Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 05-07-2003, 05:57 PM

I know that there are a number of religious leaders who think that Jesus would be an environmentalist, that the Bible commands good stewardship over natural resources, etc. Unfortunately, the self-styled Christians in Bush's coalition don't think that way.

Religious Wrong: A Higher Power Informs the Republican Assault on the Environment

Quote:

The reasons behind Republican anti-environmentalism have often been stated but deserve review: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are former oil men who believe in the efficiency of the marketplace. Market conservatives tend to see environmentalists as either frivolous tree-huggers or dangerous monkey-wrenching eco-terrorists. They dismiss good environmental science as the doomsaying of the loony left.

. . .

Nevertheless, beyond all these more obvious anti-environmental motivations there lies a more deep-seated inspiration. Difficult as it may be to believe, many of the conservatives who have great influence in the Bush administration and now in Congress are governed by a Higher Power.

In his book The Carbon Wars, Greenpeace activist Jeremy Leggett tells how he stumbled upon this otherworldly agenda. During the Kyoto climate change negotiations, Leggett candidly asked Ford Motor Company executive John Schiller how opponents of the pact could believe there is no problem with "a world of a billion cars intent on burning all the oil and gas available on the planet?" The executive asserted first that scientists get it wrong when they say fossil fuels have been sequestered underground for eons. The Earth, he said, is just 10,000, not 4.5 billion years old, the age widely accepted by scientists.

Then Schiller confidently declared, "You know, the more I look, the more it is just as it says in the Bible." The Book of Daniel, he told Leggett, predicts that increased earthly devastation will mark the "End Time" and return of Christ. Paradoxically, Leggett notes, many fundamentalists see dying coral reefs, melting ice caps and other environmental destruction not as an urgent call to action, but as God�s will. Within the religious right worldview, the wreck of the Earth can be seen as Good News!

. . .

One powerful fringe group, the Reconstructionists, doesn�t speak of the "End Time" at all, Bokaer notes. They put the onus for the Lord�s return on their own political activism. Reconstructionists say Christ will only return when a righteous nation acts to purge unrepentant sinners and applies biblical law to its populace. They want to spread the Gospel in a political context, making the Bible the foundation of U.S. jurisprudence. That includes an end to environmental regulation.

Reconstructionists believe the Lord will provide, and their view is laid out in America�s Providential History, a religious right high school history textbook: "The secular or socialist has a limited resource mentality and views the world as a pie... that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece," write authors Mark Beliles and Stephen McDowell. "In contrast, the Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God�s Earth. The resources are waiting to be tapped."

In another passage, the writers explain: "While many secularists view the world as overpopulated, Christians know that God has made the Earth sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people." Fossil fuels and forests are like the loaves and fishes, Reconstructionists say, miraculously multiplying for true believers.

Such misinformed viewpoints would be of little import except that, in the 1980s, they began permeating the Republican Party. That�s when Republican strategists�eager to broaden the party�s narrow base of wealthy corporate supporters�partnered with religious right leaders such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who agreed to politicize their followers and bring them into the GOP, according to Bokaer.

. . .
As it turns out, politicians who ally themselves with the religious right are also rabidly anti-environmental. Those who score high with the Christian Coalition almost invariably score low with LCV [League of Conservation Voters].

. . .

BibleBelted · 05-08-2003, 02:38 PM

Funny you mention this. This story on my own idiot fundy Senator James "Ignorant as Apple Pie" Inhofe, who just happens to be chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, just came out today in the Tulsa World.

I didn't include a link because it requires paid registration.

Tar Creek is a Superfund site which been ignored for 20 years.

Quote:

Tar Creek report softened

The new draft backs away from strong support of community relocation and prompts more controversy.

By JIM MYERS World Washington Bureau
5/8/2003

WASHINGTON -- A new draft report on Tar Creek released Wednesday backed away from an earlier version's stronger language supporting relocation of two communities in the Superfund site and building a huge wetlands in the northeast Oklahoma area.
That prompted U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe to conclude the new version "does not endorse any portion" of the plan put forth more than two years ago by former Gov. Frank Keating.
Inhofe, R-Okla., who is chairman of a key Senate panel with oversight on such issues, made it clear early on that he did not favor the Keating approach.

Rep. Brad Carson, the only Democrat in the state's congressional delegation and so far the only one to come out for relocation of Picher and Cardin residents, responded to the new version of the report by accusing officials of whitewashing it to hide the findings of a scientific panel charged with reviewing Keating's plan.

Carson indicated he will call for a congressional investigation into the report's changes.

"Let me go on record right here today to say that this process is nothing short of corrupt," Carson said.
"Washington bureaucrats have taken a document, rewritten out the scientific opinions of the experts solely in the name of politics."
Released late Wednesday by Inhofe's office, the report does not reject Keating's plan outright.

*snip*

With its main portion taking up 34 pages, the report also concluded, however, that the team could not determine the feasibility of the Keating plan because of the lack of critical information, most notably data on the area's hydrology and water chemistry.
It also pointed out other unknown factors that might put the plan's long-term viability at risk.
Even though those negative points were listed in the earlier draft version, which was dated August 2002, the new version released by Inhofe on Wednesday included a number of key changes.

*snip*

The 2002 version cites a number of reasons why the team could have come out against relocation or even ignored the issue altogether. Those reasons include the lack of federal authority and funding.
"Even so," that version stated, "the team favors a voluntary relocation for a number of reasons."
In the new version, that phrase appears to stress the idea of a resource area for the state more than the health and safety of the area residents.

"Even so, if the goal is to create a resource area, the team favors a voluntary relocation for a number of reasons."

Wording describing the reasons for relocation also appears to be weaker in the new version.
For example, "subsidence and mine shafts pose continued threat to community safety" is turned into "subsidence and mine shafts may pose threat to community safety."
A sentence questioning the communities' "long-term economic viability" is stricken completely in the new version.

In addition to Inhofe's statement, the staff on his Senate committee also put out a page-long summary that seemed to be designed to focus mostly on the report's problems with the Keating plan.
The report, the summary states, does not endorse relocation but shows potential problems with a wetlands idea as well as problems with building a huge reservoir and its possible impact on Grand Lake and potential contamination of the area's drinking water.
"As I have consistently stated, as chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Tar Creek is my top priority," Inhofe said.

*snip*

Carson, however, sounded far from ready to forget Keating's relocation idea.
"The best interests of the people of Picher and Cardin have been completely pushed aside because it is the expedient thing for the federal government," he said.
"What we have seen released today is a whitewashed report that isn't worth the paper that it is written on. This doesn't even come close to passing the smell test."
Carson, who has promised to introduce legislation to authorize voluntary buyouts, said the serious health dangers at Tar Creek "compel" relocation.

This asshole (Inhofe) doesn't even care that he's killing people from his own state.

Anyone who doubts Inhofe's commitment to Xian Reconstructionism can peruse this: Doing the Lord's Work

Grumpy · 05-08-2003, 03:20 PM

This is old news.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton is the protogee of James Watt, who was already looking forward to the Second Coming back in 1981.

manderguy · 05-12-2003, 01:18 PM

I�ve run into this on another board. I got into it with a guy about Global Climate Change, and he was unwilling to accept mountains of climate data since they went past 6k yrs ago. He also wouldn�t accept any inferential evidence. I pointed out that given his rules of evidence, we could see a set of dog tracks but not conclude that a dog had walked there.

He doesn�t care a whit about pollution, carbon, etc. Ironic since he�s also a hunter.

Anyway, we did get into later on evolution. He averaged an error every 1.5 sentences (Lady Hope, etc.). A later thread he made a comment about carbon dating dinosaur bones. That�s two errors for one sentence. There are a couple more of his ilk on the board and I�ve never met people so willing to argue, so strenuously, from a position of such profound ignorance.

hezekiah jones · 05-12-2003, 05:51 PM

... I believe very strongly that we ought to support Israel; that it has a right to the land. This is the most important reason: Because God said so. As I said a minute ago, look it up in the book of Genesis. It is right up there on the desk.

In Genesis 13:14-17, the Bible says:

The Lord said to Abram, "Lift up now your eyes, and look from the place where you are northward, and southward, and eastward and westward: for all the land which you see, to you will I give it, and to your seed forever. ..... Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it to thee.''

That is God talking.

The Bible says that Abram removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar before the Lord. Hebron is in the West Bank. It is at this place where God appeared to Abram and said, "I am giving you this land,'' -- the West Bank.

This is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of God is true.

- James M. Inhofe (R-OK), Senate Floor Statement, March 4, 2002.

Daisy · 05-13-2003, 08:40 AM

Oh, my.

The Naked Mage · 05-13-2003, 07:39 PM

The sooner we get conquered by marauding Buddhist monks, the better.

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05-08-2003, 03:20 PM	#3
Grumpy Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Alaska, USA Posts: 1,535	This is old news. Interior Secretary Gale Norton is the protogee of James Watt, who was already looking forward to the Second Coming back in 1981.

05-12-2003, 01:18 PM	#4
manderguy Senior Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Happyville, MI Posts: 751	I�ve run into this on another board. I got into it with a guy about Global Climate Change, and he was unwilling to accept mountains of climate data since they went past 6k yrs ago. He also wouldn�t accept any inferential evidence. I pointed out that given his rules of evidence, we could see a set of dog tracks but not conclude that a dog had walked there. He doesn�t care a whit about pollution, carbon, etc. Ironic since he�s also a hunter. Anyway, we did get into later on evolution. He averaged an error every 1.5 sentences (Lady Hope, etc.). A later thread he made a comment about carbon dating dinosaur bones. That�s two errors for one sentence. There are a couple more of his ilk on the board and I�ve never met people so willing to argue, so strenuously, from a position of such profound ignorance.

05-12-2003, 05:51 PM	#5
hezekiah jones Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: WI Posts: 4,357	... I believe very strongly that we ought to support Israel; that it has a right to the land. This is the most important reason: Because God said so. As I said a minute ago, look it up in the book of Genesis. It is right up there on the desk. In Genesis 13:14-17, the Bible says: The Lord said to Abram, "Lift up now your eyes, and look from the place where you are northward, and southward, and eastward and westward: for all the land which you see, to you will I give it, and to your seed forever. ..... Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it to thee.'' That is God talking. The Bible says that Abram removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar before the Lord. Hebron is in the West Bank. It is at this place where God appeared to Abram and said, "I am giving you this land,'' -- the West Bank. This is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of God is true. - James M. Inhofe (R-OK), Senate Floor Statement, March 4, 2002.

05-13-2003, 08:40 AM	#6
Daisy Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Halfway out the door... Posts: 788	Oh, my.

05-13-2003, 07:39 PM	#7
The Naked Mage Veteran Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: The Execution State, USA Posts: 5,031	The sooner we get conquered by marauding Buddhist monks, the better.

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