Why aren't fundies more concerned about the environment?

[nonconformist]

Wouldn't you think they'd be on the front lines on this issue?

Why don't they take a position like "look at all of the beauty that God created. Look at this wonderful planet that God provided us, and we are destroying it. We are destroying God's work!"

It seems to me that this should be an issue where the neocons and the fundies disagree strongly. But it doesn't appear that this is so. Ann Coulter says that God wants us to "rape" the land. What.the.hell?

The mindset of the fundie is one that baffles me often, but this really does seem like a no-brainer.

[Nickster]

1. They believe that the environment was put there by God to be used and

exploited by man. They see mankind and the benefits of exploiting the environment to be highest on their pyramid of belief above any environmentalism.

[Earth_First]

8. Ding! Ding! Ding!

I have had many heated debates with my father about this very same discussion. It always comes back to:

Then God blessed them and God said, "Be fruitful and multiply fill the earth and SUBDUE it: HAVE DOMINION OVER the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. (Emphasis mine)

(King James Version, Genesis 1:28)

(Don't ask me how I know that verbatium...)

Secondly, it seems that a majority of the snowmobile/atv demographic seem to be of the Republican descent.

[Nickster]

12. Good ole dominionism.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

14. They believe that if something breaks, then

God will just fix it. If it is important enough, that is.

[immoderate]

25. Give him this:

De 20:19 When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man's life) to employ them in the siege:

--IMM

[Deja Q]

2. What if they told the truth? Would that freak us out?

Assuming they do care, I certainly don't know.

God wants us to use the land. But not abuse it.

[hyphenate]

3. Partly because they don't give a shit

because they believe they're going to be whisked away in the rapture, and the rest of us will be stuck here with all the bad stuff like pollution, floods, global warming and hellfire and brimstone. They believe after the rapture, earth will become a living hell. Literally.

[swag]

4. Because they will be raptured up to heaven.

The environmental devastation can even be seen to have been prophesied in the insane book of Revelations, wherein the waters are turned to wormwood, the moon turns bright red in the sky, and so on and so forth. The end times are a joyous occasion for many believers in the bad book, for they will finally get to ascend to heaven while the rest of us are cast into a pit of fire and tormented for eternity.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

5. There's another reason

and that is because they see "us" as evil and they don't want to have anything in common with us. You know, we're a bunch of tree-hugging perverts and all.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

13. Hey, T-H-G, we agree, yet again!

It is that total lack of empathy, of innate humanity and love of live that drives them. They are right, everyone else is wrong.

I also suspect that the previous poster's reference to the Rapture also plays a role. There are more than a few in government, starting with Reagan's military advisers, that never thought the 21st century would come to pass. Now, the remnants, (Cheney, Rumsfeld, and other key scoundrels) the back end of severely diarrhetic, syphilis-based sterile mules, are back in power, and again banking on an early finish.

[mcctatas]

6. Because they expect the rapture any day now...

who needs to worry about global warming when it's the end times. Too bad they are so supremely confident in thier doctrinal twaddle, otherwise maybe they'd at least hedge thier bets a little and at least start recycling!!! :crazy:

[libodem]

7. All the right wing radio pundits preach

that there is no such thing and that if the world is getting warmer it's because we are in a warming cycle, naturally. Man has nothing to do with it. Why do they call them conservatives, anyway? I think they are all in anticipation of the Apocalypse and figure why not use up every natural resource on the earth before they are elevated to the clouds to watch the rest of us consumed in a lake of fire.

[Fleshdancer]

9. Because money doesn't grow on trees.

:D

[Lone_Star_Dem]

10. Nothing to worry about

As far as they are concerned they are living in the "end times" and they may as well use it up before the rapture.

I kid you not, I've heard this said before.

[FreedomAngel82]

32. Yep and I've heard it so many times

People have been saying "it's the end of the world" for as long as I can remember. It gets so old. :eyes: It's like the boy who cried wolf.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

33. I wonder if they ever considered the "end days" could be a geologic epoch

...in length? Not to worry though, global warming pretty much assures we won't be around that long now.

I have a feeling they are going to be highly upset when they have to suffer right along with the rest of us, however.

[Ediacara]

11. Some actually are

They take the tack you described: God gave us this wonderful planet, let's stop fucking it up!

There are others, which I assume to be a large majority that don't care because they feel the end-time approaches, so a little polution here or there doesn't really matter.

ON EDIT: here is a link to an envangelical anvironmental group http://www.creationcare.org/

[undeterred]

15. Jesus is coming back to get them any day so they wont have to live

with the mess we've created.

[flobee1]

16. I had a repug give me an honest answer

"Because I'll be dead before the environment gets bad, so what do I care"

[undeterred]

24. I got that exact answer from a repug co-worker too

But before that I had asked him why he voted Republican- he said because its better for families and children. Without questioning the logic of that I asked, so you care that children grow up in strong families, but you don't care whether or not they can breathe?

[gizmo1979]

17. the will of god.

[ktlyon]

18. It is because they believe God put all a these things here for man

this has been Christan thinking for centuries, I think.

[kaygore]

19. Watts said it best when he was Secretary of the Interior

The fundamentalists believe that we are the last generation--in the latter days. They will be spared due to the Rapture but the rest of us with suffer the coming of the Antichrist and the destruction of the Earth. They get to the Rapture there faster if we pollute!

Honestly, I had a Southern Baptist fundamentalist tell me this in Tuscaloosa, Alabama!

[ikojo]

20. They believe that the climate change we are

seeing was foretold in the bible. I've heard people on the bus talking about how the bible says that in the "end times" we will be unable to tell which season it is.

If it's foretold in the bible then, IMHO, the fundies are happy or at least not concerned because it means the rapture is nigh.

[shadowknows69]

21. It's disposable

God's going to create them a new heaven and earth, why save the old one?

[Joanne98]

22. Because they're 100% selfish!

[stepnw1f]

23. They Want The End Times

which means they are evil.

[WhiteTara]

26. has to do with "dominion" over

the earth. JMHO

[shadowknows69]

27. Tell them to ask a Katrina survivor

If they think we have dominion over the earth.

[WhiteTara]

30. Nature Bats Last

as they say in Earth First.

[Igel]

28. Some do. Many are 'dominionists'.

With dominion comes stewardship; if Xianity is service by the greater to the lesser, as Jesus taught, then having greater control over land implies greater stewardship.

Not all "fundies" think that like. Then again, finding a homogeneous group "fundies" is, well, a difficult task. Maybe speaking about them off-handedly it's ok, but one should never forget that there's a wide range of opinion and belief among them. There is no "mindset of the fundie", any more than there is a single "the mindset of the DUer".

[ChristianLibrul]

29. enviroment

Opposing pollution would mean opposing republicans, and they can't do that. All they care about is literally getting rid of all libruls by any and all means available. Believe that, and get ready for when they come for you.

[FreedomAngel82]

31. They're too worried about

saving people. Your soul lasts longer than your enviornment. But of course God did say to take care of the enviornment but I guess it falls on deaf ears. *sigh* As a Christian I'm such an enviornmentalist freak. That's one of the reason's why I loved John Kerry.

[ladjf]

34. 1. Since they don't believe in Natural science, they don't believe

that there is an environmental problem.

2. Many of them believe that the "End of Times" will occur within 40 yrs from now. So, why worry about the weather?

3. Many are just too dumb and/or ignorant to even know what is happening.