There's this idea that we're living in a secular world or that there aren't as many saints or spiritual people that exist these days.
If someone is seen as a saint or spiritual it's usually just some kind of scam artist.
What strikes me about Julia Hill is that she did what monks in the past have done and arrived at the same kind of enlightenment.
Sure she's crazy but thanks to her experience everything she says is very easy to accept as true.
These green peace activists really are cultists and their holy book is actually Dune if you talk to enough of them.
I just don't know where it goes from here.
Would it be reasonable to assume that in 400 years time Julia Hill is immortalized as some kind of green peace saint?

Julia Hill interview

News report

Father was literally an evangelist.

childless, sad

That you say that there are so many religious people is exactly the reason being religious isn't held in high regard.
We live in a secular society because most people are just doing the bare minimum to be considered religious and think that means they're some kind of hero.
It's crazy to trust any of the people who call themselves religious and if they do something based on their beliefs it's likely just another person with lazy convictions someone told them to think.

I think my main problem looking at all this is that these people are ignored, marginalized, and ridiculed as "crazy" because they are part of their own community.
One of the things that "earth first" has as their core principal is that the only way to get into the group is by participating in environmental action.
There are more pragmatic initiation rituals that don't require doing things that are illegal or damaging to the local economy but that's what they do.
What's interesting about Julia is that she had already sat in Luna two previous times only a week or two each before the 738 days.
If she just wanted to be part of the group she had done it.
Spending so much time up there created a logistical nightmare for Earth First on the ground.
A lot of people had to bring themselves to help some random girl that no one knew but was clearly part of their group.
The Earth First people are all as ingenious, reliable and disciplined as the Amish.
It really might be as simple as having a way of bringing people in based on how committed they are.
What it really means to live in a secular world is to live in a world where no one has any convictions about anything and if they do no one shares them.