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Comment by aarpmcgee | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure if the inverse is particularly meaningful as much as it is potentially rhetorically convincing, depending on what one wants to believe in the first place.

Anecdotally, most of the climate deniers I know (and am related to) also believe that Jesus is coming back soon, so fuck the environment, right?

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> Anecdotally, most of the climate deniers I know (and am related to) also believe that Jesus is coming back soon, so fuck the environment, right?

No, that's a very caricatured interpretation of Christian theology about stewardship of the environment. But Christians are a convenient scapegoat, right?

That's the funny part to Christianity. You have the "Christians" that think "fuck the planet". But then you get the other side that believe we have to take care of the planet because it's a gift from God. Sadly, one has a largely voice than the other because the other congregation is busy coordinating and conducting community litter pick-up events.

> Sadly, one has a largely voice than the other because the other congregation is busy coordinating and conducting community litter pick-up events.

No, one has a louder voice than the other because that one is a convenient fig leaf used to put the imprint of the cross on the self-interest of the Mammon-worshipping economic elites.

The other is also politically active as well as involved in direct action, but money is volume in political discourse, and the side serving money has more of it.

I also noticed that pattern with the refugee crisis in 2015. The biggest party by votes in Germany is the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the party of Angela Merkel. Merkel was initially willing to take in refugees but then backpedaled by not saying anything on the topic anymore. Meanwhile, all the other CDU politicians (ministers, members of parliament etc.) all called for restricting the intake of refugees as much as possible. At the time, I quipped to myself and my friends that they better take the "C" out of their name since AFAIK helping those in need is part of the proverbial "loving thy neighbor" teached by Christianity. That was only a quip but I've since heard some lower-ranking CDU politicians voice the same concerns. Same with climate change: "How can we claim to be a Christian party when we care so little about honoring God's creation?"

(Disclaimer: I'm not Christian and cannot claim any authority on how to interpret the Bible. I would most likely count as agnostic or optimistic nihilist.)

> At the time, I quipped to myself and my friends that they better take the "C" out of their name since AFAIK helping those in need is part of the proverbial "loving thy neighbor" teached by Christianity.

You did admit that you're not a Christian and haven't studied theology or interpretation, which is fair of you. So let me ask a few simple questions which demonstrate the necessity of interpretation and the diversity of views on the topic:

Who are your neighbors? Are they the people in the house next door? Are they the people in the nation across the border? Should you help the people across the border at the expense of the people next door? If so, to what extent? If you decline to let into your country every foreigner who wants in, but offer to help them by other means, are you failing to honor the command to love your neighbor?

Why does "love your neighbor" necessarily mean "admit to your nation every foreigner who wants in, and freely give them everything they want, otherwise you're violating the command"?

It quickly becomes clear that such demands are, at best, based on a very shallow theology, and at worst, deception by those who couldn't care less about any religion.

> No, that's a very caricatured interpretation of Christian theology about stewardship of the environment.

It's a quite accurate view of the particular views expressed by plenty of climate change deniers; there are more robust sets of Christian beliefs about stewardship of the environment, but they don't tend to coexist with vocal climate denial.

Your use of weasel words like "plenty of" and "tend to" shows that this is just your biased impression, not necessarily representative of actual populations. As well, your characterization of people who disagree with you using the pejoratives "deniers" and "denial" shows your extreme bias toward one side of the issue.

In other words, you're not considering the issue fairly.

That's right: when you can't answer, just downvote. If you didn't have 66,000 karma, maybe you'd be held accountable by the mods for religious and political flamewars. But since you do, you can act however you please.

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