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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: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Monday February 26 2018, @04:31PM (5 children)
Bizarrely, most people understand "Harry Potter" is not real, yet somehow this 2000 year old book of wang gargling gets a free pass.
Harry Potter probably isn't the greatest analogy here. A better one is The Iliad and The Odyssey. Back in Homer's day (assuming there really was a guy named "Homer" who actually wrote those stories, we don't really know for sure), the Greeks weren't terribly concerned with just how accurate their stories were with regard to reality and history. If it made a war story more interesting to throw in some drama with some gods actively fighting on both sides in the war, then that's what they did. There's no telling how much of those stories was factual; in the case of The Iliad, at least a little was, as we've found the ruins of Troy, though it's quite a bit smaller than described in the story. Concern with historical accuracy seems to be a more modern development.
The Bible isn't one book like Harry Potter; it's a collection of a bunch of different stories, written by different authors over a very large span of time. Many of them, I believe, predate Homer's works. So just like the gods and other events added into The Iliad to tell what otherwise is likely a truthful story (that there was some kind of war between the Greeks and Trojans), there's no telling what's real and what's made-up in the Bible.
Also, there's evidence now that a lot of people in pre-modern times were under the effect of various mind-altering drugs, from alcohol (they constantly drank alcoholic drinks because water couldn't be stored safely) to LSD-like hallucinogens found in contaminated grains. They didn't have an FDA or USDA back then. So there's no telling how much is made up just because someone wanted to make a good story, or because they were on an acid trip of some kind.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @05:17PM
harry potter had 7 books, or is that not new testamenty enough? i guess we can divide it into chapters or just carve out sections we want to call a book.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday February 26 2018, @06:36PM (1 child)
Regarding Homer's works, I think it's worth noting that they were elevated by many ancient Greeks to roughly the level of their holy texts. For example, when you read Plato's dialogues, written at least 300 years later, the philosophers are quoting the Iliad to each other in the same sort of tone Americans often use when quoting Genesis (the book, not Peter Gabriel). And the basic character of each of the deities involved pretty well matches the character they were given in their religious activities. Homer has a pretty good excuse, though, namely that the events he's writing about had occurred about 400 years earlier and been maintained only in oral tradition, so like all oral traditions there's sure to be some garbling, exaggeration, and mythifying real people. For classic fish-story changes, just look at how Homer describes the rocks that some of the warriors are chucking at their enemies.
As for the Bible's early stuff: There's a lot of evidence for the stories originating in Mesopotamian legend, originally collected into the Torah during the Babylonian captivity. As for the truth of it, the archaeology and records of neighboring civilizations such as the Egyptians mostly don't match up.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:30AM
Don't forget the gnome [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Monday February 26 2018, @08:09PM (1 child)
That is nice, but an average person won't likely relate to those. My point was more about the raving fandom, the willingness to believe, and sticking it in peoples faces. The technical make up is not really relevant. I might have also used examples such as Star Wars, or My Little Pony:Friendship Is Magic.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday February 26 2018, @11:15PM
One of the more interesting cases: The Church of All Worlds, founded by people inspired by Stranger in a Strange Land, as an actual real-life organization. They don't speak Martian, of course, but they did go through that book with a fine-toothed comb to find philosophical ideas.
Of course, a less interesting real-life case of a religion being founded on the backs of science fiction in modern times is Scientology.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.