Creationist = Anti-Environmentalist?

Hi, Nuggin.I raised that question a while back, and some while later came across news stories indicating some evangelicals were having conversion experiences about the environment. Here's the later post about those environmentalist evangelicals: By their fruits shall ye know them.I think those well-intending evangelicals have maintained their active interest, but they come under heavy fire from others who see them as offering comfort to the enemy.I suspect the root of this resistance is the right wing political bargain between oligarchy and theocracy.

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The correlation between creationists and opposition to a strong concern for the environment is based on more than personal impressions.For the past several decades, the most powerful political coalition in the U.S. has been evangelical Christians and wealthy corporate interests, i.e., the Republican Party.The corporatists have been happy to sign-off on the evangelical's socially conservative agenda--gay bashing, race baiting, foreigner hating--in return for the votes which allowed the most wealthy persons and corporations to become even more breathtakingly wealthy.Working class and middle class incomes have stagnated since the 1970s since the liberal Nixon left office, but Reagan, et al. were able to distract attention from this with jingoism and the bashing, baiting and hating they did so well. Tax cuts for the wealthy were sold on the basis that "it's your money," while in fact the tax cuts have overwhelmingly benefitted the wealthy.Since Reagan and his "acid rain is bee piss" and "trees are the biggest contributors to air pollution," the Republican neo-conservative coalition has opposed even the most commensensical environmental actions, and demonized those who disagreed as "liberal tree-huggers" who were going to take our jobs away. Instead, those jobs were sent overseas where environmental controls are even more lax and wages even lower.The neo-con coalition not only opposed Clean Air and Clean Water, they actively sought to despoil areas precious to environmentalists because they were precious to environmentalists. Opening National Parks to jet skis, snowmobiles, and ATVs; drilling for a trivial amount of oil in our last great wilderness in Alaska; logging old growth forests on national lands; and allowing West Virginia's magic mountains to be decapitated by Big Coal, their downslope streams filled with rubble and slurry; proposing to allow high levels of mercury emissions...the list is long and dirty.The equation is clear: evangelicals and corporate interests have made the Republican Party a potent force for the past few decades.The Republican Party has opposed nearly every initiative intended to protect our air, water and land.In recent years, when a small group of evangelicals announced their concern for the environment, the response from major evangelical leaders was instant and sharp: expressing concern for the environment is giving aid and comfort to the enemy.No, we probably won't find a major survey correlating creationist beliefs and anti-environmentalism. But recent social and political history is clear, and the recent response to the minority evangelical concern for the Earth is even more so.It is always amusing to hear a creationist in an evidence-demanding frenzy, but in this case we need only point to history. If the correlation between creationists and anti-environmentalism were specious, the creationists would be swelling this thread with evidence of their deep love and concern for our good earth.I assure you that they cannot.AbE: To view some interesting surveys that show growing concern among religious Americans over our deteriorating environment, including global warming, just Google "survey shows evangelical environmental." The past antagonism to environmentalism and the current tectonic shift are both well documented. You can fool some of the people some of the time...Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.

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Weren't you the whiner recommending suspension for somebody a few posts ago?Maybe we can find a creationist exception for you.

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I don't think fairness requires moderators incapable of rational thought, but I do think we need more moderator tolerance of nonrational thought. Most of the time most people operate in that mode, and there is much about intuitive, nonrational thought that is functional.I have great confidence that refutation of the irrational can be supplied when needed. We have that resource in plenty.Sometimes, when I listen to scientists talking to the religious, I hear American tourists shouting slow English because the locals don't understand an outside language.You are one of the best explainers we have here. You would make an excellent moderator.

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Hi, AdminNosy.I suggested earlier to Nuggin that the involvement of evangelical Christians in a political coalition that has opposed environmental stewardship and supported environmental plunder is sufficient to support the charges in the OP. I still believe that is true.In particular, I sympathize with his outrage: after witnessing the contempt for environmental concerns that evangelical Christians displayed for decades, it is galling to listen to denials.Let me point out that while their participation in the Republican coalition may center on other social issues--e.g., abortion, opposition to gay marriage, etc.--that does not absolve them of responsibility for the other actions that their support makes possible.Hitler was elected in complex historical circumstances--but we do not absolve those German citizens who enabled the Holocaust merely because they were primarily concerned about, say, the devastating effects of WWI reparations on the German economy.Shall we think that evangelicals have always loved the environment, but they loved beating up homosexuals more?It is important to note that a sea change is stirring among evangelicals. Beginning quietly in the 1990s with the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, which coordinates efforts by Jews, Catholics, mainstream Protestants and evangelicals, and picking up steam with the Evangelical Environmental Network (the folks who brought us "What would Jesus drive?"), attitudes among evangelicals toward environmental issues in general, and global warming in particular, have begun to shift. It seems likely to me that this is a generational shift that parallels the shift I see in general among younger Americans toward passionate environmentalism.But these are relatively recent developments, and the resistance among many evangelical leaders and groups has been sharp and accusatory.In the stories about the new evangelical concern for the environment and the reactions of the old guard can be found some of the strongest evidence for the longstanding linkage between evangelicals and disregard for the environment.Those stories are readily available and well known. It seems superfluous to document an evangelical sin that has been a loud and strident chapter of U.S. social and political history for the past few decdes, but if someone doesn't beat me to it, I'll post links to a few tomorrow.

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