IRVINE, CA– “Scratch through an environmentalist’s veneer and you will find a mystic not a scientist,” says Dr. Onkar Ghate, resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. “Environmentalists and religionists are, deep down, of the same faith. That’s why it’s to be expected that a coalition of church groups and environmentalists would launch a ‘What Would Jesus Drive?’ campaign to deprive Americans of their SUVs.”
“Religion declares that it is your moral duty to serve God–that you must abandon your rational mind and believe-that material profit and worldly success are sinful because they pull you away from God. Environmentalism declares that it is your moral duty to serve wilderness–that despite the vast evidence to the contrary, you must simply believe that industrialization and technology are harmful–that selfish profit and worldly success are sins because they represent the exploitation of nature. Both necessarily look upon SUVs–contemporary symbols of technological progress and earthly pleasure–with disgust.
“If this coalition of religionists and environmentalists want a world where you are forced to serve something other than your own life, where rational thought is outlawed in the name of blind faith, where men grovel in caves while most of the land remains in a wild state, untouched by the life-giving hand of technology and capitalism, then they are a little late. They could have found a concrete example of their ideal–in Taliban-run Afghanistan.”
