Save the Earth and the Taliban

the green movement arising out of a projection of our own desperation, projected onto the earth, our petty complaints (money, work, sex, who isn't cleaning up what) shrink into the background obfuscated by huge Save The Earth (and/or polar bears) concerns. it makes perfect sense and whether or not it is "true" or warranted (or unwarranted) it does what most religions USED TO do. What are my troubles (here in the muddly Middle Ages) compared to the importance of saving (my and others') souls? Soul-saving is soul-making. We need it. Right wingers rail against ecology as a religion, but perhaps their best defense would be to come back and say, so what? It's a good a religion as any. If it gives people "meaning" (purpose, reason to get out of bed in the morning) how can we argue against it? Conservatives argue we are inadvertently giving up our freedoms (to drive big cars, smoke, use electricity) but their religion has limited our behaviors too. Sex, drugs and other behaviors remain criminalized by our Judeo-Christian culture, all rationalized by "civic need" but that logic doesn't alter the fact that they limit our choices. So the new religion (which MIGHT in the end be easier on sex and drugs, though the jury's still out) will be tougher on different areas of our lives. In the end the government will (probably) sanction gay marriage, legalized pot (and probably other drugs), but will criminalize smoking, gas guzzling, and using the wrong lightbulbs. All religions eventually limit our freedom, the tradeoff is inherent in the bargain. You "feel better" by being connected to something greater than yourself (Salvation or Saving the Earth) and you "give back" some freedom (freedom to fornicate, freedom to drive). It's all logical and there is no good or bad in it, unfortunately. Christians are "shocked, shocked" at the failure of their religion and the widespread embrace of a form of civic paganism, but they can't change it. The Taliban are able to do what they do because people in their districts are uneducated, unenfranchised and poor. The freedoms they give up to the Taliban (women to be educated, for example) are not deeply valued by the population. What they get in exchange is connection, belief, certainty--things the West aren't so good at countering.