Do you remember when you were in school and you had questions in social and science class like: “Is the recycling of glass beneficial? Defend your position from both an economical and ecological perspective.”? I do! In fact, I’m tackling these questions today. (I’m upgrading my high school chemistry)
I’m realizing that different perspectives are like sunglasses. Some people always look through pink shades while others see everything with a yellow tint.
I like controversy. I like debates. I’m not terrific at being involved but I sure like to witness them. Then, I like to sit back and think about everything for a long time. Recently, I’ve been thinking over a couple of major issues from two perspectives: the atheist and the Christian.
The environment
Atheist
The responsibility of maintaining our environment rests solely on our shoulders. The earth’s health and life span depends on the actions of its inhabitants. Therefore, our actions have a direct impact on the environment and we need to be responsible with unintended consequences of our actions.
Christian
God holds everything in His hands and has a timeline predestined for the universe. The health and life span will be upheld until it reaches the crucial point of when God calls it all over, regardless of the actions of its inhabitants. Therefore, the inhabitants are free to do whatever they wish because it is impossible to derail the plan of God.
Human rights
Atheist
The only activist for human rights are other humans. There is no external, intervening being. Therefore, those with a voice should use their powers to lobby and intervene on behalf of others who are voiceless and suffering at the hands of their governments.
Christian
God holds all people in His hands and has a plan and purpose for each individual life. Therefore, intervention is optional but not necessary. God will defend His own.
Disclaimer: I am not pointing fingers at anyone. I am throwing out what’s been on my mind. That’s all. In theory, Christians are supposed to be more compassionate than any other sect, whether atheist or based on a different religion. In actuality, many Christian organizations have done some fabulous humanitarian aid work, I can’t really vouch for their efforts in the environmental context. In theory, atheists should be devoutly and adamantly lobbying for human rights. I’m sure there are quite a few involved in Amnesty. However, in actuality, people in general are selfish and look out for the needs of their direct relations. There is potential strong evidence for this behaviour, which I read about in Richard Dawkins’ book, “The Selfish Gene”. If you want to get your brain thinking, I highly recommend this book.
I have to disagree on some of this- although some of it may be true, we are called on as Christians to be compassionate, to defend the helpless, and to help those who are suffering and in need- so to say that intervention is “optional” is misleading. We are called to obey, and yes we have a choice whether to obey, but we will be called to account for our actions (and one day.
Hey Rachel! Thanks for the visit.
Absolutely I agree with you, but I think there is a tendency to fall back on the graces of God. No, it shouldn’t happen and for Christians who take their faith seriously it doesn’t. Possibly, a lot of church goers are Christians by label and not necessarily by deed.
Shanon
Yes, I would totally agree with that
I agree with Rachel on human rights.
Regarding the environment, I think there is a strong Scriptural mandate for caring for the environment, too, starting in Genesis 1 (“and it was good”) but continuing throughout the OT where the land is seen as an inheritance to be treasured.
Underlying both your points, however, is the ever-present tension between God’s sovereignty and man’s free will. If God is sovereign, why don’t we just sit back and let things unfold? Because that’s not how God has designed us to be. He has given us responsibility and made us his co-workers (2 Corinthians 6:1), and yearns for us to work in partnership with him on the things that he cares about; redeeming the earth and all that is in it; continuing Christ’s work of reversing the curse given to Adam (including “cursed is the ground because of you”, and the picture of mankind and the land being hostile to one another).
What really exercises my mind is the problem of weighing the twin responsibilities pf caring for the environment and caring for the human race against each other. In Kenya, for example, elephants and humans are in conflict. Severely poor subsistence farmers are having their crops destroyed by roaming elephants, but moving the elephants to game parks and reserves typically doesn’t improve their numbers. What is the government to do? Which is more important, the people or the elephants? Surprisingly, the answer may lie with bees!
http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/episode/2010/05/08/neanderthals-in-the-family-elephants-learn-to-bee-ware-copying-for-success-aphids-stolen-finery-the/
Neil, good to hear from you, as always!
Firstly, this post was not intended to discuss behaviour that should be happening in a Christian’s life, rather behaviour that doesn’t happen in a Christian’s life. Of course, Chrisitians who are striving to live according to the Bible should be treating other humans with the love of Christ. But, sadly, what I see in actuality is quite different to what should be happening. The concentration of Christians to total population is likely the highest in the states. I cannot say so for sure because I haven’t looked at the stats. Even if I did, who knows if those stats are reliable. Then we have to ask, ‘What defines ‘Christian’?’ If the USA has the greatest concentration of Christians, it would stand to reason that it would be the country most heavily involved in humanitarian aid. Again, I don’t have stats, but I’m guessing it likely is not.
As for Biblical accounts of human rights, we have the exterminiation of any tribe that are not Isrealite in the OT. Isn’t that what we call ‘genocide’? This bothers me a great deal.
OK, thanks for the clarification. I guess I was taking issue with what you said the Christian perspective was on The Environment:
“the inhabitants are free to do whatever they wish because it is impossible to derail the plan of God”
and Human Rights:
“intervention is optional but not necessary. God will defend His own.”
I think these are significant misrepresentations of the Christian position, although I agree that they are representative of the position of some people who call themselves Christian. It all depends on how you define “the Christian perspective”. Personally, I prefer to define it in terms of what the Bible says (according to mainstream scholarly interpretation) and what the majority of the Christian population (worldwide) thinks. Even in N America, I think the views you describe are in the minority, but unfortunately that’s just my gut feeling from meeting people in a variety of churches, and I don’t have evidence to back it up.
So my purpose in writing was to redress the imbalance I felt I was seeing in your post.
The issue of tribal exterminations in the OT is a difficult one, and I’m not sure I can fully do it justice here (or anywhere else).
However, I think the retribution against other tribes was not primarily because of their ethnicity but because of their religious practices. I have read research from a variety of sources on what some of these practices were and it’s not pleasant reading (involving, among other things, child sacrifice).
In OT times, ethnicity and religious affiliation were very tightly bound, so the accounts are hard for us to grasp from our modern perspective, where religious belief is very much a matter of personal preference and conviction. From our perspective, the stories look like ethnic cleansing and genocide because of the strong connection with the tribal identities involved.
There is still the question of why it was necessary to exterminate these peoples, rather than just defeat them. The reason, I think, is that these religious practices were extremely nasty and, as we see over and over in the OT, kept on infecting the Israelites in very serious ways, even after the attempt to stamp the practices out through annihilation. The consequences of non-extermination would have been disastrous for the whole plan of salvation, I believe. It seems so harsh, but where outright evil is concerned it’s very dangerous to make compromises.
Hey Shannon,
Love that you are thinking about controversial topics. It is good to think for oneself. Who wants to just let life pass you by and not be actively involved!?!
Regarding the post made after this, and bringing both of these together…I would have to say that as much as one trys not to involve ones personal opinions, it is next to impossible. Although, yes they are basing on science (scientific practices/theories and proof are ever “evolving”), thus what may be fact today, may be disproven tomorrow. ie: at one point, the majority of well known scientists would have told you that the world was flat, and that the sun orbitted the earth. Which was then “centre of the universe”. Both these theories we now know to be false.
However the Bible had some well known theories right, before scientists did!
Check out what these scriptures say about the shape of our world – Job 26:10, Prov 8:27, Isaiah 40:22, Amos 9:6 (see http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/ScientificBible.htm for more amazing theories the Bible knew first)
So science is not always 100% correct, adjustments are made and “new ideas” are presented all the time. Remember to see what the author believes and I am sure if you find an author with a differing view, they will give you food for thought as well ( Richard Dawkins is very atheist and as such does see the world differently. Much like you pointed out in this post) It is well to test everything put before you and research for yourself (try to find facts that are proven to see whether theories will even have the groundwork to be possible). For example I did a lot of research on the Big Bang theories and evolution and some of their theories don’t really stand up, they are more ideas at the moment without fact or evidence or have facts or evidence that was left out to fit their end point.
Also, as far as what atheists say and Christians say…neither can be put into a category. There are frauds in Christianity (and as we have seen in history, people will use things to meet what they want. ie the church using God as their scapegoat for the crusades, etc). There are also frauds in atheism, agnosticism and every religion or “non-religion” out there. God gave us free will, since that is what we wanted. However along with it means we will experience things in this world that we were never meant to. Does God heal? Yes. Does he intervene in how things are going? Who really knows how much He intervenes. He does say that we are to be care takers of the Earth, so all of us (despite beliefs) should be. You know how it goes though. What one says, and believes is not always in their heart or their actions. I have learned that even I never really know another person whole and complete as I do myself. Deceipt is everywhere in this world and Satan clearly rules it!
Just my 2 cents!