What I think is nuts is that it has taken this long for Christian groups to begin to understand that a concern for God's creation does not amount to nature worship.

I simply stopped sharing my views in church more than a decade ago because I was viewed with suspicion.

"What I think is nuts is that it has taken this long for Christian groups to begin to understand that a concern for God's creation does not amount to nature worship."

I've often wondered why it has taken so long myself. But it looks like the religious youth has helped in starting a movement towards conservation/environmentalism, like the group in your post has.

I think that if Jesus was around today, he would be an environmentalist, lover of nature and animals, and have a small carbon footprint. I doubt if he would be 300 lbs, shootin' off guns in his backyard and trashing the earth (just my opinion as a non-christian).

He just strikes me as having been a good steward of the earth, and why is that such a bad thing?

I think it's "guilt by association." Many environmentalists introduce what appears to be a religious element into their views--sometimes a strong pantheistic bent--and the fear is that a robust interest in environmental issues must somehow implicate such a view.

But the simple truth is that it doesn't. Theists have splendid reasons for being environmentalists. Indeed, I am willing to argue (and for two cents I'll do it) that theists have a better rationale for environmentalism than non-theists.

On top of all of this, so many religious right-wingers also buy into the whole Rush Limbaugh version of conservativism. My dad loved to listen to Rush and could never understand why I thought him a bag of hot air.

This Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation was originally drafted in 1994. That's when I originally signed on. Since then, the list of signatories has grown significantly, and it includes some very familiar names, such as N.T. Wright, John Stott, J.I. Packer, Kenneth Kantzer, Alister McGrath, Mark Noll, Cornelius Plantinga, N ick Wolterstorff, and John Polkinghorn. I like the company I keep here!

“400+ scientists or 44 Southern Baptists? Take your pick.”

"What is it about major Christian denominations that leads them, inevitably and inexorably, into error?"

"I am hopeful that 'cooler heads' (pardon the pun) will prevail on this issue."

Why did the SBC reverse its June 2007 position that questioned the scientific belief of some that humans are largely to blame for global warming and that increased regulation of greenhouse gases will hurt the poor?

"The bottom line [$$$$] is that the mega-churches have to retain their memberships to stay relevant, and for that they have to stay in tune with their [brainwashed] congregations."

The green leader is the 25-year-old son of a former president of the convention who had an epiphany while attending a class at a Baptist theological seminary: "The Lord spoke to me in that class through my theology professor, who said we receive revelation from God not only through His word, the Bible, but also through His creation, nature. When we destroy His creation, it is no different to tearing a page from the Bible."

[I'd close that seminary if this is indicative of theological soundness.]

"Still, many powerful Southern Baptist leaders and agencies did not sign the declaration, including the convention’s influential political arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission." [There's some sanity left in the world!]

Baptists Pile Aboard Global Warming Bandwagon, Even as the Wheels Come Off

"It's not just the Vatican hedging its bets by buying into the moonbat quasi-religion that is displacing Christianity."

"Ironically, this comes as evidence that the climate isn't even warming — much less warming because of human activity — is becoming impossible to ignore."

"Unless Baptist leaders have received a holy revelation that Al Gore is something other than a con artist, they would be well advised to stick to spiritual matters and leave deliberately crippling our economy to Democrats and John McCain."

Global Warming Hoax Has Been Good to Al Gore

“GLOBAL WARMING? IT’S THE COLDEST WINTER IN DECADES”

“Evergreen Gore’s New TV Ad Is Holocaustic”

"When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power." – Alston Chase

***“Why Politicized Science is Dangerous.” (Michael Crichton)***

“Global Warming Tax Hikes Headed Your Way”

"These inconvenient facts [that earth did warm slightly over the last quarter century as it emerged further from the Little Ice Age but catastrophic climate change and dominant human influence are over-hyped myths] have forced alarmists to rely on computer models that generate Frankenclime monsters realistic enough to scare people into believing climate Armageddon is nigh."

“Southern Baptists to Save the World (Not Like Matthew 28, Though)”

“Such stridency [homosexuality like other sexual immorality is sinful and Jesus is "THE Way," not one among many] is just out of step with these modern times, and nonbelievers throughout America let them know how wrong they are. The idea of a Creator God setting the rules is just too old school. God needed to get with the times, and the Baptists were standing in the way. Why couldn't they just see that Jesus was a nice man who told people to pay their taxes and give to the poor (and if you vote for the right ‘liberal’ you can do both at the same time?”

“The maxim ‘Look before you leap’ is prudent. The panicked ‘Do something!’ is not. And a leap of faith is Biblically prudent only when that faith is in God, not men.”

[See the the Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, signed by 100 scientists and economists, including IPCC members.]

See Personal Faith, Public Policy by Harry R. Jackson, Jr., & Tony Perkins (Abortion, Cloning, Stem Cell Research, Euthanasia, Global Warming).

Genesis 8:22 clearly reminds us that God alone controls the world's temperature and climate, not man: "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."

__________________________

8-week fetus ("young one") -- Only 30-32 more weeks to go!

“Women who are experiencing an unplanned pregnancy also deserve unplanned joy.” (Feminists for Life)

Abortion stops a beating heart!

“400+ scientists or 44 Southern Baptists? Take your pick.”

Soooo Denise. I have to ask. Since we are NOW going with the scientific method (because it fits your argument du jure):

What do you feel about Creationism versus Evolution?

I am on pins and needles (and quite a bit of pet dander) waiting

Cheers,

Kevin "Hack" King
(anyone want two dogs???)

FEELINGS have NOTHING to do with the scientific method!

Here is an explanation of the scientific method:

"Scientists [who are INTELLIGENT beings] use the scientific method to search for cause and effect relationships in nature. In other words, they DESIGN an experiment so that changes to one item cause something else to vary in a predictable way [vs. random chance, a key component of Darwinism]."

Science based on the scientific method involves repeatable experimentation and observations in the present; however, historical events cannot be checked scientifically in the present. Although scientists can make educated guesses (hypotheses) about the past and can make inferences from things like fossils and rocks, scientists cannot directly test their conclusions because they cannot repeat the past. Both creationists and evolutionists have the same evidence; but in order to draw conclusions about what the evidence means, each uses his own worldview — a person’s most basic beliefs about the nature of reality. Since they have different starting assumptions, creationists and evolutionists interpret the same evidence to mean very different things. Both are using their beliefs about the past to interpret the evidence in the present.

Since the ORIGIN of life was not observed (except by God, whom atheistic Darwinists deny the existence of) and cannot be repeated, then it is outside of the bounds of the scientific method, which allows no room for divine revelation or intervention.

What experiments have turned inorganic NON-LIVING matter into LIVING matter (abiogenesis or spontaneous generation)? Have scientists ever CREATED a living cell, which is infinitely more COMPLEX than Darwin ever imagined, from NON-LIVING matter? But if they did, that would prove INTELLIGENT DESIGN because the scientific method of experimentation they used involves choices (design) based on reasoning, which is intelligence.

Most of the founding fathers of modern scientific disciplines were Bible-believing creationists: belief in a recent literal 6-day creation. The historical basis of modern science depended on the assumption (presupposition) that the universe was made by a rational Creator. An orderly universe makes perfect sense only if it were made by an orderly Creator. However, if atheism or polytheism is true, then there is no way to deduce from these belief systems that the universe is (or should be) orderly. (Johannes Kepler believed in the orderliness of the Creator and knew that the universe would reflect God’s orderliness. This truth helped Kepler discover God’s laws that govern how the planets move.) If there are laws of nature (such as gravity), then it logically follows that there is a Law-Giver. The only way to find out how His creation works is to experiment, rather than to rely on man-made philosophies, as did the ancient Greeks.

Sir Isaac Newton, who co-discovered calculus, formulated the laws of motion and gravity, computed the nature of planetary orbits, invented the reflecting telescope, and made a number of discoveries in optics, wrote:

“This most beautiful system [an organized array of individual elements and parts forming and working as a unit, necessitating harmony and order] of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.… This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called ‘Lord God’ or ‘Universal Ruler’.… The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect.”

“Can it be by accident? … Whence is it that the eyes of all sorts of living creatures are transparent to the very bottom & the only transparent members in the body, having on the outside an hard transparent skin, & within transparent juices with a crystalline Lens in the middle & a pupil before the Lens all of them so truly shaped & fitted [designed] for vision, that no Artist can mend them? Did blind chance know that there was light & what was its refraction & fit the eyes of all creatures after the most curious manner to make use of it? These & such like considerations always have & ever will prevail with mankind to believe that there is a Being who made all things & has all things in his power & who is therefore to be feared.”

Since God designed creatures to reproduce "according to their kinds" (Genesis 1), we can know for certain that birds will produce only bird offspring; fish, fish; snakes, snakes; apes, apes; people, people (a comfort to every parent); etc. Experiments with fruit flies have produced genetic mutations; however, after billions of generations, they are still fruit flies. They have not evolved into another creature.

“For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them.” (Exodus 20:11)

"Adam named his wife Eve because she would become the mother of all the living.... Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain."

BTW, the correct French word that you were trying to use is jour (meaning day), as in soup du jour (of the day). Jour is the root of journey, originally meaning a day's travel.

How did I pivot 180 degrees, and what does evolution have to do with global warming? I'm sorry that you've been left "on pins and needles" for so long.

___________________________________

Sir Isaac Newton: “I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by men who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.”

"We are now beyond a critical turning point in the debate: those who continue to ignore the threat and its causes, or invoke half-baked arguments to confuse and obstruct, will be doing the greatest disservice imaginable to current and future generations."

– Marthinus van Schalkwyk, South African Minister of Environmental Affairs

Minister van Schalkwyk, meet Denise Conner.
___________
Diagnosing Denise

Enjoy!

__________________________________

8-week fetus ("young one") -- Only 30-32 more weeks to go!

“Women who are experiencing an unplanned pregnancy also deserve unplanned joy.” (Feminists for Life)

Maybe the Minister should be a whole lot more concerned with the fact that around 20% of South Africans are HIV+ and a couple hundred thousand of those are children. They have a severe epidemic and he's worried about possible climate change?

van Schallkwyk also has zero background as a scientist or anything else besides high school. He's a career politician who was rewarded for aligning his pro-apartheid New National Party with the ANC. Exactly what does this guy know about global warming that sets him apart from the everyday blogger or man in the street?

I know you can find a better mouthpiece for the global warming argument.

I'm not presenting the South African minister as any sort of expert, your accusations to the contrary notwithstanding. He just happened to say exactly what I was feeling about this whole anti-global warming nonsense. Face it, when the Southern Baptists (about the most anti-science group in America today) embrace the theory of global warming, it's essentially a settled matter.

I noticed your situational indignation didn't extend to the FetusFlusher's "experts" referenced in her post: the usual motley assortment of bellicose columnists from the Townhall.com sty.
___________
Diagnosing Denise

I noticed your situational indignation didn't extend to the FetusFlusher's "experts" referenced in her post: the usual motley assortment of bellicose columnists from the Townhall.com sty.

I just ignore those links because I'm familiar with what they are going to be: completely slanted, anti-intellectual, and not worth the bother to read.

Touché!
___________
Diagnosing Denise