interesting question

It's really an interesting question, I suggest you read a book called Moral Politics - you'll find it illuminating.

Anyway - the reason I believe is because of this. When you align yourself with a party, you tend to buy into the entire party platform - it's more comforting this way.

So liberals are very guilty of this as well - they buy into all liberal thinking. That's why you have liberals supporting the liberal side across the board, and vice versa with conservatives.

If you think about it, the second you start spliting your views, you might be confused as to an identity - who do you align with - that's a hard thing to do for humans. It's why moderates are so awesome.

 

It is an interesting question and I think the "with us or against us attitude" has something to do with it. I do think a lot of religious conservatives have bought into the idea that if one issue is aligned with the opposing side then every issue of that side must be opposed. I found the article Pipe posted interesting in that regard and I'm wondering whether many conservatives Christians feel that an issue like abortion which has traditionally been championed by liberals trumps an issue like the enviroment which has also been championed by liberals. So many might feel you can't support enviromental protections because that would be putting you on the side of those who support abortion.

I think that is a real problem with how much single issue and wedge issues politics have driven our society and made it difficult to cooperate on other issues of common interests even while disagreeing on others.

One more thought I regarding this issue is how much does Prosperity Gospel play a role in this. I can't imagine that the mega churches that preach material prosperity through faith are very big on the enviroment.

 

Duh?

It's a shock that the same people who accept myth without logic as the explanation of existence, who see all life's intricacies and consequences as God's will, who believe man, made in the image of God, was given dominion over all the Earth, who's imperative is to be fruitful and multiply; might have a problem thinking that without a radical radical alteration of philosophy and actions there might be cataclysmic upheaval?

Sceince isn't really their strong suit.

My guess is it's probably too late to change the couse we've set now, not that people are likely to choose to have less no matter how obvious the causation becomes. Hell, climates change, people die and adapt (see The Little Ice Age) and nobody has ever said human beings would be on Earth till the sun burns out anyway. Maybe all that coastal building we have done will repace the coral reefs we've lost. I'd lay my money on nuclear or biologic world wide disaster before global warming has a major impact.

 

Actually, most people of faith believe that God has designed the world and everything in it (including things that pollute).

Since he created it all, and since the Bible says that the end of the world will not happen until Jesus comes back, most people of faith believe that we as people cannot destroy the planet against the will of God (or on a time frame different than God's plan).

It isn't a lack of intelligence, it is simply a matter of faith.

 

There is no need to be so unbelievably nasty about people who have faith. I am not the picture of Christianity. My church attendance is spotty at best, etc etc.

I realize that since you don't believe, you think that you are so superior and so much smarter than those who do believe. You might want to consider not being so condescending.

 

It's pretty simple. Conservative Christians believe the world is less than divine and they live for their after-world. The Earth is not nearly as important as their "heaven". Their spirituality is backwards.

 

You might have missed my other 100 posts where I wistfully imagine myself a hopeful true believer who can look past the everyday horror and tragedy of life here on Planet Psycho to a time when I will live forever in constant state peace love and understanding. So I don't mean to be condescending. If I could choose to live in a state of delusion I would. I was just emphasising the obvious in answering the thread's question, conservative Christian Americans are probably the last people one would expect to take a proactive stance on Global warming.

Besides, what's nasty about what I said? Aren't all my points factual depictions of Western Conservative Christianity?

 

sad to me because Christianity is not anything remotely close to looking past making this world better in the here and now. i don't know how one can read past all the context of the Gospels and arrive there. that view is gnostic...not Christian.

 

People with enough intellectual sophistication can grasp that the only approach to happiness during this life is loving and giving. That's The Gospels According To John Lennon.

The average human being has to have the traditional methods of motivation, the carrot and the stick to be moved down the path of righteousness. The concept of Heaven and Hell palpable to even the dullest of our kind. Why do you think the power of excommunication gave the early popes dominion over emperors?

Besides, I haven't ever read the Gospels, or much Shakespeare for that matter. Trying to guess what they are really trying to say makes my head hurt.

 

I'm not asking you to agree with me. Just giving you my understanding of the Gospels....and what my faith moves me towards. I call it Christianity.

The idea of earning grace with good works is foreign to me as a Christian, to begin with.

 

I'm a big Beatles fan but I don't remember the loving and giving John
The 'other' Gospel of John Lennon-


In an interview nearly 25 years after the death of Beatles founder John Lennon, Cynthia Lennon recalled her former husband as both a genius and hugely flawed man whose insecurities drove him to commit acts of cowardice, cruelty and betrayal against the people closest to him.

He was mean, she suggested. He beat her (once) and kept her apart from the things she loved - most notably, him.

She said he abandoned their son, Julian, for years, and his behavior became more irrational and withdrawn as he experimented with drugs such as LSD and heroin in the late 1960s. Much of her private experience differed sharply from the image Lennon enjoyed publicly as a campaigner for love and world peace.

..."I knew John from the age of 18, and it was part and parcel of my life to live with this man and to see who he was, his talents and his weaknesses," she said.

She attributes his bitterness later in life to lingering feelings of loss after the death of his mother, Julia, in 1959; the domineering influence of his aunt and surrogate parent, Mimi Smith; and his upbringing without a father, who left the family after forcing John, at age 5, to choose between him and his mother.

Her book gives detailed accounts of Lennon’s intense jealousy and fear in adulthood of being abandoned. He physically attacked Cynthia in 1959 after he learned that she had danced with his best friend, Stuart Sutcliffe, at a party. Conversely, she includes the text of various letters he wrote to her throughout their marriage vowing his eternal love and devotion.

Drugs and, subsequently, Ono’s controlling influence turned Lennon into an unsmiling and seemingly unhappy man from the late 1960s onward, when he outwardly preached messages of inner tranquility and world togetherness, his first wife said.

Cynthia Lennon said she had received no warning in 1968 that her marriage to Lennon was over. She arrived home one day to find him sitting on the floor of the couple’s bedroom next to Ono, who was wearing Cynthia’s bathrobe.

Rather than talk to her directly, he announced his divorce plans to her through the British news media, she said.

Julian Lennon, their son, was subjected to repeated violent outbursts and mocking criticism by his father. John Lennon once so severely criticized the boy’s manner of laughing that, to this day, Julian rarely laughs, Cynthia Lennon said.

"I think John lost an awful lot of his humor and his wit, which were part and parcel of his creativity," she said. "I felt he was fighting many, many battles. And I think he had a lot of guilt for what had happened. But John was never one to admit to anything. He would battle on and fight. I think a lot of aggression came out in his music, especially in the latter years."

In the foreword to her book, Julian Lennon, 40, described John Lennon as "the father I loved and who let me down in so many ways. ... (He) was a remarkable man who stood for peace and love in the world. But at the same time, he found it very hard to show any peace and love to his first family - my mother and me."

link

 

But he was getting better, better all the time (can't get no worse)

Back on topic: "we are super-deeply f*cked"

 

That's great! Can we bring our troops home tomorrow?

 

I'm extremely happy that Jes won last night. Heather came off as an ignorant slut.