Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 468 Editor's Choice: 25
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Gift from God... Well, Yes.
[Read the article: Christians' burning issue]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But a gift that we are allowed to decide what to do with.
To answer "cosmic" as to why environmentalism is not a more natural position for Christians; I've found that they fall into 3 seperate groups of thought.
1: Yes, the earth and all its creatures is a gift from God. The caveat lies within this passage from Genesis: {1:28} "And God blessed them, andGod said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."
Some Christians interpretation of this is that God gave the earth to man to do whatever he saw fit to do to it. If man sees fit (I'm not sure if we're supposed to have an election over this: Vote Prop 172!) to kill all the animals, plants, and raze the earth, well, that's his right because the earth is ours. Obviously not a great deal of PETA/Christian crossover, here.
2: The earth is a "worldly" plane of existence, much like our worldly vessels (our bodies), that really doesn't matter much other than we're forced to exist in it for the duration of our earthly lives (some even view earth as a kind of hell-unto-itself that the dead are lucky to be out of) but that the real life we should be concerned about is our heavenly (immortal) afterlife. Mostly because it will literally last forever!
In this interesting world view, loved ones are not looking down upon us from "on high" to see how we're doing. They could give a crap. The last time they cared about us was when they flipped us the bird as they entered the heavenly gates as if to say "So long suckers, I'm livin' the high-life now!". The end result is a very laissez-faire attitude towards earthly stewardship: why bother since it won't matter to me - I'll be friggin' dead. Sort of like Republicans and the deficit.
3: The sort of Christians written about in the excellent article. The only ones who can truly (as far as I'm concerned) call themselves Christians because they are truly Christ-like: concerned about the well-being of others, not thinking about the big M-E.
This is from a Baptist-turned-Catholic-turned-Secular-Humanist, so take it with a grain of salt...
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As usual, the Onion predicts the future...
[Read the article: The sixth-year swoon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Right behind my most favorite Onion headline ( Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over') is this one from 2004:
Long-Awaited Beer With Bush Really Awkward, Voter Reports .
Read full story here - http://www.theonion.com/content/node/42590/print/
"Bush asked Reinard what he did for a living, and Reinard said he runs a small carpentry business.
'He asked me how it was going, what with the economy bouncing back. I said that if things didn't pick up soon, I was going to have to close up shop and work for my uncle in Youngstown,' Reinard said. 'George was quiet for a while after that. Then he told me about when his second oil company was going under. He suggested using my connections to get some outside investment capital.'
'I don't have any connections,' Reinard added."
This is what I think of whenever someone says they "like" George W. Bush. What they like is the PR spin persona, not the reality...