July 23, 2008
Thus, the bias

A note from an otherwise interesting P-I article on the environmental activism/beliefs of some fervent Christians:

Even opposition from evangelicals, the Christian group considered least likely to embrace warnings of climate change, might be lessening.

This is the problem with pigeonholing people based on flawed stereotypes and misperceptions. Evangelicals were considered "least likely" by folks in some circles because they viewed evangelicals through the lens of Evangelical Christian = right wing social issues wacko who is afraid of science.

Obviously, that's not correct, which a little reporting, rather than relying on biased assumptions, actually verifies.

Posted by Eric Earling at July 23, 2008 09:53 PM | Email This
Comments
1. It is just so tough to find common ground with people that think the world is only 6,000 years old...

Posted by: All Facts Support My Positions on July 23, 2008 09:52 PM
2. They don't know what "reporting" is anymore. That concept was lost long ago when they burned the books and started down the path of groupthink. Today's "reporting" is transcribing the daily groupthink allotment from the AP or NYT.

Posted by: Jeff B. on July 23, 2008 10:09 PM
3. linking the PI with 'reporting' is like seating a chimp at an opera;

and one is surprised?

Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on July 23, 2008 10:27 PM
4. #1, you have it all wrong, no Christian believes that the WORLD is only 6,000 years old. Read Genesis 1.

Posted by: badplanning on July 23, 2008 10:41 PM
5. re All Facts Support My Positions.

Those who say they know how old the Earth is are expressing an opinion, because science is the study of and the publishing of opinions and theories.

Those who "...think the world is only 6,000 years old..." are expressing an opinion, because Church is the preaching of and the publishing of opinions and theories.

How old is Earth? Older than dirt. How old is the "world" you live in? I dunno. When was Marx born, because we are living in his world, his workers paradise? Thanks to FDR and millions of useful idiots.

Posted by: barrackslawyer on July 23, 2008 11:09 PM
6. you're right bad. There's much limitation to human comprehension of that and we tend to only think in perspective of our man-made time tables.
And the calendar has been changed a few times in recorded history too.

Posted by: PC on July 23, 2008 11:10 PM
7. If one believes a fundamental view of the bible, then one believes that God created the universe. In doing so, He created science. Or at least the things science attempts to study and quantify.

If, by "science" you mean an honest attempt to study the world you live in...as opposed to another "Gore-ism," then a Christian would have no trouble with it.

Posted by: scott158 on July 23, 2008 11:37 PM
8. Hmmm...too bad all the faithless interviewed for the article except Fuiten have no faith regarding the circumstances. Cizik is wearing the fleece not of Jesus but of his own making. Beres worming social justice into the article is another buzzword worthy only of a person who believes only in the state of Stalin and not the Kingdom of God.

This clever piece of confusion designed to misuse shame for those 'not on board' with the great solutions of the necessary "cultural and spiritual transformation" (whatever Cizik means by that) is disgusting.

So you come right into the temple and declare your ways are better than His? What about declaring a year of national prayer to stop GW instead of hiding behind the Bible? At least they acknowledge their Father and then pervert the whole thing for their own use. JC warned us of these types.

Say for a moment this latest tool of entitlement selfishness were factual (Warming stuff) (Remember the perfect race had its science too!)....our best strategy is prayer not shaming right wing wackos into the cause. Why do you want them in the cause?? I thought they are the fountain of all evil? To the point of using terminology in this article that is nothing short of bigotry.

BTW those mandates are to rule and subdue not protect and care. So every right wing fascist nut case Christian go get married and have 6 kids.

One more thing...Cizik I'll give you your prevision of Gen 1:28 if I get the others in the Bible like capital punishment, closed borders, real legal justice not social justice, taxation at biblical levels, acknowledgement of our desperate need for the loving guidance of a father, peace meaning what it means: my foot on the neck of my enemies, murdering by abortion stopped.

But I know you won't make that trade because you won't stop until were all on the pyre and if you gotta use the word of God so be it (and ignore the other inconvenient mandates). All means justify the destruction of all life (that is meant for eternity) to save what we are surely told is not going to last (this earth). That though can only come from the pit of hell.


Posted by: Col. Hogan on July 23, 2008 11:43 PM
9. The Legend at #1 again speaks before he thinks. If he is correct, how does he account for the 25,000 plus year old bones they are finding?

The Legend has these stereotypes, as does the PI, and tries futilely to quantify them.

Posted by: swatter on July 24, 2008 07:36 AM
10. Belief in God = Jesus, does not make a person non-scientific. Christians who actually believe in this current "MAN MADE" global warming hoax are really not Christians. They just think that Christianity is an interesting intellectual idea who do not believe in there heart that Jesus actully is alive today. They do not rely on the Holy Spirit to "lead them and guide them in all truth". I am tired of these marxist christians marching off to socialism and still claim to be Christians. True Christians are scientist by nature and examine the facts. To ask a third party (ie Democrat politicians) to come into millions of homes and take a portion of there income (ie. for socialized health care) is THEFT. To support Dembots, which is to support the murder of millions of babies for convenience, is wrong. So if you are a "Christian" and support those who advocate such atrosities, is guilty of murder along with the dems. Environmentalist = Marxist/socialist... or just plain old Tyrany.

Posted by: TruePatriot on July 24, 2008 08:02 AM
11. Spoken like a true Christian!

Posted by: Duffman on July 24, 2008 08:08 AM
12. Sounds like "Christians" are going the way the Catholics did years ago -- they've become permeated with materialists who would rather protest offshore drilling than preach.

Posted by: John Bailo on July 24, 2008 08:42 AM
13. Not all evangelicals are created equal. When MSM find "right thinking" (left leaning) evangelicals to applaud for unexpected and enlightened liberalism, the MSM have found somebody like Jim Wallis of Sojourners who puts evangelical liberalism above evangelical religion.

If Wallis and his sojourners are evangelical about anything, it's not about faith in God. It's about faith in liberalism.

Back in the dark ages, when really religious evangelicals were voting for born-again Mr. Peanut, the media were not concerned about the miscegination of religion and politics. But when evangelicals wised up, after about one year of Peanut's presidency, and started cheering for Reagan, that's when the media flipped out and started shrieking about violations of the inviolable wall between church & state.

Posted by: Let us pray on July 24, 2008 11:14 AM
14. One of World's Leading Atheists Now Believes in God, Based on Scientific Evidence

Albert Einstein
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

"The more I study science the more I believe in God," Albert Einstein once remarked.

~~~

Michelle, you are wasting your time with virulent pro-borts. There is a reason they have to take such a strident, ridiculous, non-negotiable stand and 90% of the time in my opinion it is to justify their own actions to themselves. Next time, when their stridency is in full ugliness ask them a simple question: "Who have you aborted?" The other 10% in my opinion are simply sheep.

~~~

Regarding the hard left and their view of bitter Christians, was anyone struck by they hypocrisy (again!) of those same dudes (you know, the ones that mocked Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan and Tony Snow when they died) dropping to their knees to pray for Ted Kennedy at the time of his terrible diagnosis?

Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on July 24, 2008 11:20 AM
15. Did you miss the part of the article where the author attributes this viewpoint ("Evangelicals have not trusted mainstream science because of Darwin and evolution") to Richard Cizik, the Vice President of Governmental Affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals?

It's not the P-I pigeonholing people here, it's a member of a national evangelical Christian group. Perhaps your ire is pointed in the wrong direction.

Posted by: Prometheus on July 24, 2008 11:55 AM
16. ...you must have been listening to the Dave Ross Show. :)

Posted by: Duffman on July 24, 2008 11:57 AM
17. Who's afraid of science? It's discoveries only keep confirming what God's been saying forever....

Now if you want to talk about creating human embryo beings and destroying them "for science", that's not about fear--that becomes very much an ethics issue to be debated. Some want to simplistically shut down debate by saying "oh, you're just afraid of science." Anything but, dear. But I will have an issue if you start behaving like Dr. Mengele, and I'll say so.

Posted by: Michele on July 24, 2008 01:12 PM
18. Promo, when the Pope speaks he speaks for all Catholics. Some people who call themselves Catholics don't always go along with the Pope- i.e. all the schisms.

But, for this one guy to speak, he doesn't speak for all Evangelicals. So, in my opinion, the writer can use these quotes till he is blue in the face and it won't make an impression on me other than the person is overreaching.

Posted by: swatter on July 24, 2008 01:15 PM
19. 'Spot on'...as they say, Michele.

Posted by: Duffman on July 24, 2008 01:16 PM
20. 'when the Pope speaks he speaks for all Catholics'

Some Americanized Catholics might disagree with that statement swat. -But NOT ME! :)

Posted by: Duffman on July 24, 2008 01:20 PM
21. Anthropogenic global warming (the (bad) idea that human activity is a significant factor in causing global warming) is a sort of mystical belief system. It is accepted on faith, and questioning it is considered heretical.

In this way, it is just like religion.

So it is not surprising that there are religious folks who are AGW believers. McCain and Obama are both worshipers at the AGW altar.

AGW and religion are just two different forms of irrationality.

Sometimes, leaders of one form of religion are jealous of others. This is why the Soviets and Maoists tried to stamp out traditional religion. It competed with their state religion of socialism.

But reason works better than any form of irrational mysticism. We'd be better off with more of that, and less AGW and the other religions.

Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on July 24, 2008 01:48 PM
22. Even Darwin himself reportedly expressed doubts at the end of his life about his own evolution theory. Something to the effect of "I just don't know about all this. It's really hard to pin down." Sounds like a slam dunk to me....:-)

Posted by: Michele on July 24, 2008 01:53 PM
23. Oh Boy....Heeeeeeeee's BACK! :)

Posted by: Duffman on July 24, 2008 02:11 PM
24. Duff, the very definition of Catholic is papal authority. You can't have it both ways.

Posted by: swatter on July 24, 2008 02:26 PM
25. Know that well swat...however some Americans as well as Canadians that I know (including a relative Canadian Priest) aren't too keen on that.
As my grand-parents would say (God Bless their souls)...were I to doubt papal authority I would have a hell-of-a-lot of Hail Mary's to say as penance, if I could even re-gain Grace. :)

Posted by: Duffman on July 24, 2008 02:31 PM
26. #26 ..good one WKS, how did you know I worked with pixels.

Posted by: Duffman on July 24, 2008 02:37 PM
27. Most are not going to like what I am about to say, but global warming and religion have allot in common.
Both are faith based beliefs.
So as a religious person and a scientist I look at things pragmatically, but one thing for sure, CO2 is not the lone culprit in "climate change". This is the conclusion by many scientists that have more of an impartial view of the climate. In other words we are not politicians seeking election, or former politicians with financial gains to be made from preaching global warming while practicing wasteful practices.
In fact, and it is a fact, the earth ceased the warming trend in 2001, and has actually seen a cooling trend since then.
For the non-scientist, look at it this way, at Snoqualmie Pass the higher elevations still have snow, and Lake Kachless is almost over I-90. If you drove over the pass this year you could not see the Pancake house sign, some 30 feet due to piled snow. And today as I type there is continued runoff from snow.
So if the climate change term is being applied to global warming, I hope that our religious friends will begin reading the facts in total and not just the zealots' cliffs notes version of "as the world turns".

Posted by: most won't like this, but on July 25, 2008 08:36 AM
28. re 23 and 26: What remarks are you referring to? And where are they? What was stated that was so incendiary that it needed to be removed?

Stefan has made you look like a stupid jerk. But, he doesn't care. Do you?

Posted by: W. Klingon Skousen on July 25, 2008 09:10 AM
29. Evolutionists espouse survival of the fittest as their sine qua non. Christians, and other religious, are dramatically outbreeding atheists worldwide. Atheists cannot be the fittest, but they certainly must be the misfittest, by their own "reasoned" standards. Bottom line: Ontologically, reason must promote the perpetuation of its positer or it's not reason, it's suicide. Atheists are incapable of faith and reason because they are corrupt deniers of reality, as their dwindling numbers show.

Posted by: The Pirate on July 25, 2008 09:31 AM
30. re 29: Evolutionists espouse 'the fit will survive', not 'survival of the fittest'. It helps to know what you are talking about before spouting off.

The people who espouse survival of the fittest are the social Darwinians who havwe inherited wealth and declared themselves to be 'the fittest'.

Posted by: W. Klingon Skousen on July 25, 2008 09:51 AM
31. #30. Your distinction is inane. Stop equivocating and step up to the plate like a man and address the issues, or are you too cocooned in Thanatos?

Posted by: The Pirate on July 25, 2008 10:24 AM
32. re 31: The distinction goes to the very heart of the matter. Your statement is INCORRECT, whereas mine is CORRECT.

The statement that a living thing will survive if it is fit to survive in no way compares with saying that ONLY the fittest will survive.

If that were the case, there'd be damn few survivors. Don't miscast something that you don't understand and then brand the correction as mere nitpicking.

You are not qualified to make that assertation.

Not all opinions are equal.

Posted by: W. Klingon Skousen on July 25, 2008 01:04 PM
33. #32. You are in over your head, and cowardly continue dodging the issue of the religious outbreeding the atheists. Stop posturing and let's see what you're made of. You sound like a continuation high schooler in computer lab with an attitude borne of parental rejection. Elevate and transcend yourself; you can do it. We're pulling for you. Your misquoting, then mischaracterization, is banal and fallacious.

Posted by: The Pirate on July 25, 2008 02:44 PM
34. re 33: Is religion an inherited trait? In that case, Muslims are 'outbreeding' Christians.

What do you think of that, genius?

Posted by: W. Klingon Skousen on July 25, 2008 03:10 PM
35. "Inane...Fallacious....AND, Banal!" Do you realize how ridiculous you sound?

You seem to have this image of yourself as a WF Buckley Jr. type.

Posted by: W. Klingon Skousen on July 25, 2008 03:16 PM
36. 34, 35. One of the ways I can tell if I've kicked someone's ass, like your's, is when their paralyzed and feeble little minds can only parrot my words, and weakly whine in nominal protest.

Now try to focus: Christians and Muslims are part of the class "religious." That class is outbreeding the class "atheist." Ipso facto, atheists are on the extinction list.

Apologize for your boorishness, or run along and play.

Posted by: The Pirate on July 25, 2008 05:43 PM
37. Wasn't it James Baker who said something like the environment was irrelevant because the Rapture will occur soon, so pollute all you want?

He's far from the only one to have said such a thing, either.

25 years later, still no Rapture, so I guess the "Left Behind" set is slowly pulling their heads from their asses. Good for them.

Posted by: cpk on July 26, 2008 01:19 PM
38. @36. Hi, Pirate. Unfortunately for your point, atheism is not actually hereditary. Because there are far more religious families, atheists are probably more likely to come from religious families than atheist families.

Oops.

Posted by: cpk on July 26, 2008 01:23 PM
39. cpk: Depends on where you are. In the middle east, if you are Muslim and turn to atheism, odds are you'll get whacked. That would tend to deplete the pool of atheists, wouldn't it?

Posted by: katomar on July 26, 2008 02:48 PM
40. Recently a sad thing has happened on the web:
Little Green Footballs has devoted much of it's
space and energy into making fun of "Intelligent Design", thereby losing many of it's readers.

Occasional mention or honest debate questions are fine. Devoting a conservative political blog to the subject is foolish, and will rid you of those nasty "right wing Christians." and Jews.

Posted by: ljm on July 26, 2008 09:35 PM
41. A nice take on Global Warming/Carbon Offset boondoggle by none other than Penn and Teller. Delivered with Logic, Reason, and a touch of Humor. Penn by the way is also a Fellow at the Cato Institute.
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/content/view/1795/218/

Posted by: Puget Sound on July 27, 2008 07:47 PM
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