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Phetaroi, it’s clear that you want to dig up every single bad episode in Christianity, use every single one to denigrate all Christians, and you want to call people names.
I’m not interested in having a further discussion with you. It’s not that I’m “giving up”; you simply have your agenda and are not showing any interest in openness to other perspectives, and I am disappointed in the name-calling; we can all do better.
Good luck.
Last edited by GSPNative; 12-14-2022 at 02:13 PM..
“I disagree with you that christians [sic] — as a body — are doing any ‘cleaning of house’ on any widespread scale…I see the most errant christian [sic] groups being free from any significant effort by mainstream christianity [sic] of speaking up and condemning clearly inappropriate was of conducting their ministries.”
And my point is that if you do an objective survey of all Christian denominations, they ARE taking major steps to avoid and punish - and condemn- abuse and abusers. At least my denomination does much more than I’ve seen private businesses (or governments) do, and there are a few other denominations similar to mine that I would expect do as mine does.
If you disagree, prove it with objective, verifiable facts. I’ve shown you some specific facts, such as the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s system that has been adopted for reporting abuses.
Finally, the sexual abuse scandal has been very damaging for US Christianity, even churches such as mine that haven’t really been significantly and directly affected by abuse. To think that no churches are doing anything in response, particularly churches governed by boards of lawyers, financial industry executives, etc., when churches are subject to huge financial and other risks, assumes that those people are willfully blind, which isn’t at all the case. Even if they are, church insurers require that they do act to limit abuse, if even just to keep insurance premiums from soaring.
Primarily I am not talking about policing their own denomination. I am talking about speaking out about whole ministries that are involved in scamming the public and involved in sinister political manipulations.
You can make all the excuses you want, but I'm not buying it. Period.
Sad but true. The experts are experts for a reason. People need to be more discerning about who they listen to. And it doesn't do any good to bury your head in the sand and ignore what's happening as so many do.
A few years ago I visited the NCAR research center in Boulder, Colorado and they had a display that compared RATES of climate change in recorded history. What was stunning was not that there is climate change because, yes, there is always climate change. What was stunning was the current rate of climate change -- more than double the norm.
But, we are getting too far away from climate change AND GOD.
What disappoints me is that -- at least based on this forum -- it appears that the more religious one is, the more one doesn't believe in the issue of climate change.
Phetaroi, it’s clear that you want to dig up every single bad episode in Christianity, use every single one to denigrate all Christians, and you want to call people names.
I’m not interested in having a further discussion with you. It’s not that I’m “giving up”; you simply have your agenda and are not showing any interest in openness to other perspectives, and I am disappointed in the name-calling; we can all do better.
Good luck.
It's not my fault that there are so many "every single bad episode in Christianity" to talk about. After all...I would think that christianity should be setting the standard for moral behavior and responsibility.
A few years ago I visited the NCAR research center in Boulder, Colorado and they had a display that compared RATES of climate change in recorded history. What was stunning was not that there is climate change because, yes, there is always climate change. What was stunning was the current rate of climate change -- more than double the norm.
But, we are getting too far away from climate change AND GOD.
What disappoints me is that -- at least based on this forum -- it appears that the more religious one is, the more one doesn't believe in the issue of climate change.
It is not that being religious or not believing in the issue of climate change is the problem. It is primarily an atheist perspective about secular issues, i.e. realistic pragmatism. There are well over 8 BILLION humans and equivalent meat sources in widely DIVERSE and competing societies, the usual global and astrophysical environmental factors, the developed and developing industries and technologies, and the like. What the hell do you THINK would be remotely FEASIBLE for any of us (without the POWER of a God) to do about something as massive and all-encompassing as increasing GLOBAL climate change!!!!
It is not that being religious or not believing in the issue of climate change is the problem. It is primarily an atheist perspective about secular issues, i.e. realistic pragmatism. There are well over 8 BILLION humans and equivalent meat sources in widely DIVERSE and competing societies, the usual global and astrophysical environmental factors, the developed and developing industries and technologies, and the like. What the hell do you THINK would be remotely FEASIBLE for any of us (without the POWER of a God) to do about something as massive and all-encompassing as increasing GLOBAL climate change!!!!
With or without faith in God, we could begin to prepare to best survive it.
A pilgrim asked a priest, "Father, should I tie my mule or have faith in God?"
The priest replied, "Have faith in God...and also tie your mule."
With or without faith in God, we could begin to prepare to best survive it.
What I am "preparing for" is a combination of climate change, civil and political unrest, the direct or indirect effects of war, the probability of a lengthy recession, etc.
I do not trust the machinery of society to reliably deliver food, drinking water, healthcare or even electricity to the extent that I can completely ignore shortages / outages as totally, out-of-band unlikely. Many basic precautions are ultimately zero cost, as in, spend a little up front, spend less later. That feature is nice in an inflationary environment like the one we're currently in, too.
At this point I regard it a little like having a good medical kit and hoping you never actually use it, or fire alarms you hope never go off. It improves my sense of security.
There's a psychological principle that's quite well established and studied that says that even in emergency situations, much less slow-burn crises like climate change, you can count on about half of people to dither and do nothing (the informal term is "milling"), and another 20 percent to either be in active denial or total panic. Only about 30% will act appropriately and calmly to help or protect themselves and others. I just try to be in that 30%. Though to be honest I think 30% is even optimistic anymore.
I suggest that people like you be placed on some of the islands that are only a few feet above sea level...with no rescue ships. Then you can turn to your god for help.
He doesn't have to. DannyHobkins lives in New Jersey, as I do. A very short distance to the east is a Really Big City on a group of islands that is being affected by the rising seas, not the least in part because of all the infrastructure built into the bedrock below that very big city.
The sad part is that there is so much fascinating brainstorming and planning and creativity going on in response to this inevitability within the engineering community, and some people are missing out by not learning about it.
Sixty million gallons of water. That number stuck in my head during one of the presentations I saw about climate change and New York City at a local monthly meeting of the American Society of Highway Engineers. That's how much water was pumped out of the HL Carey/Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel after Sandy. It was amazing to hear how they did it, but THEN they built these enormous watertight doors at each end of the tunnel, so that next time, they don't have to pump out the water. And that was even more amazing.
I'm going with the engineering industry on this one. I'm pretty sure many of them believe in God in some form (it really is an international community), but they are looking ahead and saying, "What can we do to respond to what nature is doing". It has to be done whether or not climate change is affected by human activity, but then again, they generally understand that it is.
He doesn't have to. DannyHobkins lives in New Jersey, as I do. A very short distance to the east is a Really Big City on a group of islands that is being affected by the rising seas, not the least in part because of all the infrastructure built into the bedrock below that very big city.
The sad part is that there is so much fascinating brainstorming and planning and creativity going on in response to this inevitability within the engineering community, and some people are missing out by not learning about it.
Sixty million gallons of water. That number stuck in my head during one of the presentations I saw about climate change and New York City at a local monthly meeting of the American Society of Highway Engineers. That's how much water was pumped out of the HL Carey/Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel after Sandy. It was amazing to hear how they did it, but THEN they built these enormous watertight doors at each end of the tunnel, so that next time, they don't have to pump out the water. And that was even more amazing.
I'm going with the engineering industry on this one. I'm pretty sure many of them believe in God in some form (it really is an international community), but they are looking ahead and saying, "What can we do to respond to what nature is doing". It has to be done whether or not climate change is affected by human activity, but then again, they generally understand that it is.
Okay, good points. But there are many cases where people living on islands are going to have to be sent to foreign countries when their islands begin to disappear. I wonder how well that's going to work.
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