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Thank you for that "precis", William.

I won't have to attend the lecture now.

"The environmental crisis is a crisis not of the head, but of the heart."

and

"The time has passed for new technologies to quick-fix the problem - only an attitude of attunement to the presence of spirit in all things can save us now"

Yuch. I would very gladly see any spirit angle kept out of the ecological debate, and see that debate be carried on by peoples heads, NOT their hearts. Let in the sky pixie sales men and all too easily the debate can be hijacked by whatever uninformed charlatans with their own agendas who have the respect of their even less informed followers.

That's the spirit!

Have you ever considered writing political speeches? The alliteration and cadence was wonderful in that post.

"peopleS headS, NOT their heartS ...the Sky piXie SaleS men and all too eaSily"

Followed by a wonderful use of iambs and anapests. Bravo!

(-;

Actually it was Anapests, then Iambs

Peoples heads - da da dum
Not their hearts - da da dum

- anapests

the SKY piXIE sales MEN and ALL too EASilY deBATE can BE hi JACKED

- all iambic.
A remarkable use of metric feet in prose. With rhythym like this, who needs arguments?
I knew an A Level in English Lit would come in handy sooner or later.
GV

A retunr to animism - that will really do it. Maybe some human sacrifices to appease the fire god. Catch a grip.

Very impressive Graham, although with all that talk of rhythm I fear you are demonstrating too much heart, and of course 'heart' tells us 'nathin'.

I wonder who'll be first to blame our ecological problems on Christianity, any predictions!

PK, read William's piece again and ask yourself what the word 'heart' means in this instance. Surely it is pretty clear, "The problem is not that we do not know how to stop climate change, but rather that we lack the inner strength to redirect our culture and economy toward a sustainable future."

The usual pile of ecological lies and trash. The biggest threat to the environment is overpopulation. The earth has about 6 times as many people as it can sustain indefinitely in reasonable comfort given the current technology. Ecologists, Christian or otherwise refuse to talk about massive population reduction as the only hope of saving the environment. Every person alive wants to live in the same level of comfort and convenience as those in the most advanced countries enjoy. But as population continues to grow, if the waste and biproducts of human civilization are not to damage the environment beyond repair, each of us will have to live poorer and poorer lives. There is no rational excuse for not facing this fact, the problem is one of the head, not the heart. Look at how Europeans screamed every time some of their gas was shut off in the winter by the Russians. That is only a slight taste of what would be in store for all of us all the time if the kinds of reductions scientists tell us are necessary to avert disaster resulting from climate change are not instituted given our current population and technology. So called alternate technologies; wind, solar, biomass, even nuclear can only make marginal differences which will not affect the ultimate outcome. That it is otherwise is a delusion which should be dispelled so that the real challenges can be faced and the hard choices made. Should massive energy use be instituted in places like the United States, it is likely that not only would the world's economy collapse and never recover, there would be massive worldwide famines resulting from severe cutbacks in food production, processing, and distribution which is very energy intensive. Let Mark Wallace put that in his pipes and smoke it.

I'd say you guys are going to enjoy Mark Wallace's contributions on Sunday morning. He'll be joining us to talk about the theology and ethics of the current flu panic.

Seems a bit confusing to title this piece - Christianity in an ecological age - and then to talk about a return to animism.

Animism is a totally different religion to Christianity!!??!!

Would have been more accurate to title it - Animism in an ecological age.

I am more than slightly sceptical that climate change is threatening the end of the world for mankind.

Within a generation we have also been fed similar lines about the threats from nuclear war, a man made ice age and of course the ozone holes.

Can our experience of living through these scares teach us anything about what our approach should be to climate change?


If we are speaking about a Christian (biblical) approach to climate change, I suggest we start at the following points;-

1) IN genesis man was given a mandate to rule over and take care of creation.

2) In the New Testament Christ tells of increasing natural disasters as evidence that his return is coming closer.

3) In his epistles Peter clearly says that the world we currently know will eventually be fully burned up and replaced with a new one.

4) Top of the priorities of Christ in the New Testament were about extending the Kingdom of God in the hearts of men and making disciples of all nations. He also spoke lots of helping those without food and clothes.

At this moment in time my personal opinion is that we would be much better spending huge amounts of money on measures we know will directly protect people from environmental disasters rather than uncertain measures to "stop climate change".

We could also divert some of this money to simple hygiene, vaccination and nutritional measures for the poorest people in the world.

The problem is, if you buy into the climate change viewpoint, you have most likely also swallowed the idea that God created a world which cannot support the people he put on it and encouraged to spread out and mulitply.

We never ask what could be done with all the food we hoard and throw out or hold in in butter mountains etc. And what about the measures we are currently taking in the EU to actually fully halt all food production in the most technologically developed nations, which are best equipped to do it.

Following on from this, climate change devotees are then quite likely to be sympathetic to abortion, sterilsiation and euthanasia as population control helpers. And they would appear to be more concerned about "climate change" and not to be excessively fussed about tackling war, famine and disease in the developing world and the impact on real people there. we are talking obvious national/international comparative priorities, here, please note.

So long as we are nice and safe in the west with our cars, jobs, TVs and overeating diseases, we can relax and blot out our consciences on these matters.

In my view God puts people before things, including the planet. The world will pass away but people have eternal souls, IMHO. But in this animistic worldview, the planet comes first as it has souls and people can therefore be sacrificed to it as of secondary importance.

I suggest that many people will not have consciously joined all these dots but that they have drunk in deep drafts of this zetgeist and may be too drunk on it to think objectively about the matter.

The stronger the heated personal attacks from such people, the less able they are to critique the matter, I suggest.

OT

we could also compare out motivation to question and challenge the massive debt grips western institutions hold on the economies of the developing world which strangle their economies and limit possibilities for development.

But then again, this could be seen as another very effective population control method, at least by default.

PS I fully accept I have not refuted the factual claims of those who claim that climate change is created by main, But I have driven a stake through the heart of any argument that the argument above is easily compatible with a biblical worldview.

Sometimes we need to stop and ask what vested interests there are in such scare stories.

Obviously there are significant real international threats to safety and security and the following groups have a legitimate role to play in tackling them.

But do any of us have any suspicion that the following groups might also exaggerate a little bit sometimes in the interests of increased empires, profits and power and influence?

Scare stories might conceivably be exploited as follows;-


-Experts raise their media profiles and funding opportunties
-Politicans can use the fear to make people more amenable to change in order to further their other agendas ...and convince voters how much they are needed.
-Business can come with new patents and new processes/services to exploit the new threat/fear
-The media can gain more viewers/readers as it hypes up the idea that we are all about to die.
-Religious leaders looking to increase their influence, followers and income might just occasionally jump on band wagons ever so slightly.


Maybe I am wrong, maybe I should just trust people, politicans and the media more!

;-)

OT