At various times in the 19th and early 20 century, drought would threaten to wipe out whole towns, even states. The Dust Bowl is the most famous to modern Americans, as it drove tens of thousands from the land and to the west coast, looking for a new life. Of course, people often look for reasons beyond the natural, so many of the people who stayed, hoping for a miracle, looked for all sorts of ways to make it rain. That, in turn, made them easy prey for con men and charlatans promising to bring relief from the drought.
It seems rather primitive, looking back from this vantage point. Droughts still happen, but a big complicated technological country like America can work around it. The idea of some guy showing up promising to make it rains sounds nutty. It was not that long ago. In fact, there are plenty of people living today who knew Okies. Many old folks in California were the children of Okies, maybe even having made the trip as small children. The point is that it was not so long ago that appealing to nature or the gods was no considered crazy.
Anyway, that came to mind when reading this strange story from the UK. The Europeans have a primitive fear of nature these days. The Brits are leading the charge on ”climate change” which is just a modern form of nature worship. Watch BBC America and the shows always have some mention of green this or earth friendly that. The car shows are most humorous because they always stop at some point and provide a lecture to the viewers about recycling your oil or coolant at the “council dump.”
The fact that they are spending money to ward off a cataclysm that will never come is a reminder that we have not advanced as far as we think. The rituals and magic of 100 years ago just have new names today. There is a veneer of science to this stuff now, but at its core, it is the old fear of the super natural. Modern people worry that they are somehow at odds with nature and at some point, nature will get mad about it. The fact that the science is beyond anyone’s comprehension makes it more scary.
The religious angle to climate change is easy to see for those who have read the Hebrew Bible or had some religious training. We stopped teaching religion in public schools and church attendance has been dropping for years, so most modern people are ignorant to the religious aspects to climate change. Al Gore, for example, had some sort of nervous breakdown in the 2000 campaign. After a trip into the wilderness, he recovered and returned as the Prophet Al to warn the public about God’s pending wrath.
If you had read the Old Testament, you saw it right away. No one in our ruling elites attends mass or has religious training so it was lost on them. Gore went to divinity school, so he may have done this on purpose, but it is entirely possible he does not know he is playing the role of Old Testament prophet. The fact that he made a few hundred million from this crusade suggests it is an act, but Gore never showed himself to be a grifter in the past. He’s always been a fanatic and he happened to hit it big this time.
What the Europeans are doing is a bit different. They abandoned Christianity a long time ago. Instead they threw their lot in with secular religions that promised earthly salvation, without the sacrifice demanded by the supernatural. Communism, fascism and socialism are nothing more than attempts to immanentize the eschaton. That is, arrange things in such a way to bring about plenty and relieve suffering. They still believed. It’s just a question of what they believe. Now it is a modern form of nature worship.
Of course, people who think the planet is plotting against them are not optimistic about the future. That’s why fertility rates have plummeted all over Europe. Many countries are actively recruiting Muslims to settle in their lands and wipe out their culture. of course, there is the endless quest to make materialism fill the void where Christianity once existed in the hearts of Europeans. The result is a vicious cycle, where the more they embrace neo-pagan religions, the more they dread the future and hate their past.
These new gods will not be appeased.
