that] everyone else is wrong,” (Page 6). One of the most commonly known stories from these religions is the story of the Garden of Eden, in which Eve and Adam both partake of the fruit of knowledge and thus for are cast out, bringing evil unto the world. Many believe, that these same connections can be made to our story as a human population as it was with Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were both sinners, and “we are all energy sinners,” (Page 2). Both groups of evildoers are then forced to gain their salvation, in our case, sustainability, or be forced

into their eternal doom.
Religions are based on faith, and it has sadly come to the same conclusion with that of environmentalism, which is where the comparisons and similarities come from in both. It no longer matters about the truth, only that a person is “saved” and can gain their salvation in this lifetime. It is because of myths and faith, that environmentalism has become a religion and has strayed from the science behind the logic.
In Michael Crichton’s essay, “Environmentalism as Religion” he uses examples to show his reasoning behind his claim and thesis.

He begins by making the bold claim that “there never was an Eden,” (Page 2). Our world has never been a perfect paradise where humans lived the perfect lifespan, with no health complications. There was disease, cannibalism, and lots of war, which most often was because of religious contentions. More children died after childbirth than did survive, and millions died because of starvation. This passionate view of the earth “is only held by people who have no actual experience of nature,” (Page 3). What is ever so romantic and blissful as a world that was nothing compared to that of a bible story. Crichton goes even farther to say that humans don’t even want to experience nature in its full glory. Most people just want to have a more simple life, for just a few days. He says that there is no way we could handle it without being annoyed, disgusted, or killed within a short period of time. Even then we would be relying on the main stream worldly products to keep us

going.
Once again, Crichton goes back to the idea that none of our beliefs on the environment are based on facts, just on faith, much as religion is. Environmental predictions have been wrong. Population facts have been wrong. Yet, they still have our thoughts and minds set on this doomsday-hell, and that we will be dying and running out of resources in the coming years. Our EPA has told us facts that aren’t true and they have known they were lies. But he knows this won’t impact very many people, “because the beliefs of a religion are not dependent of facts, but matter of faith, unshaken belief,” (Page 6).
With all of this talk of environmentalism as a religion, we can see that we aren’t going in the right direction for change.

And Mr. Crichton theorizes that there are two reasons why we need to go back to environmental science, and leave the religion aspect behind us. First, we need to stick with the cold hard facts of science and we can’t rely on one government political party to solve all of our problems for us, this is an all-for-one type of deal, with no connotations involved. Our second reason he explains is that religions think that they have the answers to everything. But when it comes to environmentalism, we are dealing with discoveries that are still being found to this day, we need to evolve and mesh ourselves in order to accept new ideas and proceed with how to live our lives

better.
The population needs facts. And what we have right now is, ”more and more groups… putting out lies,” (Page 7). We needs to keep the truth as our top priority, because even in the topic of the environment, honesty is truly the best policy. For ourselves, and for our environment. We need to begin to provide truth and base our environmentalism on that instead of a steadfast faith, if not we will end up in the same place as religion has brought us before, with raging wars, disagreeing politics, and stubborn populations, on the horizons.