The deep green sophistry of ‘religious’ equivalence
By Melanie Phillips, Spectator
It’s official — putting plastic bottles into the recycling bin or going on a Greenpeace demo is akin to having a religious experience.
Rupert Dickinson, who was made redundant by a London property company, claimed that it had discriminated against him on account of his subscription to the theory of man-made global warming and other environmental issues which he said constituted a ‘philosophical’ belief.
In any rational universe, he would be sent away with a flea in his ear for trying it on. But this is not such a world. At an Employment Appeal Tribunal Mr Justice Burton ruled that because of his belief in climate change Dickinson was entitled to the same protection against discrimination as someone with religious convictions.
How hilarious is this?! When sceptics like me observe that man-made global warming resembles religious zealotry because it is a dogmatic belief which has nothing to do with actual as opposed to pseudo-science, we are dismissed as anti-science flat-earthers. Yet now Mr Justice Burton has laid down that it is a philosophical ‘belief’ which has the same status as belief in a religion.
Two steps led to this remarkable conclusion. The first was the law: to be precise, the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 which says people must not be discriminated against on account of their religion or belief – and ‘belief’ is defined as including ‘philosophy’ or ‘absence of belief’.
The effect of this is to downgrade religion because it elevates other ideas to the same status. Indeed it would appear that just about any idea system however bizarre can lay claim to equal status on this basis. Christians are up in arms and no wonder, since it down-grades real religion as a result. Which is the inevitable consequence of the relativist ideology behind this spurious doctrine of equivalence.
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