The right of free speech is a
great right that we have in this country, very few times we use it to espouse
our theological/religious beliefs, but we do have members of the clergy here as
members of the panel, so I want to start with Genesis 8, verse 21 and 22,
"Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every
inclination of his heart is evil from childhood, and never again will I destroy
all living creatures as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and
harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never
cease." I believe that's the infallible word of God and that's the way
it's gonna be for his creation.
The second verse comes from
Matthew 24, "and he will send his angel with a loud trumpet call, and they
will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the
other." The earth will end only when God declares it's time to be over.
Man will not destroy this earth, this earth will not be destroyed by a flood.
And I appreciate having panelists here who are men of faith, and we can get
into the theological discourse of that position. But I do believe God's Word is
infallible, unchanging, perfect.[i]
--Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL 15th District), from a
hearing on climate change by the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and the
Environment
Many times during my global
warming fight, I turned to Day 36 of “Promises” which features one of my
favorite Bible verses, Genesis 8:22:
"As long as the earth remains
There will be springtime and
harvest,
Cold and heat, winter and summer,
Day and night."
And this is what a lot of
alarmists forget: God is still up there, and He promised to maintain the
seasons and that cold and heat would never cease as long as the earth remains.[ii]
--Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), from his book, The
Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future
The earth is a lot more resilient
than people think. You know, and, he said, “look, I’m never going to destroy the
earth again by a flood.” How many people have been out there wringing their
hands, and trying to stir up all this agitation and fear, because the oceans
are gonna rise, Manhattan’s gonna be under 20 feet of water, Hawaii’s gonna
disappear under the waves, I saw a story about that. Hawaii’s gonna sink
beneath the waves. God says, “look, I am not gonna destroy the earth with the
waters of a flood ever again. You’ve got my promise.” Every time you see a
rainbow in the sky, that’s what it’s all about.[iii]
--Nationally-syndicated radio talk show host Brian Fischer.
Those are some examples of people on the religious right denying the very possibility of climate change for Biblical reason. Others, however,
acknowledge the existence of climate change, but have a very different opinion
about where it came from and what should be done in light of it, based on
purely religious reasons:
It doesn’t just happen. A door has
been opened, and we have said “you know, we embrace a wicked policy,” okay,
then I'll take my hand of protection off your nation, and whap, here comes
storms like we've never seen before, and here comes floods like we've-- and
here comes climate stuff that we can't explain, all the hot times and all the
cold times. Too much rain, and not enough rain, and we're flooding over here,
and we've got droughts over here.
And you know, back in the early
America days, when something like that happened, first thing they did was issue
a call for national prayer, day of repentance, humiliation, fasting and prayer.
We have screwed up somewhere, we gotta get God's help to get blessings back on
this nation, and they would humble themselves before God. And today, we're
saying, oh no, it's global warming. That's what, no, we opened the door that
lost God's protection over our environment, and that's our choice.[iv]
--David Barton,
in a discussion with televangelist Kenneth Copeland.
The Bible says that whenever we
approach the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, that there would be strange
weather patterns. Jesus said this in Matthew, the twenty-fifth chapter. So we
have a decision to make. Do we believe what an environmentalist group says and
choose to live in a world where we're attempting to make everything as clean in
the air as possible, or do we believe what the Bible says, that these things
were going to happen and that rather than try to clean up all of the air and
solve all of the problems of the world by eliminating factories, we should
start to tell people about Jesus Christ who is to return?[v]
--Matthew Hagee, son of influential pastor John Hagee.
Addendum, May 31, 2017: This is another example of someone appealing to religious belief to justify not caring about climate change...
Edit (1/19/2018): Found another one.
“See, in my humble opinion, folks, if you believe in God then intellectually you cannot believe in manmade global warming. You must be either agnostic or atheist to believe that man controls something he can’t create.
--Rush Limbaugh
Addendum, May 31, 2017: This is another example of someone appealing to religious belief to justify not caring about climate change...
“I believe there’s climate change,” Walberg said, according to a video of the exchange obtained by HuffPost. “I believe there’s been climate change since the beginning of time. I believe there are cycles. Do I think man has some impact? Yeah, of course. Can man change the entire universe? No.”-- Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.)
“Why do I believe that?” he went on. “Well, as a Christian, I believe that there is a creator in God who is much bigger than us. And I’m confident that, if there’s a real problem, he can take care of it.”
Edit (1/19/2018): Found another one.
“See, in my humble opinion, folks, if you believe in God then intellectually you cannot believe in manmade global warming. You must be either agnostic or atheist to believe that man controls something he can’t create.
--Rush Limbaugh
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