Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to University of Cambridge Professors Tobias Müller and Esra Özyürek, religious groups can help combat climate change, but they need to renounce our “profit oriented economy”.
Religious communities can make the difference in winning the fight against climate change
December 2, 2021 3.59am AEDT
Tobias MüllerLecturer in Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge
Esra ÖzyürekProfessor of Abrahamic Faiths and Shared Values, University of Cambridge
The threat of climate change signals a “code red for humanity”, and we are running out of time to transition away from carbon and prevent catastrophic planetary warming. Our best chance is to convince existing organisations with financial, political and social power to pioneer drastic change. Faith communities – to which 4 billion people worldwide belong, with an economic value of over £900 billion (£676 billion) in the US alone – might be the force we need.
When US President John Biden met Pope Francis on October 29, climate change was a focus of their discussion. Later that day, the pope spoke on BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day strand on the Today programme to demand “radical decisions” from world leaders on climate. He warned that the interlinking crises of the pandemic and climate change have created “a perfect storm” about to cause havoc to human civilisation.
Before the COP26 UN climate conference took place in Glasgow, 40 religious leaders also met in the Vatican to make an unprecedented plea for addressing the climate crisis.
“If one nation sinks, we all sink”, said Rajwant Singh, a Sikh leader from Washington D.C. And the Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb of the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, Egypt, an institution usually not known for its progressive politics, called on young Muslims “to be ready to fight against any action that damages the environment”.
…
But these steps alone are not enough. As the pope suggested to BBC listeners, religious groups must acknowledge that our profit-oriented economy is making our planet uninhabitable.
Faith communities across the world together make up an industry that is bigger than most national economies. Through speaking the truth about the state of the planet and exercising uncompromising financial, social and political pressure on governments and corporations, they can shift the balance towards averting the devastation of all we hold sacred on Earth. These communities have the resources and the resilience, but above all the moral responsibility, to do that.
In light of the many times they have failed to stand up for justice and human dignity, religions could win back their place at the forefront of a struggle that will define the future of humanity. To rephrase a famous slogan, there are no religions on a dead planet.
Read more: https://theconversation.com/religious-communities-can-make-the-difference-in-winning-the-fight-against-climate-change-172192
The problem with renouncing our profit oriented economy, with renouncing excess, is as Venezuela discovered, it is way too easy to undershoot, and tip large numbers of people into want and hunger.
Capitalism works because it is very responsive to need. People seeking a profit go out of their way to try to anticipate needs, which usually results in at least a mild excess of essentials – nobody has to go hungry.
Other systems not so much.
There is nothing sinful about allowing people to make a profit, thereby ensuring everyone has enough to eat, even if this means food is wasted.
Religious leaders should be ashamed of themselves for suggesting otherwise, for backing failed ideas which always lead to guaranteed large scale want and hunger.
Pope Francis was raised under Peron, and acts as if kitsch fascist politics are the norm.
I was raised Catholic, and Liberation Theology was a common theme, especially in Latin America. Trying to mix Marx and Jesus ended up almost all Marx.
As these professors appear to be those characterized as watermelons, this is just more green washing Marx.
Same here – shaking my head constantly since about a year or 2 after Pope Evita, I mean, Francis took over. Benedict where are you, why did you have to go?!
Very challenging to reconcile the current alleged pope with Catholic tradition on so many points. I just recall that there were equally bad popes and antipopes in the past, possibly even some worse.
There was a rumor a number of years ago that one of the Prophecies of Lourdes was that the previous pope was going to be the last pope.
Prophecy of Lourdes? You’re mixing up various things. There wasn’t any prophecies out of Lourdes, besides the fact of the shrine and the heals there. At Fatima, there’s the ‘Miracle of the Sun’ witnessed by tens of thousands, even confirmed communists (who quickly unconfirmed and converted), and that warned us of a worse war to come. The pope predictions come from the so-called prophecies of St. Malachy. Even the old Catholic Encyclopedia, published back in 1911, cast shade of the little sayings assigned to each pope. However, the one assigned to St. JP2 and Benedict were dead on, but the last one, for Francis doesn’t seem to apply. Anyways, it’s either a fun game or prophecies that only tell you God’s in control, after the fact – so no way to change the future for all you (and me) sci-fi fans.
When I was a kid, the reaction when someone asked an obvious question was either
Do bears sh*t in the woods? or
Is the Pope Catholic?
At least bears still sh*t in the woods.
But they’re threatened by all the wildfires caused by the magic molecule.
Like the one who sold his papacy for two tons of silver.
Benedicts forced departure was part of the Left’s push to takeover every Western institution and impart their agenda.
Increasingly hard to scoff at that hypothesis. Strike the shepherd and the flock will scatter.
There are all sorts of conspiracy theories regarding the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. Without getting involved in any of these theories it has to be recognised that there were people in the Catholic Church, including Cardinals and members of the Curia, who wanted to change the Catholic Church in ways that all previous Popes resisted. In particular, they wanted to change Church teaching on morality. They wanted to replace moral absolutes with moral relativism. (It all depends on…) One particular bee in their bonnet was Communion for people who were divorced and civilly remarried. Another bee was women priests. These people could not wait to get rid of Pope Benedict and install a Pope who was sympathetic to their agenda.
Let’s just say that the story told about how the job was too much for frail Benedict to be able to do a good job doesn’t pass the smell test, especially since a bowl of fruit could have done a better job than the current guy.
Tom,
Liberation Theology is not about liberation and even less about God but simply another way to catch gullible people. What these two Cambridge professors are offering is a smogasbord of half-baked ideas. Yuck!
I remember the “visiting” priests (and their “special collections”) back in the 1950s.
They were battling evil, but their solution was not much better, especially when in the 60s and 70s they landed on college campuses and joined in the indoctrination of our gullible youth.
It’s good to hear from someone who understands Fascism isn’t about racism, but was/is a totalitarian political and economic system. And yes, Fascism economics is a branch of Marxism. Just ask Mussolini, who created Fascism.
I suspect that these people may be unaware that many religious groups depend on tithing from their membership and, in many places, a tax-free status for the group, and sometimes tax avoidance for donors. I suspect that some religious groups may even have some association for how equivalent or historically related groups fared under authoritarian regimes that took away those priveleges.
Of the two, Biden and Cardinal Bergoglio, I wonder which is more maniputated by invisible underlings. How can it be that either’s legitimacy in office could be questioned?
This reminds me of a good joke. The IRS phones up a Catholic Priest:
IRS: Is Sean O’Leary a member of your parish?
CP: He, he is, he is.
IRS: Does he attend your services
CP: He does, he does, he does.
IRS: Does he donate to your church?
CP: Yes, he does, he does, he does.
IRS: Did he donate $100,000 for your roof appeal?
CP: Oh, he will, he will, he will!
Many liberals predicted that giving to charities would plummet when Reagan slashed the top tax rate. Instead the opposite occurred.
In Canada you get a better tax break for giving to a political party than a church or other charity.
Surprise, surprise, surprise
“transition away from carbon” ? What is this soot these pseuds keep talking about?
On the subject of my Pope, once when the great satan Grigor Soros was being interviewed, he did not deny that he OWNED this pope. Enough said.
BTW Priests of various denominations in Germany, get paid a salary provided by the taxpayer.
It’s not a transition away from carbon they want, but a transition away from capitalism. What these Marxists either fail to understand or know and want to undermine, is that capitalism is why America has become so successful, that profit is the motivation for progress and that the opportunity to succeed is available to anyone who wants it, regardless of race, religion or wealth. Progressive policies in Democrat controlled cities have encouraged those that don’t want to take advantage of the opportunity to advance themselves to claim victimhood, demand handouts and justify criminal behavior. It really boils down to greed and envy and that encouraging and leveraging this to gain popular support for ‘progressive’ policies is what makes the ideology so evil.
I’ve talked to many academics, and they are totally flummoxed over how something that is tightly controlled could possibly be efficient.
They look at past events and proclaim that if only people had done X instead of Y, the results would have been so much better. If only they had been in control at the time, they could have forced everyone to do Y.
What they ignore is that they only know that Y was better than X because they have access to full knowledge, not only of events at the time but things that have happened since.
In the real world, in real time, full knowledge is impossible. Only an academic wouldn’t know that.
In the control theory realm, if you can measure efficiency in real time and the control system is designed to maximize efficiency, tight control can even be optimally efficient. However, as you add delay in the control path and correct non optimum behavior long after it happened, the system starts to overshoot and undershoot optimum by larger and larger amounts. The solution is to make only small corrections at a time. The anti-solution is that large corrections makes the system less stable and it will not converge to its optimum.
Politicians want to do large corrections, most often with unintended, yet predictable consequences that are in conflict with what they say they want to do. Our founders seemed to know this and constructed a self correcting governing system designed to change slowly and with many checks and balances. The Progressive Marxists running the Democratic party want to eliminate this feature and make many big changes all at once. This is sure to fail.
Too bad Canada didn’t embrace a democratic republic as a better way to serve the country.
It’s worked pretty well in the US until marxists stole their way in and unfortunately managed to get too big a hold in the schools.
No country can prosper with a givernment(pretty good play) government that it seeking control and money, not the good of the republic and it’s people.
I don’t remember who said it:
No government can survive once the people that they can vote themselves riche from the public purse.
Add to that the socialist belief that 51% of the people have a right to use government to steal from the 49%, and society is quickly doomed.
Why does everything need to be a “war on xxx”. Or a fight against anything . Climate changes like it or not …try to prove mans influence if you can . Impossible to do unless you had an identical earth with no people ..
I am actually getting bored with these pseudo scientific model driven morons …
Well, there was a war on alcohol, as someone suddenly decided it should be illegal. That didn’t work.
There’s a war on drugs, as someone suddenly decided that they should be illegal. That’s not working.
Now there’s a war on capitalism, and nobody even declared it to be illegal!
Maybe they’ll succeed this time, having discovered their mistake. Don’t make it illegal, just ‘cancel’ it and all who support it!
Not only did they not declare it illegal. They misnamed it. There’s no such thing as capitalism, regardless of its notoriety and bad publicity. Marx popularized the term to be a pejorative. Free market sounds far too reasonable and amenable to the people. It also works.
Christian was also, originally a pejorative. The history of groups taking pejorative names and making them there own, goes way back.
With the war on alcohol, they at least recognized that you need a constitutional amendment in order for the government to declare a substance illegal.
By the time you got to the war on drugs, that nicety was conveniently forgotten.
Who needs an amendment, Mark, when you have Executive Orders?
Because that is how these morons minds work – black and white, no shades of grey. A childish sense of absolutes, no concept of consequences or responsibilities – they have never grown up and probably never will.
Worse yet, they shriek and stomp their feet at the least imperfection anywhere, making a mountain out of a mole hill, demanding it be fixed immediately, no matter what the cost or negative consequences. Most of the injustice in the world today is caused by people who claim to seek justice, little Hitlers..
Agreed, and so bored with the endless declarations that this and that could be, maybe, will be a threat.
Eric,
The audacity of these @$$h@ts, thinking that religious leaders should call for the renouncing of the economic liberty that comes from a system allows people to profit from their labors! Where do they think the freedom and prosperity they enjoy came from!
Marxism truly is a fanatical religious cult! The adherents refuse to admit that the proselytizers of Marx killed, enslaved and impoverished more humans than ANY OTHER religion in history; and they are still at work brainwashing another generation of useless idiots! Anyone who doesn’t renounce it, and the slavery experienced EVERYWHERE this system has been imposed; has to be an idiot, an ignoramus, or insane!
So, of course, they share common interests with the Church of Climastrology; they are both based on the same fatally flawed beliefs; the perfectability of humans, and the infallibility of politicians and bureaucrats! The greatest benefactors of this cult religion posing as an economic and political system are the sociopaths and psychopaths who invariably rise to the top, once the adolescent thinkers are pushed aside to be imprisoned or shot!
If these IDIOTS just embraced the economic freedom model, with it’s profits; the world could finally achieve a true Golden Age with virtually NO slavery or poverty! Just an evergrowing economy from the new goods and services generated by human creativity!!
Where do these morons think their offerings are coming from? It is coming from people working in free market and
capitalist countries. Any church that says things like this should immediately be charged for back taxes for the last 200 years. They can’t slander the goose that lays the golden egg and at the same time receive the fruits of the golden egg. These people and churches are beyond despicable.
Interesting. Trump says:
And apparently that leftists claim that this required impeachment.
This Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb of the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo called on young Muslims:
Presumably leftists will call for his prosecution too.
But probably not. We all know how peace-loving their religion is.
A university in Toronto recently cancelled a talk by a woman who had been sold into sexual slavery by the Taliban. According to a university spokesman they were afraid that the talk might encourage Islamaphobia.
If you’re a reasonable person, and planning to be phobic about anything, I’d advise adopting Islamophobia at your earliest convenience because 25% of them want your head on a platter. That’s 350 million people who want to kill you … and another 350 million who agree with them.
Muslim woman asks a question and probably wishes she didn’t …
An awesome rant!
That’s a good question: where are the ‘peaceful majority’ condemning the violent minority and trying to stop them?
As Emily Litella would have said “Never mind.”
(Back when SNL was funny.)
Sorry, I don’t know the reference or the context. I’ve never watched SNL … tried it once and it was pathetically contrived..
What’s all this I hear about violins on television? I think it’s wonderful to have violins on television…
What’s all this I hear about youth in Asia? What have you got against youth in Asia?…
What’s all this I hear about Soviet jewelry…
After being corrected that it’s violence on television, euthanasia, and Soviet Jewry, she says “Never mind”
Thanks. If that was the best they managed, I hate to think how bad it became … yikes. These days, I’m told that a half hour routine on menstrual cramps has them rolling in the isles and abortion humour is topping the charts. Go figure.
rather, it would correctly encourage Talibanaphobia
Hummm.. no word about China? A communist country with no religion? They do have a sort of capitalism but only for the elites… just like their model where only a small group would make all the money but the rest of us won’t own anything and be happy?
No, Deng’s reforms meant people could start small businesses and grow. There was plenty of corruption, and nobody really had any rights, but it still worked better than the Soviet Union ever did.
Xi is rolling back decades of progress with his cultural revolution V2.
I lived there for a number of years. The government is happy for anyone to be rich. No restrictions. The Chinese have been traders/merchants for thousands of years. The early communist party was just a glitch. More money equals more taxes. What government would be unhappy with that?
Sun Dawu could not be reached for comment.
That’s all you’ve got? Going after the 1% ers is obviously some sort of sin for you. I was speaking about the other 99%.
I guess it never occurred to you that this guy might be like Musk or Bezos. You don’t get from zero to a zillion without corruption and screwing people. He simply didn’t pay enough to the right people. I guess he’s your hero. Something in your favour is that you’re not as big an arsehole to be as ‘successful’ as one of them. Keep your mind closed and read the local media.
1) Assumes Musk and Bezos are corrupt
2) Then assumes Sun Dawo being rich, must also have been corrupt
3) Assumes that there is nothing wrong with the government taking out someone who hasn’t been paying the proper bribes.
No wonder you are so supportive of Russia and China.
I lived there as well, Alexy, but it’s more than a decade ago now. The first time I visited China, 20 years ago, I witnessed an old building torn down by a gang of workers with wheelbarrows and hand tools. Even while I lived there, a large field in a park near us was regularly kept neatly trimmed by a gang of old ladies with scissors and plastic bags.
To comment on today’s China based on those experiences is a bit like explaining Germany in 1937 based on living there in 1922 and having visited in 1910.
The analog to the Anschluss of Austria (Taiwan) is coming soon (while we’re still disabled by having a demented criminal as President. Xi may already have paid for that via Hunter, but in any case has a rational expectation that Brandon’s “rock solid” resolve will resemble his performance in Kabul).
After that comes the Sudetenland and beyond (S Korea, Viet Nam …Japan?)
I think you meant Sundaland, which is SE Asia. Sudetenland is Czechoslovakia. But otherwise I agree with your assessment.
No, I was extending the analogy of the Anschluss to the appeasement of Hitler in Czechoslovakia by Neville Chamberlain.
Austria —>Taiwan
Bohemia & Moravia —> S. Korea, Viet Nam
I was there till 2018. I had a diverse range of acquaintances. There were no restrictions about becoming rich. People understood corruption and worked around it or with it. The older ladies and men who cleaned streets was a common feature. They added to their pension. It also gave them a purpose to get up in the morning.
They are willing to let people become rich, but only so long as they don’t get any silly ideas, such as believing they have a right to comment on the abuses of the current government.
Or if a high ranking party member decides he wants your stuff.
Of course.
Interestingly, the only reason that these organisations have so much wealth is fossil fuels and capitalism. They want them to destroy the very things that created themselves.
Without fossil fuels to do the work for us, and free us from slavery and servitude, and capitalism to allow the common man to get wealthy, we’d all still be working 16/7 and not have time for politics disguised as religion. I’m guessing that’s where they want us to return.
I might be wrong but I don’t think that the £900 billion referred to the wealth of these organisations. I think it referred to the wealth of the individuals who belong to the organisations. But you are right about the importance of fossil fuels. As a Catholic it saddens me to see leading figures in the Church talking so negatively about fossil fuels.
The leadership of many (perhaps even most) mainline churches, stopped being Christian a long time ago. For them political ideology trumps Christian teaching.
For example, Christ did say that we have an obligation to take care of the poor. But that is an individual responsibility. At no point in time did Christ instruct people to use government to steal money from other people and use that money to take care of the poor.
So many people now days believe that voting for a politician who promises to tax others to fund programs to support the poor, satisfies their obligations to Christ.
Organized religion’s further involvement with politics will not end well. Playing around with faddish ideology and various forms of Marxism will lose its allure when one’s tax exempt status is threatened. Additionally, if religions are associated with specific political aims they become targets of opposite political factions. Imagine well-funded Baptist political campaigns against Catholics and vice versa.
And don’t forget to bow and doff your cap when an ‘Elite’ walks by. That’s where they want us to return.
A fair number of my fellow Christians see right through the climate change fears. The Bible actually has some strong advice on healing our land. If followed we would all be better off and there would be no need to cut our carbon emissions
And apparently, that bearded old white guy in the sky gave us dominion over the land. Perhaps he made a mistake when he left coal, oil and gas where we could easily get to it?
Also, he obviously made a mistake when he left a load of cannabis, poppies and coca plants around.
But….. Isn’t he supposed to be infallible?
Zig Zag,
You don’t get it.
When you make a God in your own image then mock him
you are actually mocking yourself.
All the pictures of the Great Big Sky Fairy show him as a bearded white bloke. Just as the pictures of Jesus invariably show him with blond hair and blue eyes. He was a Jew from the Middle East (assuming he really did exist) The last thing the sandal-wearer would have looked like was the Aryan ideal.
Every culture has always portrayed God and Jesus in their own image.
Just take a look at Christian religious art from Asia or Africa.
Why is it only wrong when Europeans do it?
Seems a bit daft. What some wokesters might call “cultural appropriation”
Once you have infinite knowledge, I will listen to your opinions as to whether God’s plans are flawed or not.
I presume you’ve got the infinite knowledge to know your God’s plans aren’t flawed.
Andy,
Playing a bit of the amateur therapist here, I know, but your aggressive atheist schtick makes me think that you probably fit one of two categories.
Either you had a parent who hated religion but who never fully accepted you so that you’re constantly trying to behave in ways that you think would win their approval, or you had a religious authority figure in your life against whom you feel compelled to rebel constantly because they made you feel bad about yourself.
Either way it’s too bad. You really should try to accept yourself and live your life at peace. And realize that the person who warped you probably didn’t realize what they were doing. Let it go.
Rich,
A quick tip: never try and become a professional therapist. You’d be rubbish at it.
A religious parent? Nope. My parents had no interest in religion whatsoever. They were, however, both extremely loving and kind towards me and my brother. They also insisted we made our own minds up about what we felt and believed about the world around us. I had a brilliant, carefree, and very loving childhood.
A religious authority figure to rebel against? Nope. About the only religious person in my childhood was my school chaplain. He was perfectly harmless and neither I nor my school mates paid any attention to him whatsoever. I can’t even remember the old chap’s name.
I’m perfectly at peace with myself: My wife is gorgeous and my children are too. I’m very happy with my lot. As for being an “aggressive atheist”, I haven’t been aggressive in any way. I am, however, highly amused:
I’m amused that so many sceptics, who (quite rightly) dismiss the thermageddonists’ crazy CAGW cult because the thermageddonists have no empirical proof of their CAGW beliefs, are still ready to believe without any evidence whatsoever that some being in the sky is running the whole show.
I’m equally amused that those sceptics, who (quite rightly) laugh at the last 50 years of busted thermageddonist predictions of climate chaos, are still ready to hang their hat on predictions of the second coming of a son of a God who has repeatedly failed to arrive for the last 2000 years.
Do the sceptic bible-bashers not see the irony and hypocrisy of their beliefs? It’s rather silly.
Jesus is coming Andy, better look busy!
If it’s next weekend tell him I’m washing my hair.
Religion, race, gender, sexual preference, and all the other social justice platforms are discarded once the Marxists gain control. Green adherents will be the first to go since they’ll only get in the way of material and living progress. Climate Change will be ignored or outright falsified. All useful idiots will be treated as such.
Don’t forget, communism uses 3 times the resources for the same output as capitalism. Capitalism passively manages resources using supply, demand and price. Communism actively manages resources with best intentions and skill of government servants.
Greens should not be communists if they cared about using resources effectively. Neither should any religion that cares about the planet.
markl: “All useful idiots will be treated as such.“
–
“All useful idiots will be
treatedgotten rid of as such.”–
And they are always so surprised when it happens… because they are idiots.
It is worth remembering Jesus’ advice in Mark:
“You need to do one thing more. Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.'”
And then there is the tale of Ananias and Sapphira. Where again a failure to give money to the poor resulted in their sudden death.
Yes, but, by all accounts, the Teacher was a bit impractical when it came to financial matters. Why, I’ll bet he wouldn’t even have liked the idea of church basement bingoes, LoL..
Jam your bible fair up your ginger. No wonder you’re a warmist. Belief is part of your makeup.
Ananias and Sapphira did not die for ‘failure to give money to the poor.’ They died lying to God about how much they had sold a property for, pretending a partial remittance (which they had every right to do) was in fact the full sale price.
Just for accuracy.
Like most atheists, what Izaak believes about the Church has no relationship to the actual Church.
If you’re going to quote Mark 17, at least learn and understand the lesson. It really has little to do with “giving money to the poor”. It has to do with the requirements to enter Heaven. The lesson is that “a man of great wealth” must give up far more than someone with nothing. If you have nothing, it’s easy to part with.
As for Ananias and Sapphira, Ananias’ sin had nothing to do with his wealth. He lied to God and was struck down. The amount he held back was immaterial.
If you’re going to use Biblical references to make a point … learn their meaning.
The Mark quote is also there to demonstrate the impossibility of earning salvation. As it also says, “Only God is good.” The point of Christianity is that man cannot be good, cannot save himself from condemnation, only the sacrifice of Jesus & faith it that sacrifice can save.
It follows from Ecclesiastes 1:2&3 …
2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
3 What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
Our corporal life of pain, sorrow or happiness is unimportant but is merely a journey of learning and following God’s law before salvation and entering heaven. The whole chapter is among the most profound in the KJV.
Why is it always these verses that get quoted and not passages about the weather like those in Matthew 16 where Jesus said:
“When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky . . .
These people carefully observed weather patterns and knew how to benefit by responding appropriately. This helped their agricultural cycle and they dug cisterns to catch and store water from the winter rainfall for the hot, dry summers. Instead of complaining about weather conditions, we would do well today to figure out how we can live with and benefit from these.
I don’t know, Michael. What I do know is; they need to learn what it means instead of trying to use the Bible as an attack on a presumed connection between religious belief and skeptics.
You’re wrong about Ananias and Sapphira. They died because they lied.
When I see Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates do that for the climate scam, then I’ll go all in too. I won’t hold my breath
He was just going for the’ poor’ vote
I think several have already made the point that Ananias and Sapphira’s offense was virtue signalling, not keeping their money. The text actually makes this point rather forcefully; Peter acknowledges their property rights; Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power?
I love it when people who know nothing about Christianity attempt to give lectures on Christianity.
The next sentence regarding the rich man makes it clear that this instruction was given to the rich man alone. The rich man needed to give away his wealth because his wealth was what he loved the most.
Ananias and Sapphira were not being punished for failing to give everything to the church, they were punished for lying about it. Peter himself declares that they would have been in their rights to only give a portion to the church.
The next sentence regarding the rich man makes it clear that this instruction was given to the rich man alone.
Given the source, no big surprise to see an out of context quote to support a false claim.
In no way do the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament give credence to 19yth Century philosophy of Kant, Hegel and Marx or any of them who have come afterward. Ancient Israel is not America nor any other country nor is it the church. In ancient Israel the citizens were the elect people of God and the people of God are to take care of the people of God. Yes our treasure is in heaven and it is Christ alone. The Kingdom of God is not about money or the poor. The Ananias and Sapphira sinned against the Holy spirit by lying, making themselves out to be something when they were nothing because they’re faith was a sham … that was their sin…money was secondary. In America, the church is a small spiritual other worldly place the confesses Christ as Lord and worships Him in spirit and in truth. The Church takes care of the people of God. It is not an extension of the secular world. Christ says that his people are not of this world but are citizens of a new Kingdom. a heavenly kingdom. So the Churches’ hope and object of faith is not this world nor the people in it.. In this world, our secular world… America taxes and spends billions on the poor. And gives billions of taxpayer money around the globe to help the poor. And the Church gives billions around the world to help the poor. So what more do Marxists, Anarchists…et al, want? They want nothing more than to distort the truth of the word of God as you have done. They want to instigate tyranny to destroy the church if the could. No Communist country has destroyed the Church. They have harmed it and persecuted it but it is impossible to destroy because it is not of this world. The power of God cannot be overthrown by sword, famine pestilence, evil or error. The more the world tries to destroy faith in Christ as Lord and Savior, the more it grows and expands. You would do well to re-read your scriptures and pray.
My church went woke and is nearing Marxist. My pastor starting quoting Zinn last year. Most seem to be doing this. They won’t be seeing another dime from me. After all, if I am paying for the work they used to do through my taxes, then I’m paying well beyond the 10% that God wanted.
This is what basically has happened in Europe, where Christendom has been dying for generations now and is now nearly gone. They don’t seem to realize that Marxism has no room for more than one savior or religion beyond the state. They’re agitating for their own extinction.
As someone who lives in Europe I think a better analogy would be that we are seeing a return of irrational medieval movements more akin to the flagellants who believed the plague was the fault of a sinful mankind, or perhaps the insanity of the children’s crusade which saw thousands of Greta like lemmings march off to a bad end cheered on by the rest of the true believers.
At least the people of medieval Europe had the excuse that they were mostly completely uneducated.
“At least the people of medieval Europe had the excuse that they were mostly completely uneducated.”
This is indeed the irony of our age. Never before in the history of mankind has information been so easily accessible to people than it is today. And yet people have never been more lazy in being bothered to research anything before they act.
As are the people today when it comes to CliSciFi, among many other topics.
There are lots of verses in the Bible about working diligently and so gaining wealth.
There are lots of verses in the Bible about those who have wealth helping those in need.
There are no verses about taking money from those who have wealth to a Secular Government to give to those in need or just refuse to work.
There are definitely ZERO verses about sacrificing people for Ma’ Gaia.
Jesus was quite clear on the need to pay taxes. Irrespective of what they were being used for. If it was right for the Jews to pay taxes to the Romans then surely paying taxes so that the government can help those in need is also bibical and just.
On that basis, churches should pay taxes on the donations they receive.
Especially when those donations go to political movements. This will not end well for organized religion. See the above comment about stopping donations to his church over political disagreements.
For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
2 Thessalonians 3:10
This is the second (3rd) time you have used The Bible, this evening, to make a point when you don’t understand the lesson you’re supposedly quoting. Jesus did NOT advise the Jews to pay taxes to the Romans, you thick clod. Typically you just make shit up as you go.
Mathew 22:
Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away.
Jesus did NOT advise the Jews to pay taxes to the Romans
Even if you DID interpret it that way (which you rightly point out is an incorrect interpretation), he never said that you can’t OPPOSE taxes! It is perfectly consistent from a logical standpoint to pay taxes while still being against them, given the coercive nature of taxation.
Just so. Failing to pay taxes got you into a heap of trouble back then, as it does today. Of course, the Pharisees were referring to Hebrew (God’s) law, not Roman law, but were being purposefully ambiguous. I enjoy the subtlety of these lessons.
Governments stepped into the vacuum of social responsibility for the needy because churches and individual Christians neglected the responsibility, selfishly hoarded the money they are holding in trust to responsibly and compassionately use on behalf of the Creator and Owner of all things.
Oh dear, oh dear. That’s a pretty black and white description of the situation. Yes, there existed corruption. Let’s not deny that. But to deny the good which the Church did is equally false. For example, one of the factors behind the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 was opposition to the dissolution of the lesser monasteries. The good people of the north of England knew that these monasteries were often their main source of help in time of need.
Do you actually believe that to be true? If so you show an incredible ignorance of history.
Vis-a-vis the wealth of the time, the poor were better taken care of prior to government getting involved.
Churches provided orphanages and homes for widows.
Churches provided poor houses and training for the indigent.
What churches didn’t do was offer to support to those who could work and didn’t want to.
Once again, Izaak demonstrates that his knowledge of scripture is only skin deep.
And once again, he only quotes the portion of the scripture that supports what he wants to believe, not all of it.
While it is true that Jesus acknowledges that while on Earth we are subject to the whims of Earthly powers, he is also quite clear that if the demands of government go against scripture, we are to oppose that government.
I’m quite sure that Izaak would have supported those Christian who opposed government sanctioned slavery.
Beyond that, as usual, Izaak totally misses Gunga Din’s point, and that is there is no biblical support for government taking money from some in order to give it to others.
I have to wonder about Izaak, is it possible to be so wrong, on so many different subjects, from mere ignorance alone?
But is government your master or your servant?
LIke most liberals, Izaak is convinced that he will be one of those running government, and that everyone he disagrees with him will be forced by government to live as he dictates.
sark/
Working for a living is so yesterday! We can just take money from all those billionaires. If we combined their cash we could pay nearly $11 to every man, woman, and child on earth. (I’m not sure about those non-binary folks.) That will, of course, end poverty. Think of the great lifestyle that $11 will provide you! But….
When your $11 runs a little short, I suppose you could do something like sell something to other folks to get some of their $11. But…
When stuff to sell runs out, you could fall back on the old thing of selling your time and work for money. After all your time and work is yours to sell since slavery has fallen into disfavor. But…
Every other person is starting out with $11 so probably could not afford to hire you to work for them. The typical solution to that issue would be to figure out how to use your time and effort using resources laying around to fabricate things that others might part will a few cents of their $11 to obtain. But…
You will be making a profit. Well, actually, your time and work must count as a cost as it was yours and you were selling it’s productivity. But…
You are maintaining yourself, hopefully somewhere near $11 lifestyle level or better. What about all those folks who are not using their time and work potential wisely? You will be living a better life style than them. YOU ARE AN EVIL CAPITALIST!
/sark
capitalism is a bottom-up organization of economic activity into ever more complex trade relationship-as long as everyone is playing the same rules and private property rights are respected. constant creative destruction pares weak elements. It is ant-Fragile- it gets stronger with stressors.
Socialism is top down controlled economy. It always becomes unstable, fragile and eventually breaks leading to starvation and peasantry of once prosperous people. The climate scam is socialism’s Trojan Horse.
Joel,
Good points, as always!
I’m beginning to think that we need to abandon the term ‘capitalism’ altogether! It is a misnomer and a pejorative term coined by Marx and other socialists to denigrate the wealth they saw increasing all around them!
Instead, we should just call it economic freedom or liberty; as long as the rule of law and property rights are upheld equally, the society grows wealthier! Only when crime and political corruption are allowed into the mix do we see the great wealth inequality that Progressives supposedly decry! Maybe freedonomics would be more apropos!
Captialism’s profit motive in-conjunction with allowing the most productive to keep most of one’s earnings plays to basic human nature to take care of oneself and family first, above all else.
In the human condition, Socialism will never work in the long term because it allows power concentration, and thus wealth seizure, by the few who work the least. That will never succeed in the face of basic human nature of one placing self and family before the village when the bad times come, as they always do. If people’s hard work is constantly seized, they cease to work hard. Bad spell hiuts, and the system collapses due to this fragility.
The old communist state worker’s joke:
I always regarded capitalism as a method whereby anybody could ask for investment, and indeed anyone could invest, in commercial ventures. This allows people to do things otherwise impossible, and for ordinary bods to make some money while taking some of the risk. I admit that I’ve probably been fooling myself, but then I don’t know what that system is called.
“I always regarded capitalism as a method whereby anybody could ask for investment, and indeed anyone could invest…”
By that interpretation, what we have in the US is definitely NOT capitalism (see SEC rules)
Karl Marx used to enjoy his Sunday afternoon champagne picnics in London’s Hyde Park, what a real man of the people!!!
Subsidized by his rich, capitalist useful-idiot friend. Marx was basically an overeducated lazy bum who let his family suffer in poverty instead of getting a real job.
The leaders of BLM are repeating that pattern. Get rich quick and screw the poor blacks that support your Marxist creed.
Well said, Joel and particularly apt when directed at Alarmunists. It’s completely apposite that both AGW and socialism share the need for consensus and conformity with the dogma.
Capitalism is what happens when the government does not get in the way.
The beauty of capitalism is that it allows academics like these two to be employed when they would otherwise find it difficult to get a job, as they have no useful skills whatsoever.
They could learn to code, Martin.
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Wait up… we’ve seen the models and know how that worked out. Nevermind.
They could learn to code, Martin.
No thanks, we have enough lousy coders.
Climate Changism is an anti capitalist religion anyway, I thought we all knew that?
And…the story, in a nut shell…!
Thanks, Matthew!
Well, various UN IPCC CliSciFi leaders came right out and said that. Why would anyone be surprised to learn it now?
“Religious groups must acknowledge that our profit-oriented economy is making our planet uninhabitable”
And once again, it is all about communism. And again, there was no push against global warming while USSR was a thing. Only after it collapsed… curious, eh?
The Communist countries of Eastern Europe produced far more pollution than the countries of western Europe. This was because they were target-driven and the targets were expressed in terms of output. So they produced as much as they could and weren’t bothered about the consequences. One of the reasons for Perestroika was that Gorbachev realised that a planned economy is an inefficient economy. It has no incentive to modernise and use more advanced techniques. I remember a series of TV programmes which Jimmy Reid (an ex-Communist) made in the 1980s called ‘Reid about the USSR’. He said that the most common reason for domestic fires in the USSR was exploding TV sets. He went to the apartment of a couple. The man was a senior consultant in the health service. His wife was an engineer. You would have had difficulty swinging a cat in the apartment. They were one of the lucky few who owned a car. But when he parked the car, he removed things like the windscreen wipers as otherwise they would be stolen. The shoe shop was selling summer sandals in the middle of winter. And so on. No wonder the Russians were glad to get rid of Communism.
However those who had become rich under communism were still rich and were eager to regain the power they had lost when communism fell.
The more the climate refuses to cooperate with the models, the more desperate the adherents are to jump directly to the end game.
I wonder what the electricity and heating bills are for the Vatican. The Pope has one of the biggest personal CO2 footprints in the world. He certainly doesn’t use a magic carpet to fly all over the globe.
If the CEO had an apartment in the headquarters building, would you assign the carbon foot print of the entire building to the CEO?
Your comment about travel is right on the money though.
sheesh, what’s so bad about profit? It’s what you get when you produce more wealth than it cost to produce it. It seems like a virtue to me. The Pope should encourage all to produce more profit.
People who have never worked a day in their lives, believe that those who work, would still continue to work even if they weren’t getting paid.
They also tend to believe that profit margins for most companies is at least 50% and that everything would be cheaper if profit were outlawed.
This comes from the very top – after all Britain is a Theocracy with the Monarch head of a Church.
So it is lawful and fitting that Prince Philip, WWF founder, set up the ARC : Alliance of Religions and Conservation
http://arcworld.org/
Replaced in 2019 by INCR : International Network for Conservation and Religion, Martin Palmer, the Prince’s loyal servant again.
https://incrworld.org/
Have a look at INCR’s web. Religion has always been an imperial oligarchical tool. Ancient tradition…
All the religions and more with each of their published programs are there for all to see.
When we think about all the murders committed using axes, pitchforks, pickaxes, hammers, or the Texas chainsaw murders, it’s fair to say that these have always been used as tools of murder. In the same way, religion has indeed been abused as a tool of imperial oligarchy. But it’s not the whole story or the main point now is it bonbon?
Dare anyone read the published manifestos of even religions I never heard of at that site?
Dare anyone say this is not top down?
Can’t the religious leaders get God to stop any catstrophe?
Oh, hang on….
How about she show us the way and renounce her profit.
So the anti-capitalists, leftist, anarchists, mean greenies all want to pander their misguided zeal to faith communities because they are an untapped funding source. Many churches have been vulnerable to political leveraging in the past but this article smells like smoke being blown into unmentionable places. These the mean greenies don’t need money…they have Biden, the media companies, most large corporations, the Tech Billionaires and their foundations… .this is a article is a load of BS.
The Pope does nothing but violate the spirituality and other worldliness of the Church of Christ by speaking out of the bounds. In so doing, binding the consciences of the people he exercises both spiritual and ecclesiastical authority. He makes statements well beyond that which he is given authority by Holy Scripture and drags his people into misguided zeal beyond the pale. The RCC will be going the way of the Modernist Mainline Protectant Church’s: smaller and smaller and smaller.
In my (Boomer) generation, traditional Christianity has been supplanted by a hellish woke amalgam of self-actualization and pop-leftism. Jesus and Marx have become indistinguishable. The REAL Jesus weeps.
Yes, these idiots will be quite useful to the Al Gore Church of Warmism and self-loathing
Makes sense since the parents of the boomers grew up in the modernist theologically liberal mainline Christian Church’s that no longer believed the truth of the Holy Scriptures, the same Churches that the Boomer’s grandparents had built as an edifice of modernist do goodism. Most of the mainline protestant churches are only a shadow of what they once were. Remove the truth of scripture and the headship of a resurrected living Christ, and people will replace it with their idols or be leveraged by the idols of powerful people.
Our minister went woke and had been spouting occasional anti-capitalist statements. I agree. I agree so much, I’ve cut way back on donations, lest my evil, capitalism-derived money taint his building fund.
Jorge, why not talk with other members about the corruption within the church?
Nikita Khrushchev: ‘We will take America without firing a shot’ . He also predicted to infiltrate every aspect of American life and you will raise our flag for us.
We now see the attempt, not with the truth but with the best weapon of the communists, fraud, force and lies.
Look up “And Not a Shot is Fired” if you want more insight into that comment and its application.
Caring for, and being good stewards of, our planet — our environment taken as a whole — is an important part of the teachings of all major religions.
Political systems, economic systems and policies are not — and for the most part have little place in religious teaching when governments are not in direct opposition of religious beliefs.
The world’s religions call for people to act according to their consciences based on their religious moral values.
Opposing bad actors for whom raw greed is the prime motivating factor, when it is harmful to society, is a proper thing to do — religion or not.
I know of no major religion for whom “fighting Capitalism” could be considered a valid part of their teaching.
[Personal note: I majored in Religious Studies at UCSB ]
Yes Stewardship and Mercy not a grand historic dialectic of the evolving anthesis between the haves and have nots…. finally finding a synthesis in something that sounds like heaven…. a place of no possession. This is what happens with the intellectual trajectory of the human mind when it settles that the mind itself… human reason itself….. is the principium of all truth and knowledge. In this way, the evil of unbelief becomes validated, normalized, systematized and invisible until it breaks bad as an angel of light.. Human reason beginning with itself, reasons a priori building a matrix of false presuppositions that God is unknowable, has not spoken, is not relevant or simply does not exist because god is a evolutionary artifact of lower order beings. The philosophy since Kant has turned the intellectual order on it’s head. Now people themselves, not the Word of God are ultimate and god is to be discerned like any other created thing in the natural realm. Why would anyone settle on this error of old philosophy? The human mind is of the created realm it is an expression of nature…it cannot escape nature. The human mind cannot know what it does not know apart from nature. There is no great magic… the human mind and it’s machines will never ascend to be the true starting point of all truth and knowledge……. it can only descend into error. This is the reason that God creator spoke and speaks now in scripture because He is the creator and not the created.. He spoke so that He could be known and His will to redeem a people could be known in nature. Prior to Kant, evil was a product of people failing to to do the will of God, breaking the law of God, sinful, .faithless, mindless, puffed up, greedy, megalomaniacal.. which the Church has always ultimately condemned even when it was seemingly over taken for a time by evil. But now, we have evil systematized and normalized as the greater good as we have seen with Marxism and many of the other philosophies of modernity. The ends justifies the means…. the drama of the Grand Historical Synthesis….. and the martyrs and builder’s along the way ‘revolution’. It is nothing more than the epitome of a false faith …false church, false epistemology, false God. Marxism is an angel of darkness masquerading as an angel of light because god is dialectic of human reason, not the creator.
Unless the religion is Marxism, these anti-capitalist religious groups are helping make the rope they’ll be hung with.
That’s hilarious … the most profit-conscious people in the world have always been the religious organizations, the richest organizations on the planet who could afford to build massive cathedrals, temples, pyramids, churches, synagogue, and build their own armies, etc. etc. etc. with funds extracted mostly from the poor and middle class.
It really is sad when people who know nothing about the church, or history, proceed to denounce those that scare them.
I know facts and I cited fact. The Catholic Church, the Mormon Church, the Church of England, the TV preachers, and various and sundry other industrialized religions get rich off the pool and middle class. Apparently you’ve never set foot in in a European cathedral, most of which put kings palaces to shame, even when built in some of the smallest communities.
Look into the history of how those Churches were built.
Duane isn’t interested in reality.
To him, the fact that a few TV preachers proved to be corrupt proves that all preachers are corrupt.
He’s not interested in knowing the truth, he’s only interested in finding support for what he already believes.
You cite opinion, not facts.
You use bias and hatred instead of logic.
You use any example of corruption to paint the entire edifice. That’s like saying that North Americans are senile because Biden is senile.
As to the size of many cathedrals, so what? Do you believe that building grand building is proof of corruption?
Oh by the way, thanks for opening the door to a religious discussion and allowing it to happen. Kant, Hegel and Marx are old hat but the air we breath. The philosophies emerged in the 19 century as an a modern alternative to supernatural religion presupposing there is nothing knowable outside of nature. Everything else is fairy tales. Human reason… that is science would one day discover the farthest outreaches of nature and solve all of man’s problems. Unfortunately, their philosophy is the root of many millions dead in the 20th century, (communism, Socialistic nationalism (Nazism) Maoism, eugenics, Modern Christian Theology which weakened the Churches’ ability to stand in the face of great evil, etc).. So much for human reason and grand dialectics. How quickly we forget!
“weakened the Churches’ ability to stand in the face of great evil”
hahaha!
You are kidding!
That catholic crap has been creating the evil for centuries, the inquisition, the massacre of the hugenots, the carping to fascism, and now the child molesters by their 100s protected from prosecution by the same heretical sect permeating the lives of millions direct from ROME.
If you had any sense of history you would see that “church” with some rare exceptions has done nothing but increase conflict and suffering ever since that “bishop of Rome” became the infallible, virgin mary and purgatory propmoting crapshoot it became, before plunging all into the “dark ages of the mind” and making a pagan festival (winter solstice), the centre of the great superstition.
Go to Florence go to the museums of Medici to see it all LIVE, with centuries of “the divine right of me to rule and enslave”, if you still have no sense of history.
The only superstition which has become even worse is the Russian orthodox church, but hey you know where that is leading…
I’ll apologize for the current pope. He was not elected for his intellectual prowess, his widespread knowledge of Catholicism, his scientific knowedge and understanding, his deep understanding of human nature.
He was elected because they could agree to no one else, due to the fairly wide fissures on all those topics. He is a good man who doesn’t know how to handle his very large responsibilities. He’s also had some very “climate change” advice from political dummies under the guise of science.
I certainly don’t wish he’d die but I certainly hope he will admit to himself his shortcomings and develop enough astuteness to find the best advisors= those without their own agendas on these subjects.
This seems like the end of the Church or, at minimum, a path to the end.
Are the truly religious leaders wise enough to realize that getting rid of Capitalism means Socialism / Communism is the result? Will the governments then provide the funds for the Church? Will the parishioners then have the funds needed to support the Church?
I bet they live quite well on the backs of the proletariate.
John Houghton bears a huge amount of blame, as he started this crap some time ago, so now the poisoned fruit comes ripe…
This was an evil thing to do.
“Anti-Capitalist Religious Group” got there via him quite directly…viz:-
“awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 on behalf of the IPCC, shared jointly with former US Vice-President Al Gore”
…”was … convinced that Christians and the Church must re-find what he regarded as their biblical mandate to care for the earth, and, as retirement approached, he in effect started a new career to try to bring that about by his own efforts and supporting others.”
… founded the John Ray Initiative (JRI), an organisation that seeks to connect science, environment, and the Christian faith for sustainability and action….
….was generous with his time and encouragement to a new generation of environmentalists.
When I and my young policy and campaigns team at Tearfund initiated the climate and development programme in 1999, John was delighted to see Tearfund tackling the issue, and offered to be our adviser…
“I was invited to a private pre-launch screening of Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth; so I asked John to come with me to give me an immediate assessment of the robustness of the science.
“John leaves an important international legacy from his academic work, his post as first chair of the IPCC’s scientific panel, the ongoing work of JRI, and his private influencing work with US Evangelical leaders.
He was also an inspiration and fatherly friend to younger generations of UK Christians seeking to address climate change in their own lives, (READ BRAINWASHING) Churches, and wider society.”
He came up to London from Wales for the evening and took me out to dinner after the film where he plied me with questions and offered helpful tips about Tearfund’s climate work, as well as giving me his expert opinion on the film. He thought the science accurate but that Al Gore had pulled his punches in not suggesting much bolder action at the end.”….
“one of Sir John’s boldest initiatives was working with Bishop James Jones of Liverpool diocese, JRI, and Tearfund, on a series of private meetings and public conferences in the United States to try to engage leading US Evangelical church leaders with the reality of climate change.
The penny dropped for several prominent figures, and one result was the publication in 2006 of “Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action”.”
As one of the principal climate scientists of his generation, he contributed significantly to the understanding of the causes and impacts of global warming, convinced many politicians about the gravity of its risk and, as a Christian, in his later years undertook to persuade American evangelist preachers that humans are able to influence the Earth’s climate.
John Houghton described global warming as ‘a weapon of mass destruction’
https://www.cis.org.uk/obituary-for-sir-john-houghton/
https://www.issr.org.uk/news/obituary-sir-john-houghton-frs-1931-2020/
https://goodfaithmedia.org/remembering-the-life-of-sir-john-houghton-1931-2020/
Says it all really…the corruption of science from the top down.