Representatives from various faith traditions, gathered this week in conjunction with United Nations meetings on climate change, urged political leaders to adopt “strong, binding targets” for the reduction of greenhouse gases.
The Sept. 21 statement by religious leaders called upon industrialized nations “to act responsibly in mitigation efforts, by making the largest cuts in carbon emissions”¦ (and) showing leadership in their ethical behavior.”
However, they also said all people are responsible for turning “the human-earth community into a global culture of ecological responsibility.”
[i]Among those present at the meetings this week was Priestess Beatriz Schulthess, president of the Indigenous Peoples Ancestral Spiritual Council and a co-president of Religions for Peace, an international multi-religious peace coalition.[/i]
Would these be the same “indigenous peoples” who within a thousand years or so of their arrival in Australia, North America, or South America managed to extinguish all native mammals larger than about 40 kg ??
Just curious. You know, since they’ve always been such Earth lovers.
For the Left to be logically consistent, how can they say that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality and use it to justify their political agenda for same sex marriage, and then neglect to mention that Jesus never said anything about Cap and Trade, carbon footprint, etc.
Would some of the more theologically sophisticated among the readers here care to comment on how the “progressive” faith traditions don’t preach on sin anymore, but spend a large part of their time expressing guilt for what others have done (sin?) and then demand that government force repentant behavior on the masses to atone for this guilt. Seems like corporate sin/repentance/atonement is a convenient way to criticize the very society that nurtured us, imperfect thought it may be, and to exert power by trying to get government to force modes of behavior on the populace. It all seems quite strange to me.
Expressing guilt for others has the benefits of keeping one’s mind off of one’s compliance in the sins of the day, it produces a nice warm feeling of personal political correctness, and it allows one’s humility to show so as to berate others. This is known as the splinter and plank syndrome that someone famous once spoke about. And, it allows one to ignore the call to metanoia: Repent! It bears all the outward marks of acceptable metanoia and none of the inward alterations that produce reality. Just ask how many practitioners of the artful dodge have personally returned their ill-got gains back and taken up poverty and been discalced. It is a way that seemeth right … but the end thereof is death.
It does not seem to lead to a restored relationship to God of other humans, least of all the ancestral ones, nor much to the existing descendants. It seems a form of pietism writ large and largely meaningless. But it does have this one advantage: it is PC. For now. That is sufficient for most practitioners to receive it as a means of some sort of grace: self-approval. That and ten bucks will get you coffee in Starbucks (just make sure it is “green” and “socially responsible” or you’ll blow all the “grace”).
#1. Bart, I am not in favor of stupid cap and trade systems, but I do have two questions. Are the ecological mistakes of those who went before us justification for mistakes we make today? Secondly, who nearly extinguished the bison of North America? It certainly was not my Native American forebearers. As I recall my history lessons, it was big game hunters (palefaces) from the East.