We westerners have been properly horrified in recent weeks as the Afghan courts have prosecuted the Christian convert Abdul Rahman and imams of the religion of peace have called for the apostate's death.

"Philistine hypocrisy," writes Spengler in Asia Times.  It makes complete sense to kill the apostate, "for faith is life and its abandonment is death." 

The last Christian heretic was executed in Spain as recently as 1826.  In the United States we were killing Mormons as late as 1844.

Then the real killing began as the modern secular religions spread across the world. Between the 1920s and 1950s the devotees of the most successful secular religion in history, the Communists, were killing all the heretic kulaks and capitalist—roaders they could find. The pagan Nazis had a go at killing all the Jews.

But now a new secular religion is gaining adherents in the Western world.  It too believes that its faith is the key to saving life, not just human life but all life on the planet.  It declares that we are all doomed by the coming apocalypse of global warming unless we repent.

Conservative politicians are beginning to take this religion seriously.  President Bush has spoken about our addiction to oil and British Conservative Party leader David Cameron has installed a wind turbine on his London home.

The conservative media is also taking the religion of global warming seriously.  The London Times and Daily Telegraph both ran opinion pieces April 1 on the religious nature of the global warming movement.  As of old, its prophets warn us of the dangers of our luxurious times.  They tell us, writes Matthew Parris, that

"Our age is not living as it should. The pursuit of riches has distracted us. Lives have been corrupted by lust, vanity, wastefulness and greed. We have become lazy and selfish. Our spirits are sick. And — count upon it — we shall be punished. One way or another we shall have to pay."

These new Jeremiahs, prophesying that we are all doomed unless we repent, are the prophets of climate change, and they are calling us to sacrifice. 

Most of them do not want us to sacrifice our first—born sons, not yet, but they do want us to sacrifice our big cars, our big houses, our meat, our fat, and our needless jet travel to faraway places.

Then there is Dr. Eric R. Pianka, a "University of Texas evolutionary ecologist and lizard expert" who advocates "the elimination of 90 percent of Earth's population by airborne Ebola."  At a speech delivered to the Texas Academy of Science in early March and reported by Forrest M. Mims III "Professor Pianka said the Earth as we know it will not survive without drastic measures."

All religions have this theme of sacrifice and repentance, but one religion has finessed it in a brilliant way that few commentators have grasped. The story starts in Genesis. Instead of making Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac, God lets him sacrifice a ram instead, which you will probably agree is much more sensible.  The Jews developed this form of sacrifice into a fine art.  The Temple in Jerusalem had a special system to drain away all the blood when the rich brought hundreds of animals at a time to the slaughter.

But then came a radical change. About 2000 years ago in a confusing episode over which people still furiously argue, God said: Enough of all this wasteful sacrifice.  Because I so love the world, I will sacrifice my own Son for your sins so you don't have to sacrifice your sons or your livestock.

This Christian doctrine can have a practical effect.  In China, when non—Christian villagers experience sickness or misfortune they often sacrifice their livestock to appease the evil spirits.  But Christian villagers don't sacrifice, for Jesus already died for their sins.

They end up being more prosperous.

Of course, the eco—apocalyptics are not fooled by this.  They are much too sophisticated to fall for the transparent and self—serving notion that God would sacrifice his Son for our sins.  They demand the satisfaction of real sacrifice and real blood gushing into the gutters as in the old Temple in Jerusalem.

Some people have complained that the eco—believers are hypocrites and instead of sacrificing are buying expensive Prius hybrid cars, eating high—priced organic food, and are building huge eco—friendly mansions.
 But they are missing the point.

If the infidels of the world do not acknowledge the one true faith and worship the gods of global warming with sacrifice and true repentance in strict observance of the Kyoto rituals, shall we not have to kill them in order to "save the planet?"

Consider yourself warned.

Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.