A while ago I made the argument that climate change denial at least partially has some Christian fundamentalist roots. Looks like we finally have some data on the subject:
Domo, you can’t lump all Christians in with the Creationists. I know some Christians who are working to educate people about AGW. One group is right here in Austin, the Interfaith Environmental Network].
You need to change the title of this thread to Creationists and climate change denial. Not all Christians are as bad as the prosyltizers who hit and run here.
Edit: Corrected a typo
But if you read the article you see that the research was on Christians in one case and religiosity in general in the other. It is the title of the article that is incorrect.
Funny you should defend Christians to me here. I was just doing the same on Facebook 
I did read the article. The problem is the article was far too short to go into any nuance about Creationists v liberal Christians. Can’t really blame Chris Mooney for that as he has to work within the word limits of the site, but I wish he had mentioned some of the Christian groups working to preserve the ecosystem.
We shouldn’t paint all Christians with the same broad brush. Most are reasonable people who generally keep their religious beliefs separate from other topics–and most don’t bring up their beliefs, either. We shouldn’t demonize the sensible ones.
Lois
Is it fair to assume that most Christians believe -
the Earth is here for our human use and pleasure…
the afterlife and their “Heaven” matters more than what is down here on Earth?
I don’t think that is a fair assumption. Many Christians see their duty as stewards of God’s creation.
Domo, you can't lump all Christians in with the Creationists. I know some Christians who are working to educate people about AGW. One group is right here in Austin, the Interfaith Environmental Network]. You need to change the title of this thread to Creationists and climate change denial. Not all Christians are as bad as the prosyltizers who hit and run here.I respect what you are saying Darron - But, I have absolutely no respect for folks who know better, who then silently stand by and condone others believing and spreading and defending sheer nonsense. Particularly, the kind of sheer nonsense that makes it impossible to understanding the geophysical workings of our planet.
But, I have absolutely no respect for folks who know better, who then silently stand by and condone others believing and spreading and defending sheer nonsense. Particularly, the kind of sheer nonsense that makes it impossible to understanding the geophysical workings of our planet.We agree with each other. I'm just trying to get everyone to realize not all Christians are rabid evangelicals who think the Bible is the inspired, immutable Word of God. I was that sort of Christian, and until I returned to college and started rubbing elbows with liberal Christians I believed all Christians were hopeless romantics who stood by and watched the Phelps clan try to destroy lives. Now I know better. I don't understand the cognitive dissonance it takes to believe in a vengeful god who killed his son to clean up a mess he created while also believing we should all love each other and protect the environment, but I go to school with hundreds of people who think that way. I met them in my environmental policy classes, so these Christians are self-selected environmentalists and may not represent mainstream Christian thinking. The point is, even if they are a minority, some Christians do condemn those who spread lies about the environment. We need more of them, but we also need to work with them.
Just finished a Great Courses series of lectures “Science and Religion” by a Professor Lawrence M. Principe of John Hopkins. Interesting series, can’t tell if Principe is religious or not, but he is not anti-religious. Among other things he covers Galileo’s Trial where he points out that pope Urban VII - Maffeo Barberini was actually a friend of Galileo’s and that the problem much more the RC Churches major issue at the time was dealing with the Thirty Years War and the bureaucracy was afraid of Galileo work would create a schism within the church. Also Principe points out at this time the Inquisition a body similar to the US Dept. of Justice.
In another lecture Principe postulates that the fundamentalists are “as much a social as a religious movement: its views are group defining. Key stimuli are social anxiety over the loss of the old order and fear of perceived foes: urban and learned culture, modernity, intellectuals, industrialization, immigration, . . .” “The explosion of fundamentalist belligerency dates from the period of WWI and its aftermath. The enormous growth of public high schools in the period 1900-1920 exposed rural populations to modern science; thus evolution became a key issue.” IMO, the same thing is going on with climate change deniers today. The motivating factor seems resistance to the “Big City” and the intellectual establishment’s large and growing influence in society.