Last month, I discussed how Christianity cannot impose veganism on its adherents because doing so would violate the freedom we have in Christ as well as our lordship over creation. In other words, humans are superior to animals and thus eating animals is within the bounds of the created order. But I also noted that animal rights is not the only reason employed by anti-meat eaters to support their cause. One of the more emotionally compelling arguments is what can be called the argument from … [Read more...]
Archives for February 2016
Do Alarmist Climate Scientists Have their Thumb on the Scale?
Ever wondered if alarmist climate scientists purposely hide uncertainties when they communicate with the media and the public? Wonder no longer. They do. That's the conclusion of Senja Post's "Communicating science in public controversies: Strategic considerations of the German climate scientists," published this month in the journal Public Understanding of Science. Here's the abstract: In public controversies on scientific issues, scientists likely consider the effects of their findings on … [Read more...]
Does the Bible Require Common Ownership of Land?
Does the Bible validate private property in land, or does it require that land be communally owned? With Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-professed socialist, doing surprisingly well in the Democratic Presidential primary campaign, such thoughts become increasingly common. Someone recently wrote: It seems to me that a theology that takes Creation as evidence of a Creator ... would recoil at privatizing Creation as a private income-generating asset. The way I come at environmental … [Read more...]
Thorns and Briers, or Peaceful Habitation?
A common theme of environmentalist thought—the Green vision of the ideal world—is of a small human population whose effect on earth’s ecosystems doesn’t differ significantly from that of other species. The stark contrast between that vision, with its particular understanding of what it means to be human, and the Biblical vision is apparent from the beginning of the Bible, where, having made Adam and Eve (unlike all other living things, earthly or heavenly) in His image, “God blessed them. And … [Read more...]
Energy for the Future
News came Wednesday that German researchers---joined by German President Angela Merkel (herself a scientist)---have turned on an experiment at the Max Planck Institute along the path to nuclear fusion energy. Fusion research has been ongoing for decades, and the scientists at Planck make it clear that this experiment won't itself generate energy. They anticipate it will take decades before fusion research reaches that stage---if it ever does. But this development repeats a lesson we should … [Read more...]
Leading Scientists Urge Greater Data Quality Accountability
Over 300 scientists, engineers, economists, and other scholars last week sent a letter to Congressman Lamar Smith, Chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, in support of the Committee’s efforts to implement greater accountability for the scientific work of federal agencies involved in climate research, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Environmental Protection Agency … [Read more...]
The Haunt of Jackals
Various passages of the Bible set forth the complete elimination of human habitation in a land as the epitome of God’s judgment. I have long found it remarkable that much of the environmental movement sees as ideal what Scripture depicts as hideous. One place that does so is Isaiah 34, in which God through the Prophet Isaiah foretells, in sometimes apocalyptic poetic language, His judgment on Edom and the other pagan nations that oppressed Israel and Judah: 1“Draw near, O nations, to hear, and … [Read more...]