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In a recent interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Scott Pruitt, EPA Chief, said that the Bible tells people to use all the resources available to us, including fossil fuels:
"The biblical world view with respect to these issues is that we have a responsibility to manage and cultivate, harvest the natural resources that we've been blessed with to truly bless our fellow mankind".
According to Vox: "But as far as his biblical assertion goes, Pruitt's words reflect a wider trend among American evangelicals, who largely have not embraced scientific thought on environmentalism or global warming."
The Trump administration has used a variety of excuses to legitimize its record-setting rollbacks on environmental protections: calling global warming a hoax, or arguing that the economic consequences of increased regulation would outweigh their benefit.
The latest justification? The Bible.
In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, a media outlet that also seems to double as a propaganda arm of the Trump administration, Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt said his Christian convictions led him to conclude that America should use gas and coal freely because natural resources exist purely for man's benefit.
[...] That's why evangelical groups have, therefore, been historically resistant to environmentalist causes. Creationist lobbying groups frequently fund initiatives like the Louisiana Science Education Act, which mandates a "balanced" (and climate change-denying) approach to teaching environmental issues in public schools.
Please read the linked article as it explains the connection between contempt for science and protecting the environment and the beliefs of evangelicals.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday February 26 2018, @03:32PM (6 children)
Most Bible-thumping Christians I've met are more interested in holding that book of theirs than they are in opening it and actually reading it. And when they do, they are usually reading what us modern Americans would consider a confusing and archaic translation from the original Hebrew and Greek, namely the King James version completed in 1611. Conveniently, though, their leaders have provided annotations that help them interpret what they're reading "correctly" (i.e. in accordance with their beliefs, which may or may not resemble the actual meaning of the text), and organized study groups so they can focus on those bits they want people to focus on.
And of course that means ignoring all the sections that don't say what they want their followers to think about, in confidence that they'll be so busy contemplating the passages they want their followers thinking about that they won't bother to read the rest of it. And they teach that other translations and commentaries are bad and wrong, so their followers won't listen to anybody telling them that the Bible doesn't actually say what they think it says.
Or as Penn Jilette put it, nothing will make you an atheist faster than reading the damned Bible.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0, Troll) by VLM on Monday February 26 2018, @04:07PM (3 children)
There is a symmetry in that leftist/progressive/marxist thinking works the same way with their masses.
Its really opposite sides of the same coin.
As a general rule across political boundaries, even across civilizations, all functionally illiterate populations naturally evolve a charismatic leader to middle-man the mass illiteracy into personal power.
The original alchemy, turning lead into gold. Nobody is immune. Makes you wonder about the implementation of Hammurabi's code, maybe the weird implementation was a hack to make themselves immune. They were fairly successful, for awhile.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Monday February 26 2018, @04:16PM (1 child)
There is a symmetry in that leftist/progressive/marxist thinking works the same way with their masses.
Not really: there's no "holy book" here, just whatever line of thinking is currently popular. That can change, and it's open for debate, so over time it does change. With religion, you're always stuck with that holy book which never really changes, so the only change comes through changing interpretations.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday February 27 2018, @01:53PM
An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global Warming
A People's History of the United States
Yeah about that... As a trivial example a few edits here and a few there and suddenly priests are no longer allowed to marry. Or papal infallibility which was kinda a coup against the college of cardinals.
Not seeing it as different as you'd think...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @06:17AM
If you want some kind of analogy, try neocon economists and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @05:39PM
'EULA Christians. Folks for whom the Bible is like a software license. Not to be read or understood. Just assume that you know what it means, scroll down to the bottom, and click "I Agree."' -- Roger Strong, Techdirt comment
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Monday February 26 2018, @07:55PM
Obviously. Because otherwise the Euphrates would be filled with Bibles. [biblehub.com] :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.