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THE DISPUTATION: Of Al Gore, Global Warming and God
By david klinghoffer
July 21, 2006

If you've seen Al Gore's global-warming scare movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," you may have come away as I did, wondering about the highly partisan nature of the climate-change debate. Why is it partisan at all? If carbon-dioxide emissions are perilously raising global temperatures, surely that's a problem which can be left to scientists and other non-ideological experts.

That's a big "if." As a new report by the House Energy and Commerce Committee makes clear, statisticians doubt the work of those climate researchers who seek to show that the climate for the past 1,000 years was stable until recent times when it suddenly rose sharply. On the contrary, the climate has always varied, up and down over centuries and millennia.

So what exactly are we fighting when about when we fight about climate change? Maybe a resolution of the mystery can be found in the Bible's famous story of environmental catastrophe: that of the flood and its sequel, the tower of Babel.

God sent the deluge to erase life and get a fresh start with Noah and his family. Later, a group of the children of these flood survivors settled in the land of Shinar, saying to one another, "Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed across the whole earth" (Genesis 11:4).

This plan greatly displeased God. "And the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city" (11:8 ).

What was so wrong with constructing the ancient Near Eastern equivalent of a skyscruder? The Talmud, in tractate "Sanhedrin," has an illuminating answer. When the notion of building a tower was decided upon, it was thanks to the collaboration of three groups of citizens.

The first group said, "Let us ascend [to the top of the tower] and live there." They thought they could "live," survive the next flood by propping up the heavens to prevent them from spilling forth their contents to drown humanity once again. The second said, "Let us ascend and worship idols."

The third said, "Let us ascend and wage war." On whom? Well, who else resides in the heavens? They wished to wage war on God Himself.

When the call went out to construct the tower, few citizens had an inkling of what the most subversive in the society had in mind, which was to free humanity of God's rule. The sincere environmentalists were fooled into panicking about a non-existent threat. For everyone should have been aware of the promise God made to their ancestor Noah, that "Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth" (9:11).

Perhaps there is an implicit recognition on the part of today's enviro-skeptics that the present fight isn't merely about the environment. That's what the novelist Michael Crichton argued in a 2003 speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco: "Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western world is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice of urban atheists. Why do I say that? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st-century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths."

It's clear that climate-change activists have a moral message. But it's a completely different one from any you'll find in the Bible. Basically, it has to do with shedding the encumbering complexities associated with modern industry and technology.

Environmental religion has an ancient pedigree. When the book of Deuteronomy warned, "You shall not plant for yourselves an idolatrous tree, any tree, near the Altar of the Lord your God" (16:21), it had this in mind. In "The Golden Bough," James Frazer devoted a chapter to the cult of nature: "In the religious history of the Aryan race in Europe the worship of trees has played an important part. Nothing could be more natural. For at the dawn of history Europe was covered with immense primeval forests, in which the scattered clearings must have appeared like islets in an ocean of green."

Global-warming partisans are not self-aware like the tree-worshipping druids of old. Which might lead us to ask if perhaps, like the first party of builders, the second party are being used and manipulated without their being conscious of it.

As for the party who would make war on God, consider the implications of spiritualizing the environment, of equating God with nature, a favorite green theme. Writing in the journal First Things in 1997, Father Richard John Neuhaus put it well: "When all is God, there is no need for God." Which explains the affinity of secularism for environmental causes.

What we argue about when we argue about global warming probably in fact has little to do with the weather. It is not surprising that traditionally religious people would turn away from an environmental issue like global warming, especially when the science behind the theory remains ambiguous at best, and distrust a political party committed to panicking unreservedly about it.

As I've written here before, between America's two major political philosophies the major dividing issue isn't really political at all. It is religious. It's about God.

THE DISPUTATION: Of Al Gore, Global Warming and God (http://www.forward.com/articles/8154)

I thought this might spark a little debate............  ;D ;D ;D

What's to debate. God said it will happen so it will.

I have always been entertained by the environmentalist religion. any neutral expert (there are a few, I have seen the articles) on weather and temperature can tell us that the temperature cycle is just that, a cycle and has almost nothing to do with what we created humans have done to it.

Not saying anything about the chemicals we have dumped into the environment, causing polution of our waters and land, ::) just saying that the "global warming" scare is nothing more than the adjenda of the misinformed, uninformed and manipulative.

Like PR, and DW said, God says the earth will not be destroyed by flood, so it won't.

Works for me. ;)

Senator: 'Global warming' like Third Reich lie
'You say something over and over and over and over again, and people will believe it'

Heat wave has senator sticking to beliefs
By JIM MYERS World Washington Bureau
7/22/2006

View in Print (PDF) Format

WASHINGTON -- First came the Al Gore movie, and then there was the Tom Brokaw television documentary.

Now, a heat wave with triple-digit temperatures is gripping much of the nation.

Is U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, who believes that manmade global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," losing the public relations battle on that issue?

The Oklahoma Republican and chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee concedes that those on the other side of the global warming debate have dominated the air waves lately, but he remains confident that his side will be proved right in the end.

Indeed, Inhofe insists that he feels even stronger about taking on what he sees as the current hysteria about global warming than he did several years ago when he first uttered that now-famous hoax statement.

In an interview, he heaped criticism on what he saw as the strategy used by those on the other side of the debate and offered a historical comparison.

"It kind of reminds . . . I could use the Third Reich, the big lie," Inhofe said.

"You say something over and over and over and over again, and people will believe it, and that's their strategy."

As for anyone trying to use the current heat wave to bolster the case, he said even those on the other side of the debate concede that no one should link a single weather event to climate change.

"A hot summer has nothing to do with global warming," Inhofe said. "Let's keep in mind it was just three weeks ago that people were saying, 'Wait a minute; it is unusually cool."'

He blames the media for handing over an unfair amount of air time and coverage to the side that pushes the claim that links man to climate change.

"I have asked several of them," Inhofe said: 'Name one time when an hour has been given to the other side of the issue.' "

While declining to watch either the Gore movie or the Brokaw documentary, the senator said he armed himself with the statements used in both.

"I know the text, and I know they are using old stuff that has been totally discredited," Inhofe said. "Everything on which they based their story, in terms of the facts, has been refuted scientifically."

He offered his point-by-point response to both.

They include such claims as that polar bear populations are shrinking along with their food supplies, and the glaciers in Glacier National Park are disappearing.

Inhofe insists that the number of polar bears is not dropping and that some of the glaciers in the national park are actually getting bigger.

As for the Kilimanjaro glacier, which reportedly is disappearing, Inhofe said the loss can be blamed on the cutting of trees, which once held the moisture.

"One by one, you can refute everything they are saying," Inhofe said.

He includes in that claim the warnings by some that the planet is closing in on a tipping point or a point of no return when it comes to climate change.

Inhofe recalls the warnings a few decades ago that another ice age was coming.

He dismisses even the suggestions that Americans could help by giving up big cars or using more energy-efficient light bulbs.

"It is not going to make any difference," the senator said.

"But if it makes them feel good, they can do it."

When it comes to global warming or the supposed affects of it there is nothing that man can do to prevent the things that God says will happen.



Mat 24:7  For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

I find it interesting that they do not recall not too many years ago, the cold and rainy summer we had (at least in WI) that did as much dammage to crops as any drought. Too much in any extream will have the same effect on the delicat balance the Creator set up.

And like your said PR, there will be famine, bay any cause.......

That is correct. And many foe these scientists that tout global warming today will not admit to being the same ones that in the 70's were warning of the coming of another ice age simply because we had a few cold years and the glaciers were growing.

I think if you read DW's article carefully theres a underlying point being made.


Ever since the fall from paradise, man has attempted to change the evironment back to that original perfect state as if to blame the environemt for our sinful condition rather than our sinful nature for the problem.   Those of you who see scripture dispensationally can might appreciate this a little more clearly.

In the end, God restores the environment to a perfect state when Satan is bound for a 1,000 years....however, when the devil is released at the end of that thousand years, God proves to man once again thats its not his environment thats to blame, but mans nature and rejection of God.  Those who are dwelling in the 4 corners of the earth once again reject God's ordinances.

Amen!

I see that you caught on 2T, where everyone else missed it. :D

while I agree with 2T, I still don't see it in the artical............. ???

I only see people trying to replace the emptiness they feel from being apart from God with a "cause" ;D

Come to Christ and be filled up ;D

LOL yes He did.   I decided to edit it out because it seemed to be slightly off base with my prior comments.   Even so, I still stand by that statement.  If they don't get aboard, the current global warming might be adjusted by someones thermonuclearstat  ;)

That too brother, that too!   Maybe thinking of it like this you see it....they are pushing for change that will address evrionmental problems to SAVE the earth, and themselves.   The problem is not the environment, its the corrupt nature within man.  They don't want to hear that, in fact, they want to remove all referenses that remind us of that, so they don't have to look at it.   They are only interested in treating the symptoms, not the problem.   This can be seen throughout mankinds history.....its called religion!   

But your comment is right on target as well  :)

ooooooooohhhhhh

I get it ;D Thats what I thought you ment, just didn't get it out of the artical, at first ;D

(http://www.rr-bb.com/images/smilies/thumb.gif)

Wow, what a debate.  There is a certainly a healthy range of opinions on this Forum.

This seems to be a classic case of people being Republicans first and Christians second.  Who has taken the couple hours to see "An Inconvenient Truth"? 

Here's another article to consider for a contrary Christian viewpoint.  People should consider that one political party doesn't have a monopoly on morality.  Certainly on the issue of the environment the Democrats are more in line with respect for God's Creation than the Republicans and that's why the Republicans put out baseless propaganda like the articles posted earlier.


Is Christianity anti-Environmental?
by Rich Deem
Introduction

The charge has been made that Christianity is anti-environmental. In fact, there are those who blame the ecologic "crisis" on the "Judeo-Christian tradition."1 Much of the misinformation that Christianity is anti-environmental came from some widely publicized statements by professing Christians. For example, James Watt, who became U.S. Secretary of the Interior under Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s, in his article, "Ours Is the Earth,"2 and other articles, made it clear that he viewed the earth as "merely a temporary way station on the road to eternal life...The earth was put here by the Lord for His people to subdue and to use for profitable purposes on their way to the hereafter."3
God's involvement and pleasure in the earth and its creatures

However, none of these charges of anti-environmentalism stand up to scripture found in the Bible. The Bible begins with a description of the events of creation. God's personal involvement in the process is evident from the second verse, when God came to earth to personally direct its conversion to a world suitable for living creatures.4 One of the features of the creation account is God's pleasure at each step of the process. Six times God affirmed that the creation was good in His sight.5 The idea that man is free to destroy God's creation is at odds with God's obvious enjoyment of His creation taught in Genesis one.
The earth and everything in it belong to the Lord, not humans

Both Old and New Testament affirm, "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it."6 According to God, "every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine.7 I find it amazing that God personally knows every creature, not just every human.
God cares for and provides for the needs of His creatures

Not only does God own everything and know every creature, but He cares for and provides for the physical needs of His creatures. For example, Psalm 104 says that God provides the water from the mountains for "all the beasts of the field and the wild donkeys [to] quench their thirst."8 These waters provide for nesting places for birds, grass for cattle, and food for man. The psalm goes on to describe the "trees of the Lord" and the "cedars of Lebanon that He planted." Also described are the stork, wild goats, lions that "roar for their prey and seek their food from God", and the creatures of the sea, large and small, that exist "beyond number." After listing all these creatures, the psalm goes on to say that they all rely upon God to "give them their food at the proper time" and that "they are satisfied with good things." Psalm 104 indicates quite clearly that God cares for the earth and His creatures.9 Likewise, in the New Testament, Jesus affirmed that God loves His creatures and provides food for them.10
God gave humans dominion over the earth to care for it

At the creation of man, God commanded that humans in Genesis 1:28 take control over the earth and rule over the animals.11 Having dominion doesn't mean to pillage and plunder, but to take care of the earth and its creatures and resources. Immediately after creating Adam, God put him into the garden of Eden that He had planted and put him to work in "taking care" of the garden. The Hebrew verb translated "to take care" (shamar - Strong's number H8104) is also translated "preserve", "keep", "watch", "maintain", "defend", and "attend." The nature of man's dominion of the earth is clarified in Psalm 8, which says that man is to have dominion over all of God's works on the earth, including the birds, domesticated herds, and the wild beasts of the field, and the fish and other life of the sea.12 Protecting God's creation is not just the responsibility of secular organizations, but should be the responsibility of evangelical Christians, as well. According to the National Association of Evangelicals:

    Just as we show our love for the Savior by reaching out to the lost, we believe that we show our love for the Creator by caring for his creation. Because clean air, pure water, and adequate resources are crucial to public health and civic order, government has an obligation to protect its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation. This involves both the urgent need to relieve human suffering caused by bad environmental practice...13

God will judge those who destroy the earth

The Old Testament indicates that the animals and birds have perished because the people who live in the land are wicked.14 The Bible says that Jesus will return to earth to judge people for their sin. What most people don't realize is that part of this judgment is going to be executed against "those who destroy the earth."15 God cares very much for His creation and will judge those who have no regard for it.
Conclusion

The Bible declares God's pleasure in His creation and His care for all the created things on the earth - both plants and animals. God has given man the task of caring for and protecting His creation on the earth. The Bible says that those who destroy God's creation will be judged and destroyed themselves. Therefore, the Bible encourages wise stewardship of the earth, its resources, and its creatures. Many Christians have reacted against the environmental movement, probably because of the tendency by many environmentalists not only to protect the earth and its creatures, but to actually worship the creation instead of the Creator. This kind of misdirected loyalty by many environmentalists is clearly condemned in the Bible,16 since we are to worship God alone.17

As Christians, we should be doing everything Jesus commanded, including taking care of our families and all the resources He has given to us. Personally, our family recycles glass and plastic and we try not to waste energy (turn off lights, close doors, etc.). I am currently involved in a fight with Vulcan Materials, who want to tear down our local mountains in the San Gabriel Valley (Southern California). If you live in the San Gabriel Valley, please join us! I want my three boys to be able to enjoy nature the way God created it. I enjoy hiking in the wilderness and am saddened when I see litter, burned out areas, and other acts of carelessness by people. God is a God of order and beauty. Take a look at the description of heaven (Revelation 21). It will be great to be there someday - there is no pollution there.

The author of this article is right when he said "Six times God affirmed that the creation was good in His sight." That was true until sin entered into the world. Once sin entered into the world the world was no longer perfect and that includes all of the earth and everything on it. Yes we should be very grateful for the things the Lord has made and attempt to take care of it. Unfortunately many of the environmentalists take this to the extent of putting all of it before man themselves. As we are told many times in the Bible man is more important than these other creations not the other way around. Mat 10:31


In addition to that, as it was already said earlier in this thread, nothing man can do can change what God has said will take place. These things will come to pass in His own time according to His will. Mat 24:7

I just came in out of curiosity--seeing Al Gore and God in the same sentence was too much for me to handle!

*creeps out quickly..VERY QUICKLY*

Hello Kelly4Jesus,

 ;D  YES - This is pretty shocking.