Climate Sunday--The Denialists' Heaven and the Rationalists' Hell

When I stop to consider the broader implications of a ruling by SCOTUS that the religious faith (however unscientifically-based) of the owners of a "closely-held" corporation has weight over the consensus of however many others, I feel a little bit like I know how this is going to end up with our more shameless polluters, because it has happened in the past that people have made the straight-faced argument that a little pollution is fine because certainly God is allowing it. And so on. So why wouldn't a little old beef like Murray Energy's turn into a matter of religious faith?

No, tell me why this shouldn't happen. We've had legislative godbotherers tell us with the innocence of lambs that God wouldn't ever drown our asses in a Flood because the Bible told us so. They seem, certainly, to believe it as a matter of faith, in the same way that Rep. Joe Barton thinks that the winds are finite.


If the SCOTUS ruling is solicitous of beliefs even in absence of any truth, as in the recognition of the belief of the folk who closely hold a particular company that some forms of contraception might maybe be abortifacients even though science says otherwise--then why wouldn't they entertain the possibility proposed by other closely holding company-owners that the allegations that fossil fuels are responsible for global warming--no matter how much science might claim otherwise--is a heresy to them, and that the practice of their religions obliges them to ignore all that and just burn all the coal, or whatever it is that they do. They could call themselves "carbonari". They could claim their fossil fuel thing was a time-honored tradition. They could worship the coal-burning furnace and the propane tanks as their new altars.

Look-I get the distinction between an argument ad absurdam and a slippery slope. You just tell me how we aren't slippity sliding towards a rationalization for corps to do what all the hell ever they want, even if it is toxic to life.