"Progressives" generally reject religious belief and despise believers as credulous, rigid, and intolerant. How ironic that those are the very traits progressives themselves exhibit in reference to their own beliefs.
I am not qualified to evaluate the scientific validity of the "global warming" hypothesis. But observing its adherents I can conclude that they exhibit all the signs of the religious in contrast to the adherents of scientific inquiry.
Adherents of scientific inquiry do not try to silence, and seek the discharge, of scientists who disagree w/ their theories. But that is precisely what the global warming hypothesist’s adherents do seek and have often accomplished.
Nor do adherents of scientific inquiry have to counterfeit unanimous or near-unanimous support within the scientific community. But that is precisely what adherents of global warming have done and are doing: falsely claiming near-unanimous support within the scientific community.
The global warming hypothesis entails four separate beliefs, all of which must coalesce to receive the blessing of Al Gore. To endorse the global warming hypothesis, one must believe: a) that there is global warming; b) that it is the result of human activities rather than of natural climate change which has occurred as long as Earth has existed; c) that the effects of global warming are adverse for humanity; and d) that global warming can somehow be averted by human efforts. It is my understanding that the overwhelming majority of scientists reject one or more of these beliefs.
Thus I think it is appropriate to label global warming not a rational belief but a religious ne – albeit one not sanctified by tradition.
