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Re: conservation hypocrits
Perhaps you've heard the joke about the guy who drowns while sitting on his
house roof while spurning rides from two boats and a helicopter, saying "God
will save me". When he gets to heaven, he expresses a little frustration that
God didn't save him, and God says "what do you want? I *sent* two boats and a
helicopter!"
Amy Tompkins wrote:
> I personally believe there are enough natural resources for everyone on this
> planet. I think God is smarter than that and he isn't going to let us 'run
> out' of the things we need. He has the ability to create more if there is a
> shortage so honestly I don't think that I have anything to be concerned
> about.
I hope you won't get upset with me for saying so, but that's a very dangerous,
I would even say foolish, attitude to take. I won't try to argue facts about
the availabilty of resources, because that's clearly not where you're coming
from, but I want to point out that *theologically* this is a dangerous position
to take. (Of course, I am making an assumption that when you refer to God, you
are coming from a Christian mindset. Ignore the rest of this if you are not.)
Read the book of Job and see how the author ridicules a stance similar to this
by putting it in the mouth of one of Job's so-called friends. The joke I
described above is perhaps not theologically authoritative, but I think it
expresses a true fact. God is *not* going to magically zap new fossil fuels
into existence if we use these up. We've been given stewardship of the planet;
like the servants with the boss's money in Jesus's parable, it's up to us to
behave wisely. There's no evidence that God will put out a safety net if we
collectively jump off a cliff. If God is capable of letting two world wars,
the Crusades, holocausts, Khmer Rouges and Rwandas happen, I'd say God is quite
capable of letting us fritter away our natural resources. On a smaller scale,
if God lets individuals starve to death (in wealthy countries as well as poor),
why wouldn't the same rules apply to all of us? And finally, even if you are
right that God won't let us run out of the things we need, what if God's
opinion is that we don't *need* fossil fuels? People got along without them
for hundreds of thousands of years. Jesus said to be wise as serpents, and the
lillies of the field don't jet around, frivolously wasting fuel, either.
That's not what he meant by not worrying about the future. As Paul pointed
out, it's not right to simply do what you want, since God will forgive you
anyway. It was in a different context, of course, but I think the analogy
holds.
But all this is way, way, off-topic, so I'll stop there.
--
Don Smith Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
dasmith at rotse2_physics.lsa.umich.edu http://xte.mit.edu/~dasmith/
"Now... where was I?" - Leonard Shelby, Memento
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