Friday, February 8, 2013

Why Creationists and Other Conservatives Reject Global Climate Disruption


Many of us have wondered why the same people who attack evolution also attack human-caused global climate disruption. Many evolution education organizations, from the National Center for Science Education to Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education, now address both issues. Many of us have assumed that the two issues are connected by a general conservative attack on science, and perhaps by the fact that the Republican Party happens to reject both.

But I think there is a more direct reason. It is that conservatives believe that God designed the Earth so that we humans could live in technological comfort, raise lots of grain to feed to cattle, drive big fast pickup trucks, use water for private swimming pools, and have unlimited reproduction. The fact that God did not do so is deeply disturbing to them, and they reject this fact vigorously.

The early Old Testament writings assumed that God had designed the world, and designed it for man. These Biblical writers, however, assumed that big cities, based on massive agricultural production, were evil. Their ideal was wandering shepherds like Abel and Abraham and young David, not agriculturalists like Cain and big technologically-advanced cities like Babel (Babylon), Sodom, and Gomorrah. These early writers might have agreed that God did not design the world for the kinds of things we are now doing in it.

1 comment:

  1. I actually believe God designed the earth in a specific way and gave 'man' a choice. Protect the land given or destroy it. Obviously the world was much better off without big cities and our carbon emissions. I'm no expert by far but we are destroying what we were given. Everything fits together until it doesn't. Like burning peaces to a puzzle that one day will no longer exist. It is ignorant to believe that cause and effect simply does not exist because God said so. You tear down important life to build things that will further destroy more life. When there is nothing left to save I am sure republicans will still be sitting in their homes saying "Oh, thats not a big deal God will handle it." When in reality if God did create the world for man he must have missed some ratio of common sense in the human brain.

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