http://www.salon.com/2014/07/31/religious_leaders_carbon_pollution_is_an_affront_to_god/
On Tuesday, Alabama state officials said they had a right to their state’s coal
supply because God had given it to them. On Tuesday and Wednesday,
religious leaders spoke out on the opposite end of the spectrum: Carbon
pollution is actually an “affront to God.”
In a meeting with three administrators from the Environmental Protection Agency, David Kepley, an elder and deacon at the Providence Presbyterian Church, quoted a passage from Leviticus that promotes environmental stewardship and responsibility: “God said ‘the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. Throughout the land that you hold, you shall provide for the redemption of the land.”
Kepley interpreted the passage: “To me this means that to be wasteful of the land’s bounty or to despoil it with substances that are harmful to people or other life forms is not just unproductive, but is an affront to God. In my view, the EPA has identified one of those areas where we humans have ignored our role as good stewards of the Creation.” - Salon
This is only one of many, many examples of people believing that they are the only ones who know the will of god. The very fact that there is more than one religion proclaiming that god is one way and that life should be one way should give you pause, because what you really have here is a collection of people divided into different groups, all believing that they are in the right. So much of the world has been structured in this way like politics, economy, education and so on. Everyone believes that they are in the right but no one seems to be taking what's really important into consideration: giving each being the best life possible.
Take the bible for instance, it was written centuries after the events described within it, bringing to question the validity of the events that so many people believe happened. Certainly, there are stories in the bible that teach principles that would improve the world if every person were to live them, but it also promotes inequality and revenge - principles that we have proven again and again over the ages to not be of benefit to anyone or anything.
When there are so many faiths believing in so many deities then you must ask the questions: is god merely a figment of our imagination? Did some person just think up the concept and run with it? How does the belief in god benefit our society in any way? Sure, there are some principles that are to be commended and lived (like do unto another as you would like to be done unto you; love thy neighbour as thyself; etc) but as a whole, religion takes our sense of responsibility to ourselves, each other and the world out of our hands and places it firmly in "god's" lap. It is not for us to forgive, only for god. With this mentality we have abdicated our own wills - our will to create a world that everyone can enjoy and be supported by. We have used the will of god in vain, justifying our actions that do not otherwise make any real sense.
It is of course very convenient that god has not showed up to defend him/her/itself in any way - we are free to have god be whatever way we need god to be in order to validate whatever it is that we need validated. It seems we lack the self determination to direct the world in such a way that we can be proud of what we create. It seems that god gives us the reason we need to justify why we shouldn't be ashamed of this world, our creation in actual fact. God has not touched this place - only we have. We have created a war-torn and toxic planet that will soon collapse under our immense weight and lack of foresight and consideration. God had nothing to do with it. Our choices led us here.
On Tuesday, Alabama state officials said they had a right to their state’s coal
supply because God had given it to them. On Tuesday and Wednesday,
religious leaders spoke out on the opposite end of the spectrum: Carbon
pollution is actually an “affront to God.”In a meeting with three administrators from the Environmental Protection Agency, David Kepley, an elder and deacon at the Providence Presbyterian Church, quoted a passage from Leviticus that promotes environmental stewardship and responsibility: “God said ‘the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. Throughout the land that you hold, you shall provide for the redemption of the land.”
Kepley interpreted the passage: “To me this means that to be wasteful of the land’s bounty or to despoil it with substances that are harmful to people or other life forms is not just unproductive, but is an affront to God. In my view, the EPA has identified one of those areas where we humans have ignored our role as good stewards of the Creation.” - Salon
This is only one of many, many examples of people believing that they are the only ones who know the will of god. The very fact that there is more than one religion proclaiming that god is one way and that life should be one way should give you pause, because what you really have here is a collection of people divided into different groups, all believing that they are in the right. So much of the world has been structured in this way like politics, economy, education and so on. Everyone believes that they are in the right but no one seems to be taking what's really important into consideration: giving each being the best life possible.
Take the bible for instance, it was written centuries after the events described within it, bringing to question the validity of the events that so many people believe happened. Certainly, there are stories in the bible that teach principles that would improve the world if every person were to live them, but it also promotes inequality and revenge - principles that we have proven again and again over the ages to not be of benefit to anyone or anything.
When there are so many faiths believing in so many deities then you must ask the questions: is god merely a figment of our imagination? Did some person just think up the concept and run with it? How does the belief in god benefit our society in any way? Sure, there are some principles that are to be commended and lived (like do unto another as you would like to be done unto you; love thy neighbour as thyself; etc) but as a whole, religion takes our sense of responsibility to ourselves, each other and the world out of our hands and places it firmly in "god's" lap. It is not for us to forgive, only for god. With this mentality we have abdicated our own wills - our will to create a world that everyone can enjoy and be supported by. We have used the will of god in vain, justifying our actions that do not otherwise make any real sense.
It is of course very convenient that god has not showed up to defend him/her/itself in any way - we are free to have god be whatever way we need god to be in order to validate whatever it is that we need validated. It seems we lack the self determination to direct the world in such a way that we can be proud of what we create. It seems that god gives us the reason we need to justify why we shouldn't be ashamed of this world, our creation in actual fact. God has not touched this place - only we have. We have created a war-torn and toxic planet that will soon collapse under our immense weight and lack of foresight and consideration. God had nothing to do with it. Our choices led us here.
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