Now these Evangelical Christians I like

Maybe I should have titled it as ECs do something I like (for a change).
If you want to start a thread in GD go ahead although I’m not sure what you are debating.

Can an EC be an environmentalist?

Can one be an envrionmentalist for the wrong reasons?
I think pro-envrionmental groups should try and get the support of the ECs for legislation. They (the ECs) have some political clout and I see no reason to not want to use their clout to get things done.

I’m debating the validity of a group advocating science-based solutions to complex problems while their dogma obviates a belief in the scientific method.

You mean like religious organizations setting up hospitals and universities?

Hate to break it to you, UncleBeer, but the world just isn’t as black and white as you are setting it out to be. People live lives that are filled with contradictions.

This thread is better suited for Great Debates.

I’ll move it for you.

Cajun Man
for the SDMB

Plenty of “scientists” try to use their credentials to pursue some wacked-out theory far from their areas of expertise. Why can’t there be examples of the opposite: folks who do not believe in the scientific method in one instance who nonetheless can see that the evidence points toward a correct course of action in another instance, if indeed correct it be.

Believing in a 6000-yr-old Earth does not prevent one from correctly perceiving trends that happen in years or decades.

Because by denying scientific method, and scientific evidence that conflicts with their dogma, they’ve left themselves no usable means of judging the correctness of a particular course of action. Their very means of making quantitative judgments is impaired - and thus, suspect.

True. But that doesn’t mean I can’t argue about it, does it? :wink:

Shouldn’t the burden of proof be on you, rather than relying on pre-emptive victim-playing?

I think, although I’m not sure, that ECs still visit the doctor and will take drugs and have surgery, albeit with a lot of praying to ‘help’. So they haven’t revoked all science.

No, it doesn’t. Frankly, your understanding of literal interpretation is pathetically simplistic.

First off “evangelical” does NOT equate to “fundamentalist.” That’s a huge, enormous brush. Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter were evangelicals (well, at least they went to evangelical churches and selected evangelicals as spiritual advisors).

Secondly, literal interpretation does not, not, NOT preclude interpretations of some passages, even for the most rabid of fundamentalists. No one thinks “I am the bread of life” means Jesus was literally baked leavened flour.

It is COMPLETELY possible to believe in a literal, inerrant scripture and still hold that parts of it are fictitious: when Jesus tells parables, nobody seriously thinks he’s narrating historical facts. In the same way, there are plenty of very conservative theologians who will say that the entire books of Job or Jonah are fiction.

Some would even say that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are metaphor. I’ll grant that most evangelicals wouldn’t go that far; but the point is that that in and of itself it is NOT a contradiction of inerrancy. The importance of identifying what genre a given portion of scripture (and the fact that there can be some difference of opinion) is one of the most basic things you learn in a hermenuetics class.

Finally, even those who regard Genesis as a literal, historical account are NOT wedded to a YEC. There are numerous ways of reconciling them, all of which I am sure have come up at some point in the interminable creation vs evolution threads (I assume; I don’t read them). In my education at two very conservative Bible colleges, most of the time Young Earth Creationism was brought up, the majority of faculty made it clear they did not hold to YEC.

Hurm.

  1. Young Earth Creationist, destructive/apocalyptic subtype: "When we kill all the wildlife, Jeezus[sup][/sup] will have to come back! Whoo!"*

  2. Young Earth Creationist, conservation-as-religious-duty subtype: “I must protect all of Creation as part of my reverence for the Will of God.”

  3. Old Earth (or Young Earth) Creationist, gnostic/otherworldly/indifferent: “This world is not my home, my eyes are only on things above; so don’t give me grief about the damned whales.”

  4. Old Earth Creationist, ecologically minded: “Yeah, we believe in God, & heaven & all that; but the Earth is a lot older than Moses knew, & we have a responsibility to future generations. So lose the end-of-the-world fantasies, & show some respect for the planet God gave you!”
    Framing Christianity in conservationist terms sounds like an improvement to me. Don’t blast improvement for not being perfection.

  • Jeezus, of course, being to Yeshua as the Hollywood idea of “Ghenghiss Kahn” is to Jengiz Khan: totally freaking mythicized & reinterpreted by the ignorant. :wink:

Jeezus Khan?

Okay. I’ll stipulate that not all evangelicals are YEC advocates and that none of them are totally divorced of the scientific method. That still leaves these folks in the untenably awkward position of selecting some random point in time they’re attempting to preserve because they believe it to be God’s will.

The dichotomy I see here lies in the fact that approximately 90% of the species of organisms that have ever existed on earth are now extinct - the vast majority of which have been extinct far longer than human history extends. Would this not mean that God’s will is actually that species do eventually become extinct (presumably in order make room for newer species to evolve) over time? Drawing this to its ultimate conclusion, are these people not actually attempting to thwart God’s will by preserving this particular moment in time?

Oh, Bible puns for $500, Bob! The question to which that’s the answer is, “Who can save us?” :smiley:

I’ll be sorely disappointed if this doesn’t yield a Trekkish scream–I think you all know the one of which I speak.

[QUOTE]

I don’t think they were planning on decideing exactly what should be done about global warming and our environmental issues, any more than an atheist with no scientific background would. They are simply trying to bring attention to it as a moral issue. I don’t think God wrote a book either, but if a person wants to help me feed the hungry or house the homless or protect the enviorment it wouldn’t seem very smart to turn them away because we disagree on a few issues.

I know I don’t agree with Sojourners on every detail but I’m glad they’re trying to confront the religous right.

OK. here’s my answer to that, & my problem with your attitude toward conservation:

The person who tries to preserve the world as it was 6000 yrs ago makes a lot more sense & does a lot less harm than the person who willfully drives species to extinction on the theory that they’d be extinct in 2 million yrs anyway. It’s not right to say that just because nothing lasts forever, it’s okay to destroy anything now. 200 years is not 2 million. Given that nothing is forever, the difference in finite amounts is the real moral importance that we have. Reducing the life of a genus to 100 000 years, when it would have otherwise been 700 000 years and given rise to a new life-form is destructive in the long term.

For the likely life of our civilization, conservation of a standardized “Creation” actually works toward intelligent eco-policy. Given the slow speed of evolution, looking at our present ecosystem as a set order that will last for about half a million years (& Xtianity will be extinct before then anyway) corresponds more closely to reality than thinking that we can burn off most biodiversity & it’ll regenerate “soon enough.”

I see in your argument either a misconception or an evil:
The misconception is that the existence of macroevolution removes any moral responsibility to the bio-system, because it is inconstant. This is the “a little learning is a dangerous thing” problem.
The evil is in thinking that since the Earth will eventually die anyway, it doesn’t matter what we kill on it now. This is like poisoning a child simply because she will one day die.

::sigh::

I think what UB is trying to say is validating one’s position using a shitty excuse for “evidence” is a bad policy, whether the end result is desireable or not. One could use fundie logic to justify the domestication of all “useful” species and indifference toward the rest, as the OT clearly states the Earth is there for Man to dominate and eke out a living from. Given the myriad points of view contained in the Bible, one could cite scripture to justify about any damn policy one likes; and reliance upon scriptural inerrancy has spoken for itself in terms of results. I think global warming is a problem, but I wouldn’t want these yahoos as my spokespersons. Empirical evidence is good enough for solving ecological problems, and, so long as people don’t rely completely on some-or-other purely ideological or canonical bunk, there’s a glimmer of hope it can be used to build consensus among even <gasp> conservatives and liberals.

Cal Thomas slammed them today… So they must be doing something that scares the neocons.

Please. Enlighten us all. Just what is my “attitude” towards conservation? Where have I said anything about my own practices or beliefs about conservation efforts?