As I mentioned in my earlier post, fear, fear of loss (of control) is the only reason to react so strongly to the subjective aesthetics of a biblical publication. Both theists and scientists have seen their works misused to the ends of bloody tyrants.
Those are good points. I have two seperate parts on why I don't like seeing it, but I'm not strongly against it... doesn't affect me deeply, it's just a negative indicator to the systems interacting.
The first is that it forces working from a pre-formed conclusion: climate change is bad. The prompt for the religious concern still comes from the same source, but now it isn't up for debate (within the systems, the debate changes). Under an empirical system, the purpose is to observe and predict, which means that this is not assumed. We determine what is the situation is as best we can and attempt to predict what the situation is likely to become. I believe this system should be protected in society, even if it conflicts with other issues. High scrutiny, but where it investigates, we improve... but what shouldn't happen is that we act in accordance or against it outside of what it discovers. It is a very powerful tool, but must be limit-bound by what it does well. Now, if we change systems to religion, all of a sudden, the system is built around what God said many years ago, and now we have compounded assumptions on how we should behave (God says this way
and that climate change is real). In an ideal world, the two would work together - identify a problem and maybe a solution, plus provide the moral responsibility to carry it out. I wish I could say that this is what would happen, but I agree on your points too much... the opposite tends to happen - identify a problem and maybe a solution that doesn't really exist, then support it with moral guilt/cult following.
I see this as a manifestation of trying to support something empirical, under review, with religion. This removes the context to why the problem was even discovered. It is just as bad as having a negative belief pressure, such as if God said "exploit and burn the earth". Both sides work against the system that discover, refine and predict, though it just depends what side you are on in the climate debate (or the severity, which is very nebulous.)
The second reason is the one I sort-of described earlier... related to what I said above, but at a larger scale. I see religion as transient, like scientific discoveries. Once upon a time, knowledge and religion were bound up together. Religion is being pushed back to only those things that are not explainable otherwise. This is the evolution of humanity - religion as a proxy for morality and so forth. Once upon a time, it was a guide to throw stones and wipe out opposing tribes. Now it somehow preaches love and so forth, if you make enough selective choices, anyway. It evolves with society.
I use evolution here because it is a natural selection process. As ideas and concepts attempt to make their way into human society, they undergo tests - do they help that aspect of society, will people believe it, does it help groups stay together, etc. In this way, religion must evolve. Those that remain stagnant take up 'physical space' in society, meaning tangible ramifications of the belief system. Other systems that are more effective - including science, in terms of creationism and so forth, also take up space. Right now we are at a point where we simply ignore them, but if you work back through history, it's entirely possible for religion to both support and work against those advances. They aren't two seperate things, just different abstractions of systems.
Why do I connect these, you ask? There is collateral damage in the evolutionary process. Religion attaches itself to modern movements - those movements being the development of new mindsets that would develop into 'religions'... Instead, what I see is evolutionary systems destroying competitors. And it works both ways. Instead of climate change invoking overall social change, like through its own pseudo-religious environment, the other systems take advantage of it turn it into negative forms of their own systems. In science's cases, it's the whole 'publish or die', 'funding' and 'attention' aspects that are negative. And on the other side, you have what I think these things represent. Not an attempt to change religion, but to bring this item under religious jurisdiction. Just as science gains from the debate, as much as it would never admit it, so does religion gain from the faith-mindset. Not a particular "religion", but "religion" in and of itself (codified sets of beliefs).
To be clear, I'm abstracting all this from simpler behaviors. The reason it happens at all is because it is profitable to sell these items to people that are in the middle between religion and green. Good market segmentation, no doubt. I don't see it as some conspiracy, just the outcome of two abstract systems in a social context.
