One thing that bothers me a lot is the current trend of Christians jumping on the Global Warming band wagon. While climate change is happening it is something that appears to always have happened. The idea that humans are the main cause is based not in a Christian worldview. Instead it has been informed by many differing worldviews. These worldviews that are expressed in current environmental thought are informed by socialist and even communist political theory, evolutionary theory, humanism, and pagan or Wicca thought. Obviously these world views are patently opposed to Biblical worldviews. We need to think twice about hitching ourselves to this bandwagon.
Another problem I have with the scientific consensus that is called Global warming is that consensus is not the same thing as a fact. Either something is true or it is not. We don't have extensive temperature records that date back thousands of years. There is no way to predict with 100% certainty what will happen to the earth's temperature in the next 100 years. Remember back in the 1970's the fear was that we were entering an ice age. Why should I get worked up about carbon emissions and the like when I can't do anything to stop climate change and I haven't done anything to precipitate it?
Another problem that I have with those Christians who want to jump on the bandwagon is the lack of concern for the poor that environmentalists have. They claim to care for the poor but in reality there programs and actions would lock people into cycles of poverty for generation with no hope of escape. America is not the cause of poverty in the world. America does hold many keys to helping nations build economies that will lift people from poverty. But ideas like the Kyoto treaty lay the blame for climate change almost solely on America as well as laying the responsibility change exclusively on us while exempting China and India.
I could go on and on but for now I will leave you with this link to a paper by the interfaith stewardship group. I don't know much about them but I agree with what they say in this paper. It is worth considering. A church should not get involved with this Global warming crusade because it is not based in fact and it is opposed to a Biblical world view.
2 comments:
First of all, Temperatures from the past can be calculated by gas bubbles in ancient ice cores. It is a fact that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Which is a good thing actually. If not for that greenhouse effect, Earth would be about 60 degrees F. colder globally and we would not be here. Ice cores dating back over 600,000 years has shown CO2 levels up and down. Climate change warmer and cooler. But there has never been a CO2 lever higher then that of today. And the 20th century alone has created most of that. And to say that we shouldn't jump on a bandwagon is just ignorant. We humans are not innocent. We are lazy and don't want to accept change. Future generations will suffer. Oh, and another point... If global warming shouldn't be taken seriously because you say it is not a fact, why should we care if a church or religion listens or not? Religion is not a fact. It is faith. There is no right or wrong, no fact or fiction, no proof what-so-ever that a higher power even exists. Not one shred of proof besides what MAN has come up with.
My belief in God is based on faith. Faith by definition is not based upon science or even upon the five senses. Faith is the being sure of what we hope for and being certain of what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1) Global warming is supposed to be an absolute scientific truth. Last time I checked for something to be a scientific fact it had to be backed up by data. Most of the theories that Al Gore and others base their claims on are not based in hard data so by definition they are not facts. I don't need to take them by faith.
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