Religion and the Environment
Note: In case there is any confusion for readers, I would just like to point-out/reiterate that the website I refer to in this article is for the purposes of parody. I discuss it because it brings up some very interesting points as you will see.
I recently stumbled upon an article written by a Pastor of the so-called Landover Baptist Church titled:
“Why True Christians Shouldn’t Give a Lick About the Damned Environment“.
I’m obviously aware that such extreme sentiments are not necessarily shared by followers of all religions. And to be honest, this website is a complete farce - and a funny one at that. However, I’ve often pondered about the subject of religion and its influence on environmental protection and awareness. The fact that the religious actually look forward to “The End of the World” as brought forth at Armageddon, has made me wonder how followers perceive threats to the environment. Indeed, how does religion influence believers actions with respect to environmental protection, conservation of energy, etc?
The views and statements put forth in this article are quite obviously in the realm of the extreme, and exist for the purposes of parody, however, to what degree to other religions actually teach or allude to the same?
The opening statement of the article reads as follows:
As True Bible believing Christians, we have a much better understanding about the fate of this planet than any Biologist, Environmentalist, or so-called scientist because we have a personal relationship with the Fellow who created this whole place to begin with! Friends, as True Christians then, being familiar with the Holy Bible gives you more authority than anyone who holds a post-graduate degree!…
What these ignorant unsaved, over-educated folks don’t understand is that they can gather all the data, all the research and present all the facts they care to collect about any subject under the sun - but when you hold it next to child-like faith in the Almighty God, the most learned Evolutionist or Environmentalist, will widen their blind eyes in awe, and cower in fear at the truth of God’s Word!
I am drawn to the latter paragraph where the animated Pastor Deacon Fred spits insults at the educated as well as their ‘facts’. This propaganda is actually reminiscent of the kind of cult-conditioning I experienced as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, namely, downplaying education and dismissing facts and science where they do not suit the purposes of the church’s doctrine. Ask yourself, is this not a comically emphasized portrayal of the attitudes of many believers. Surely higher education is indeed something to be feared by the Pastors, Priests and Ministers, since statistically the educated have little need for religion, much less belief in it.
But back to the topic at hand. Our friendly Pastor continues by telling his parishioners that the state of the environment is god’s will and that by protecting it, they are actually working against god! I wonder how many believers actually share this point of view to some degree?
Anyone who has read the Bible and believes every word will agree that worrying about our environment and trying to conserve energy (among other things) is an act of defiance against the Living God. Friends, the Lord will take care of everything. God made the Earth and the Heavens and if He wants to destroy it all, He will! In fact, one of the things that makes folks True Christians in the first place is that we are PRAYING for the destruction of this planet. You see, God actually wants us to use up all the resources, because when everything is gone, it will signal the return of sweet Jesus to come kill all the Muslims, Catholics, Mormons, Hindus and Tree-Hugger-know-it-alls. If we don’t end the world, God will just end it Himself. We’ve got to do our duty to speed up the process.
Obviously such ludicrous and delusional comments are the clever rantings of an ironic comic. If not, they would be the ravings of a mad man. I assure you that the rest of the site’s content is much the same; if this were an actual church it would be fundamental in the extreme, though unfortunately, it would certainly not be the first radical and damaging belief system.
The article more or less concludes by admonishing its followers to share this message with their friends; in fact, criticizing or rebuking them if they fail to ’see reason’. Much like many Christian religions (such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses), the reader is made to think that the devil is trying to mislead them. In application, this would prevent any followers from questioning the doctrine, since in doing so they would be giving in to the devil’s influence. This type of reasoning could be found in the encyclopedia under ‘Cult Conditioning’, but sadly is not that uncommon.
The last juicy tidbit of humorous propaganda reads as follows:
Satan has shifted his trickery into high gear during these last days. He’ll do anything he can do to deter you from keeping on the straight and narrow path to Heaven. He is trying everything he can to make your mind wander into worldy concerns and get you to stop warning people about the only real threat to humanity! That threat, we know from the New Testament is God’s threat!
I am reminded of a liberally-used quote by the author Christopher Hitchens who says “Religions poison everything”. In the case that the views of this article, parody or not, are shared to any degree by those of other faiths, I most certainly have to agree. This kind of delusional thinking is harmful not only to our planet, but to the very survival of our species.
So the question stands: Does religion adversely affect the environment?
What do you think…?
~Moxie
Here are a few links to some of the website’s other articles. Caution: extremely funny!
- Tampons; Satan’s Little Cotton Fingers
- Don’t Get Caught on the Toilet When Jesus Comes Back!
- I Can’t Wait to See People Burn in Hell
- Suffer Not a Witch to Live!
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Excellent post — and you raise an issue that I believe a lot of Christians should pay some attention to, though I’m hardly in any position to tell anyone what they should and shouldn’t prioritize.
As for your ending question, I think religion has adversely affected the environment, if not for the simple fact that religion places such a huge emphasis on the end of the world versus making this world a better place, for the fact that get-out-the-evangelical-vote issues such as gay marriage and abortion have shoved real issues, like the environment, to the side. It’s hard to open an effective political discourse when everyone is being distracted by virtually unimportant social issues that do not face the majority of the world.
So in that way, yes, I think religion has harmed the environment, if not directly through the teachings that you have so excellently outlined, for the simple fact that evangelicals pay so much more attention to personal, social issues than pressing, global issues.
I constantly ask Christians “If you believe in a creator, then why do you not care for his creation?”, but I have yet to get a coherent answer, just blank stares.
I think that religion needs to have a greater impact on the environment. Greater in a positive way, that is. Christians are meant to take care of the environment, as Genesis tells us to govern the earth and everything in it.
I’m looking at this site and I’m having a really hard time figuring out if this is some sort of parody church or not. If it is, then it’s amazing. If not, well, that’s incredibly disturbing.
I just looked it up and this is a parody site.
It’s weird this site, although being a parody, echoes the very serious sentiments JWs have expressed, especially the part about knowing the Bible makes you smarter than anyone who went to college.
Yeah, it’s a parody site. It’s an effect we call Poe’s Law: unless we’re actually told “It’s a joke”, parodies of fundamentalism are indistinguishable from the real thing.
We could mock Moxie for being unable to distinguish parody (if we were jerks), but shouldn’t we rather be disturbed that such parody so well mimics the attitudes of the Christian Right?
I agree with Kristi. If God gave dominion over to humankind as the Bible says, then humankind also has responsibility for the earth, not just “power over” it. Imagine God coming back and finding the Earth trashed by humans. “What the hell happened here?” God asks. “I made this beautiful planet and then put you on it, now it’s destroyed!” “Yes,” the evangelicals answer, “but you said you’d give us another, so everything’s okay!”
Personally, I believe that humans are no greater or lesser part of creation than anything else, be it a beetle on the ground or a tree or the entire planet itself. All of them were created by God, and all of them are equally precious in God’s sight.
“We could mock Moxie for being unable to distinguish parody”
It looks like she did realize it was a parody. When I posted the comment I hadn’t read the full article.
Hey Moxie,
While alot of religons and religous leaders have been enviromentally conscious, or are just now becoming enviromentally aware, you are spot on when it comes to Christians not caring about the enviroment until recently. (If at all.)
When I was growing up, enviromentalists (granola, tree huggers) were grouped with the: Pro-choicers, evolutionists, feminists and democrats.
*shudder*
I remember reading an article in school about how global warming wasn’t actually happening.
Now, more and more Christians are realizing the impact humans are having on the enviroment and I recently started to attend a progressive Presbyterian church (seriously–it’s not a contradiction!) and they have been social and envriomental activists for 20 years.
But there still a startling(and scary) number of Christians who completely reject the idea of global warming.
Maybe they’re afaid of becoming democrats… Because otherwise, it really doesn’t make sense. To me, anyways.
Fun read!
“It looks like she did realize it was a parody.”
I don’t know how I missed that before–she spent an entire paragraph spelling it out. D’oh!
Most Jehovah’s Witnesses I’ve met were concerned about the environment, but saw global warming as another sign that we’re “in the last days.” A few felt a positive environmental attitude was part of their duty to “subdue the earth”, but, yes, believed it’s ultimately up to God to sort such issues out. Some used that to justify a less considerate lifestyle, while others made personal effort to conserve the environment a part of their Christian attitude.
Clearly, different Christians interpret the same Holy Book in different ways. But if you increase the scope of the question to ask whether religion has mostly positive or negative precepts, you’ll still find it’s a mixed bag. Religions need some positive precepts to survive, otherwise all their subscribers would die; it’s not a case for divine origin any more than the natural selection of life on earth. Ultimately, all religions are based on myth and superstition and make guesses about the origin of life and how it’s best lived. The generally healthier guesses survived more easily. It’s a very messy way to learn anything, including environmental conservation! But it’s why the answer will vary from person to person.
I am concerned that many Christians have attitudes not to far from the “parody” you quote. However, it’s not true of all. Bill Moyers did a special on PBS on “Green Evangelicals,” which is worth seeing (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/moyersonamerica/green/index.html)
I have a blog where I frequently post on environmental topics: (alterfaith.wordpress.com) Click on the Category “Environment”, if you are interested.
Although this may be a “parody”, it’s sentiments are pretty much true to life, mirroring the beliefs of some over zealous Christians.
They don’t want you to actually think about things logically. They don’t want you to be “educated”.
The great thing about the bible, is it’s translated from another language, over 2000 years ago, in old English. This means that basically no one really understands anything from it, and can therefore bend it’s meaning to fit their purposes.
Isn’t it funny, that in all religions, you hear a person say “God” will do this, and “God” says this….. actually, what I hear is just another human speaking for God. And in the end they always talk about sin, the devil, dying, and killing. This doesn’t sound very “Godly” to me. This sounds like human motives, and ideals masquerading as devinity.
It doesn’t make sense that a God would make a home for us (Earth) but wants us to destroy it. Then that’s just like a Hitler perspective….”God told me to rid the world of the Jews”. Oh really? Well God told me, that you’re a fucking insane mass murder.
Hi Moxi:
I have listened to a couple of your you tube videos and read this sight. I am sorry that the control freakery of the Watchtower has destroyed your family life, at least your former one. I to disassociated myself from JW’s but for a different reason. I do still believe in God, but I understand why some don’t. Many are confused by the apparent clash of the idea of a Creator and modern thought and education including evolution etc.. A Good website that helped me to see the harmony between the two is http://www.biblecodeintro.com/ If you read it, I think it will make sense to you, even if in the end you do not necessarily agree with it’s conclusions. Thanks for your input!
Frank
Moxie,
Back when I was taking environmental history, I ran across a fellow named Lynn White who argued that Western religion was the cause of much environmental destruction. The religion was the foundation of much of Western society, driving actions that saw the land as something separate which could be “raped”. If I recall correctly, it is claimed that man is given dominion over the world to do with as he pleases. The argument is a bit more than that however and I direct you to http://www.counterbalance.net/enviro/intro-frame.html.
Perhaps it is better said that religion is a reflection of man’s inner self. We possess a destructive and exploitative nature on the whole. Religion is simply another mask for it.
What should be addressed is the root cause after all. Because I have some familiarity with genetics and other fields of knowledge I can say that on the whole, humans are a dangerous wild card with its inhibitions removed.
Fair winds,
Sunny Lam
Ffenyx Rising
http://ffenyx.wordpress.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/sunnylam
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