Who are the Branch Carbonians?

Washington Examiner ^ | 09/24/09 | Mark Tapscott

[neverdem]

Are radical environmentalists members of a political movement or more like the devotees of a religious cult, one that might dubbed the Branch Carbonians? Truespeak.org’s Jim Guirardi suggests the label and offers an illuminating case for the latter in this post from the American Thinker.

There is much more to Guirardi’s piece, but as a sample, here are his 10 reasons these fanatical devotees qualify as participants in a cult. If these sound somehow familiar, they are based on the criteria elaborated upon in the 2003 book, “Kingdom of the Cults,” by Walter Martin and Ravi Zacharia:  

 

1. Leadership by a self-glorifying, manipulative New Age Prophet -- in this case, former Vice-President Al Gore, though he is rapidly being supplanted by President Barack Obama.

 

2. Assertion of an apocalyptic threat to all mankind.

 

3. An absolutist definition of both the threat and the proposed solution(s).

 

4. Promise of a salvation from this pending apocalypse.

 

5. Devotion to an inspired text which (arguendo) embodies all the answers -- in this case, Prophet Gore's pseudo-scientific book "Earth in the Balance" and his more recent "An Inconvenient Truth" documentary.

 

6. A specific list of "truths" (see the Ten Commandments listed below) which must be embraced and proselytized by all Cult members..

 

7. An absolute intolerance of any deviation from any of these truths by any Cult member.

 

8. A strident intolerance of any outside criticism of the Cult's definition of the problem or of its proposed solutions.

 

9. A "Heaven-on-Earth" vision of the results of the mission's success and/or a "Hell-on-Earth" result if the cultic mission should fail.

 

10. An inordinate fear (and an outright rejection of the possibility) of being proven wrong in either the apocalyptic vision or the proposed salvation.

[DHSMostWanted]

We already knew they were drinking Kool-Aid.

[Smokin' Joe]

I've been calling them "dirt-worshippers" for years, and I know I was not the first.

They left out the part where they commit mass suicide, but from the proposed crap they are pushing in Congress, they want the whole country to go with them.

[thedilg]

Those 10 reasons fit the Russian communist state quite well.

[thedilg]

Those 10 reasons fit the Russian communist state quite well.

[Need4Truth]

It may take more than facts to de-program the Branch Carbonians. They will need to replace their cult-like beliefs with something else.

[AmericanVictory]

Exact label! Love it!

[the invisib1e hand]

powerful-delusion alert.

Chesterton once wrote -- in answer to the charge the Catholicism is too "rigid and authoratarian" -- that the religious impulse in man is so powerful, wanton and insatiable that, apart from the guidance of the Church -- drives people to do some really weird things, like cut themselves, etc.

Of course he wrote that before people flew passenger jets into skyscrapers, but it's the same idea.

ditto for this secular religion that man has created upon rejecting the true one.

The authority of the Church is for man's benefit, not the Church's. Of course, most people still don't get it...

[sergeantdave]

Settle these cultists on an island and give them each a paper lunch bag with a bologna sandwich, bag of chips, can of Coke and a hand grenade and let’s see what happens.

[Right Wing Assault]

6. A specific list of "truths" (see the Ten Commandments listed below) which must be embraced and proselytized by all Cult members..

Where are the 10 commandments he refers to?

[RoadTest]

“Branch Carbonians”

Great name for the envirowackos!

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Men defend most violently not the things they know to be true, but the things they fear may be false: Global Warming, Islam, Communism, ... the list goes on. Explains Red Sox Nation, a truly bizarre cult.

[altair]

“Branch Carbonians” - I like that.

(And it was classic watching Rush on the Leno video back up to run over the Algore effigy a second time ...)

[gaijin]

SECULAR FUNDAMENTALISTS...!!!

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks neverdem.

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