Understanding Christianity and Global Climate Change

Letting God just sort it out doesn’t even make sense from a Christian point of view.  I am told by Christian acquaintances that if we weren’t allowed to make huge screw-ups, we wouldn’t have free will, and apparently that’s something that divides some religious groups, the whole free will vs. determinism thing. So, here is my question for Christian free will types: why would God NOT want us to improve our lot on earth? Isn’t that what turkey fryers and remote controls are all about? I don’t hear any Christians (other than the luddite sects, of course) complaining about those. Combating climate change is exactly the same thing. Why wouldn’t Christians want clean air and water? It’s already dirty. Why not clean it up, you know, just to … clean it up?
 
Here’s my other thought: Isn’t combating climate change the compassionate things to do? Christians will spend billions and send thousands from their congregation to help the less privileged. What a gift combating climate change would be for them!! Those who live on the margins will be, as usual, affected by climate change the worst. They should stop questioning it and help fight it as an act of compassion for the poor.

I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but man, I read stuff like this and then I just need to vent.

As a former fundamentalist, allow me to put on my Fundie Hat and take a stab at that for you.

The real point of missions is not to alleviate their earthly suffering. It’s to alleviate their immortal suffering, using physical aid as the vehicle to earn their trust and attention. To give a man medical help, a safe home, and an education profits him nothing if you don’t convert him to Christianity. Once his immortal soul is secured, further physical aid is to the glory of God, not to the pleasure of the man.

It is a belief among most  fundamentalists that the world is going to implode Very Soon Now and that trying to fix it up is a fool’s errand against God’s will. (It does not matter that Christians have been waiting with baited breath for literally two thousand years for the Very Soon Now. It’s DEFINITELY Very Very Very Soon.) Hence, the devastation about to be unleashed on marginalized peoples is, if anything, an opportunity to send in the missionaries to mop up the frightened and desperate souls. People are a lot more likely to cling to a metaphorical life raft of the afterlife when they see their own death looming by literal floods and plagues.

*takes off the Fundie Hat*

… it hurts when I do that.

Religion is a means to control the masses. Suffer on earth in order to achieve a glorious afterlife. Why would religious minded people want to eliminate the fear of famine, natural disasters, wars, etc when that’s the fuel that powers a good majority of prayer?

Thank you, Melissa, for sharing your first hand perspective. It is something I would never have had the opportunity to hear of any other way.

Yeah, perhaps she doesn’t understand math either.  

Either way, she’s wrong on both counts, as the land surface (plant and animal life) is actually the greatest source of atmospheric CO2 on the planet, with the oceans as a close second, and human emissions a distant third (just over 3%, not a fraction of a fraction, of the total atmospheric source).  

The bitch of it is, the land and oceans have achieved an equilibrium with the atmosphere over the last >6000 (ya know, at least) years, and the only thing causing a problem is that pesky unnatural human contribution.

Correlation does not necessarily mean causation. The world may be warming but there is no real evidence that humans were the cause. And the “equilibrium” has not been THAT constant over written history. Heating and cooling periods have often happened thru written history.
Just saying.

Because they are selfish a-holes. Hence the reason why conservatism and fundie Christianity were so easily combined into the Religious Right, a group of conservative Christians who really don’t care, because the “big picture” is to get as many folks converted as possible, regardless of how it is done. Seeing as we cant, at least not in the USA, yet, run around and murder anyone who wont convert (like the good old days in many of these folks minds), they must follow the law, so they change the “message” infiltrate, US Congress and school boards, to get as many people as possible to follow them. They know their religion teaches that mankind is flawed, selfish and cruel and they feed on that to show the people the only way things will get better, in their minds, that nothing else matters, other than the spreading of the belief and blind faith in their god.

Mitt Romney is kind of right, we will find out what man’s real impact is in 10-50 years from now. Unfortunately the way we’ll find out is by watching New York City become submerged in water among other places.

It’s doubtful that any of the candidates will soften their skeptical stance, but how much longer can evidence be denied?

Just up until scientists are all completely agreed that it’s now far too late to do anything whatever about (which some say already).

At which point, they’ll be attacked by the former denialists for not having been less equivocal about it before.

We saw the same in the collapse of the Northern Cod Fishery. Except the devastation from this one will affect billions.

Keep telling yourself such nonsense.   Kinda contradicted by data on charitable donations.

The last two sentences of this article, “”The Case of the Curious Climate Covenant” ( http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/the_case_of_the_curious_climat.html ) are a pair of tough questions:  “So which is the bigger sin? 
Failing to stop a so-called global warming crisis which has increasing
credibility problems with its underlying science assessments, or
breaking the 9th Commandment in order to be sure scientists’ criticisms aren’t taken seriously?”

If you were talking about Jews instead of Christians then I’d be calling you an anti-Semite, because you would be.