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The Bible and 'Global Warming'

I can certainly understand why neo-pagans like Al Gore believe, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, man-made, catastrophic global warming is the gravest threat to the planet.

What I can't understand is why people who claim to believe in the Bible as the inerrant, inspired Word of God do so.

Even more difficult to comprehend is why some evangelical Christians are caught up in the notion that government and international action are the proper methods to fight this phantom threat.

First of all, in Genesis 8:22, we're told of a promise by God never to use global floodwaters again as a means of destroying life on Earth. In that promise, the Bible explicitly states: "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."

In other words, no more cataclysmic floods – the result Al Gore promises in the near future as a consequence of global warming. Just as importantly, there is another promise there that cold and heat shall not cease.

What does that mean?

It means God controls the world's temperature, not man. God controls the climate, not man. God controls the earth's "eco-system," not man. God controls our environment, not man.

Click the link and read the rest.

Hmmm.... at first I thought you were being satirical, ala Irked or Stephen Colbert, but I think you might actually be serious...

First, nothing about GW (or, more accurately, GCC - global climate change) controverts the Word of God in the passage cited - "seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter" will all continue, just in different places at different times. And of course, "night and day" will obviously continue! (well, except for that one time when the Sun stood still - but that was temporary, it only ceased for a day). As for "destroying life", even the worst case GCC will not directly cause much destruction of life - destruction of *property*, yes, but any loss of life due to wars, pestilence or famine will occur only through the actions (or inactions) of we humans ourselves, by either failing to try to ameliorate the consequences to humanity of GCC now, while we still may have a chance to significantly alter what inputs we are making towards it, or failing to respond effectively to those most at risk if it comes to pass. In any event, it's our own fault, not God's. I do believe Jesus had at least a few parables that addressed that - ignore His Word at your peril, I think is the point that the ecological evangelicals are trying to get across!

Finally, I might also mention that the phrases "in other words, no more cataclysmic floods" and "It means God controls the world's temperature, not man" come perilously close to pretending to know the mind of God - which I was taught in school was blasphemy.

World Net Daily's interpretation of the Bible should always be taken with a grain of salt, and One verse Biblical citations should always be expanded out to at least a whole paragraph in an effort to avoid noncontextual analysis:


Noah spent a fair amount of time at that altar. The definitions for clean and unclean creatures is found in Leviticus 11. Clean beasts, which imply land animals, are all bovines that possess a split hoof. The part about clean and unclean fowl, I've always had difficulty unraveling, but what is considered to be a fowl includes insects, and bats as well as birds:

A rather odd image comes to mind picturing Noah at an altar sacrificing grasshoppers and beetles.

Still I think that WND has it wrong with their analysis of this. God said he wouldn't do it again, but he said nothing regarding human destruction of the environment, and no one who is a proponent of global warming is suggesting that it will come to a complete inundation of all earthly land masses, now are they?

"Seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease" seems to indicate that the earth will continue to spin in orbit around the sun, and that the seasons will continue in a cycle. Cold and Heat are relative terms, that have far different meanings to those who grew up near either pole, and those who grew up near the equator; or between those who grew up in temperate coastal areas and those who grew up in hot arid deserts.

Many evangelicals believe that they have been tasked by God to be stewards of the Earth. This is what their belief in mitigating manmade environmental harm is grounded in. This runs counter to some Christian sects that believe the Earth was given to humans to consume without care of consequence. As to which, if either, is the proper version, I do not know, but in my mind, the former rings truer, because there is no Christian method of divining when the end of the world is going to happen, and it is a Christian duty to mitigate human suffering. If the Earth's environment is neglected, there is bound to be a great increase in human suffering. Even if the Earth is destined for hell in a hand basket, it does not mean that it is righteous to participate in making it a reality.

Nice catch. I did not recall that.

I was raised as a Catholic, but I spent 2 years in a Dutch Christian Reformed home, and 9 years in either Catholic or Christian schools - in all cases I was taught that we were stewards of the Earth, which comported well with my early years spent on a farm in Iowa... incidentally, I don't know if Christian Reformed are considered 'evangelicals' or not (I always thought of evangelical as an adjective, not a noun... but times change I guess). Billy Graham was a treasured icon, but the likes of Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson I am sure would have left them dumbstruck as to how they could ever claim the moniker 'christian'. My experience was that the vast majority of those Christians I knew lived their lives honestly and faithful to Jesus' teachings, who would in no case *ever* consider torture, assassination or pre-emptive war as an option - nor wasteful or profligate consumption without regard to consequence.

World Net Daily?

Isn't that a parody site?

Ignore the SIGNS
and divine warnings at your peril. What's it gonna take?

Everson kept repeating: "I don't believe this. I don't believe this."

Well, maybe now you'll believe!

coating the top of a LARGE margarita...


Indeed to all of that, 'cept "the vast majority of those Christians I knew", like any other human with any other belief (or non-belief) frame of being, stray from those beliefs when they become inconvenient. Granted, most of the straying is minor shhhtuff and the incredibly overwhelming majority do not play the fools Falwell & Robertson do. Seems the bigger the audience, the bigger the fool becomes...thus politicians seem to sidestep inconveniences & do fool very well.

The world is our to make or muck up, though it can self cleanse any old time it chooses, which may be while we are around or not.

Well, if you don't believe that the Bible is authoritative, then perhaps you can agree that there is no higher human authority than the founder of the Weather Channel itself!

Icecap

im a seventh day forecastist myself