thedoc wrote: ↑Thu May 25, 2017 4:48 pm
I would hope that you mean to actually ask the person what they believe and why.
I will ask Newton and Bacon. But I won't be surprised if they're reticent to answer more than they already have in writing.
There is one older member of the congregation who states that "Humans are not Animals", and that is a very dangerous idea, it seems to have developed from the idea that Humans were a "Special Creation" of God, but this belief could lead to the idea that even if man messes up the planet and makes it unlivable, God will somehow intervene and take care of mankind.
Not so. Nothing in the Bible suggests this is so. Rather, humans were instructed to have care for the Earth, and hold it in stewardship, not possession -- the very thing, by the way, for which environmentalists are campaigning...that mankind should take stewardship responsibility for the planet. On this one issue, they should be sympathetic to Christians.
But to whom are mere humans (if Atheism is true) "responsible"? Future generations? They're not born yet. (Anyway, we're busy murdering them in the womb.) Ourselves? We're fine, just so long as we don't go to far, or as long as not everybody does...and we can guess that they won't. To whom do we owe a duty of environmental stewardship, then? Who will ever call us to account? Why should we care, then?
Worse still is the view that essentially, human beings are just animals. For if they are, there is absolutely no legitimacy in trying to convince them to steward the planet or care for it. We do not ask the dolphins or the foxes to do a single thing in that regard; and we, being "just animals," have not a stitch more duty to the environment than they do.
OR...the environmentalists are talking out of both sides of their mouths at once. They want human beings to be
"just animals" when it comes to Evolutionism or any question of privilege, but they want to put the burden of being
special upon us when it comes to being environmentally responsible. That's illogical. They can't have it both ways.
It was a revelation to learn that Christians didn't have to have all the answers.
True. They do, however, have to have enough to know what's worth believing. We all do.