Let us pray. No less an authority than TIME magazine has seen fit to publish an opinion piece urging religious observance for the planet and its self-appointed watchkeepers under the headline: The Case For Making Earth Day a Religious Holiday.
The editorial work, co-authored by New York professors Paul Greenberg and Carl Safina, was timed to coincide with Earth Day on Saturday.
The self-declared environmentalists argued, “on this 53rd Earth Day we thought it useful to pose what a real Earth Day should represent and how it could form a central time for a new approach to worship.”
The plea for reverence was based on their assumption nobody really cares anymore because Earth Day is, to their mind, a success.
Therefore the time has come to elevate it further into the public consciousness.
File/Extinction Rebellion Multi-faith prayer and meditation vigil for the 40 days and 40 nights of Lent begins in Westminster on 26th February 2020 in London, England, United Kingdom. (Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)
“Even though we face new and seemingly overwhelming environmental issues—the extinction crisis, the toxic chemical crisis, the climate crisis, acidification of the seas, the plastics tsunami—the spirit of the day is no longer mass protest,” they lamented.
Then they acknowledge what it is they want – a new religion.
Are we proposing a whole new religion? We’re not quite sure. Maybe an old one. The core of all religious feeling is the sense that we are part of something much larger in space and deeper in time than ourselves. The world is certainly that. At any rate we do know that spiritual inquiry, just like scientific inquiry, is not static. Likewise a whole new continent of scientific knowledge has been revealed to us since America’s first and second religious Great Awakenings. It seems perfectly reasonable and spiritual to us that in a New Great Awakening this new knowledge-continent be incorporated into a progressive wisdom of life, death, and the universe.
They further argue the planet needs our praise, and our reverence, because “we must make nature central to our belief system with Earth Day or any number of earth-focused ceremonial days serving as regular reminders of what we owe our home planet.”
How does this happen? They go on:
We’ve got to convey to everyone that the planet whose rotation and revolution creates all 365 days is worthy of a recognition that spans all 365. Recognition of the planet was born in protest. Going forward it must be about reverence, about respect for the living world that makes human life, too, possible. Celebrating the whole world as a living miracle really should be more fun—and more win-win—than even the most-watched football game.
This is not the first time that the left has called loudly for more and more attention to be paid to Earth Day.
As Breitbart News reported, last year it was used as a political wedge to beat those who oppose it into silent compliance.
WATCH: Climate Change Protesters In 2022 Perform Masked Dance in Front of D.C. Mayor’s Office
Despite the pleas of Earth Day boosters, not everyone agrees with their fears for the planet.
“Climate change” is the last priority for Americans and has dropped as an issue that must be dealt with immediately, according to a CBS News/YouGov poll released 12 months ago.
The poll found “climate change” was last on the list of most important priorities for Americans.
Respondents ranked the economy (76 percent), inflation (73 percent), crime (59 percent), Ukraine (58 percent), immigration (48 percent), and then “climate change” (39 percent) in respective order of importance.
Fewer Americans also see alleged “climate change” as a pressing issue compared to the past.
Today only 49 percent of respondents said “climate change” is a pressing issue and should be solved “right now.”
In April 2021, that number was 54 percent, a downward shift of six percent under President Joe Biden.