Update: Former Secretary of State George Shultz must be one of us! Hail & welcome to the non-believers sir!
Outside of the implausibility of religious claims about magic floods and rising from the dead, there is also the day-to-day ugliness that turns many off like a light switch. Racism, sexism, intolerance, a long history of brutal acts and justifying the most un-Christ-like behavoir imaginable, all given religious cover. And then there is the sheer mendacity. Take it away Rush!
Think Progress — According to Limbaugh, Kerry’s prayerful call to protect the planet was simply too much for the mind to handle:”See, in my humble opinion, folks, if you believe in God, then intellectually you cannot believe in manmade global warming … You must be either agnostic or atheistic to believe that man controls something that he can’t create. — Rush Limbaugh”
Rush Limbaugh may not be a master of theological nuance. Still, his core assertion — that someone can’t believe in God while also believing that humanity has contributed to global climate change — dusts off an old conservative myth that, like climate change-denying in general, ignores data, facts, and the lived experience of billions of people across the globe.
Well good news, we’re all OK here on FtB then, we’re allowed to “believe in” thermometers. Unless you are lurking believer, and accept basic science. You heretic!
Rush isn’t the only one to say this of course. It’s been a right-wing evangelical trope for quite a while. It’s kind of vague and confusing, exactly how it works, which is perfect for a certain kind of confused, vague mindset we all know too well. It’s something along the lines of after God created the heaven and the earth and committed planetary genocide with the flood of Noah, He promised he wouldn’t so that any more. That includes any changes to the climate, He won’t allow us to change that. Despite the fact that He has given us dominion over the earth … like I said, they’re still working out the kinks in this particular theology.
By this reasoning, conservatives shouldn’t be concerned about abortion. How can man control life if he didn’t create it?
So I have to give up ignorant faith for me and my fellow humans to survive?
Sounds like a fair exchange. Sign me up.
I have to give it Rush, he’s more right than he knows. It’s just that he sits on the wrong side of the fence. It’s like asking what two plus two is. You can’t believe that it is both 4 and 5. Rush would agree, but would choose 5 as the answer.
I was going to parody this quote, but I just can’t top it for ridiculousness.
Actually there is at least one evangelical Christian climate scientists – Katherine Hayhoe – who disproves that line by existing. See her interviewed here :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHYhovvLQyc
There are also liberal Christians such as Fred Clark who runs the Slacktivist blog and Jim Wallis who runs the Sojourner blog and thousands more who do believe in both the reality of HIRGO* and in their diety of choice.
So, yeah, Limbaugh got this wrong as well maintaining his pretty close to 100% record of being wrong.
* Human-Induced Rapid Global Overheating because it describes it plainest and best and avoids the positive implications of being “nice’n’warm” in my view.
See for instance here :
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2013/08/13/the-bad-faith-of-climate-deniers-cannot-be-denied/
For Fred Clark & here :
http://sojo.net/search/apachesolr_search/Global%20Warming
For the Sjourners blog articles on HIRGO* and even from here :
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/10/national/10evangelical.html?_r=0
“Evangelical Leaders Swing Influence Behind Effort to Combat Global Warming” By Laurie Goodstein
published 2005 March 10th in The New York Times’ online newspaper -probl’y in their print edition too.
Yep. Flippin’ Ted “completely heterosexual” Haggard of all people believes in HIRGO* even!
* See bottom of #5.