Modern science--with its empirical evidence, evolving arguments, and careful studies--has all mythic/supernatural religions beat, hands down, in most of those categories. It tells a damn good story, it changes like a chameleon every time an aspect of it is proved false, it attempts to explain everything that's asked of it, it grows and develops with time instead of depending on winged creatures and men walking on water in far off times and lands, and it tells a more believable and immediately useful tale than anything found in the tomes of old. And every religious person and institution knows in its secret heart that if science (or a competing religion) makes more sense and is more provable than itself, then eventually the moral support system being propped up by the religion will fail and people will be momentarily devastated and the institution will loose its power and go broke.

So every religion has to fight for its survival, even if it means mocking all of its competitors senseless, and chief among modern religious competitors is--don't doubt it for a second--science. Regrettably, science fails in the key category of offering individuals a warm-and-fuzzy alternative path to redemption, which is why religion keeps crying checkmate and trumping the fearsome intelligentsia. Religion provides humanity with a purpose, salvation, and a moral structure; science is more existential, and simply reports the facts and makes careful conjectures, without offering immediate hope for heaven and the afterlife. (God is your daddy; science is your well-read uncle. The problem is, dad hasn't actually visited in at least 2,000 years, and your uncle is paying all the bills.)

The environment might not be as hot a topic as, say, evolution, and most Christians have managed to rationalize large chunks of modern science--especially in the realm of medicine (other than Christian Scientists)--but at a time when the right-wing political ideologues have scooped up the Christian vote thanks to moral issues, it's to be expected that right-wing crusades will likewise gain precedence in Christian thinking. So suddenly we're reminded that God made the Earth, and therefore the left-wingers in America must be crazy for wanting to do God's job of protecting the Earth. This has nothing to do with multinational corporations trying to save millions by not having to properly manage waste, no. It's a religious issue!

By the end of his article, Nicoll does come around by saying, "Unarguably we must be world stewards whose actions are responsible and sympathetic to the environment." But he does so grudgingly. It's not because of science, he's saying, that we should protect the environment, but instead "because the cosmos and everything in it is a product of divine intention" (i.e., God probably doesn't like toxic waste, either, but let's not get worked up about it, because he hates gays more).