We've Got the Whole World In Our Hands

that was a good story about a global warming

that was a good story about a global warming

that was a good story about a global warming

Such a stimulating debate.

Listening in, C.R.

Such a stimulating debate.

Listening in, C.R.

What if the Biblical prophecies are pychic foreshadowing of a great lemming like die off of the human species. But the events don't work out exactly how the prophets and their interpreters think. Maybe the human race will survive at the polar areas and then begin again . Just as we have learned not to take the past writings of the Bible literally we have to take the "future" writings with a liberal mind. Something will happen but we can not be so "fundamentaly" exact. Looks like we don't have the political will to solve global warming so I guess it's survival of global warming that will be important. Don't buy real estate in dry areas!

NIce one, paganplace. Got it completely wrong. The son you see in the Christins worldview is God incarnate so that the reality it is God suffers himself so that the demands of justice might be satisfied that those He chooses to save may not stand condemned.

The relationship between husband and wife is supposed to be one based upon mutual love. The wife may submit but the husband out of love makes no demand of her that she would not do herself out of her love for him.

Child abuse is a failure to rescue from danger when the opportunity is yet available.

We have, indeed, all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We are indeed the source of about 90% of our own problems. Why? Because we always seek what we think is in our own best interest while lacking both the knowlege and wisdom to determine precisely what that is and so we go after anything that please us at the moment and then when we get we nearly immediately lose interest and regret the effort wew went to to get it what ever it may be.

Oh and for what it is worth sin in the Bible is quite simply selfishness.

Nah, not confusing you with an evangelical, Bgone, just trying to stay roughly on topic. :)

As for technical things, yes, there are lots of more-sustainable ways of doing things. It's just that the idea of building a machine that could actively scrub CO2 from the atmosphere would pretty much need active energy inputs at least as much as came from the fossil fuels in the first place.

Sure, there's probably real good things we could be doing, or invent, but I wouldn't be counting on any magic bullets in that regard, particularly if we keep increasing the rate at which we release *more* CO2 into the atmosphere. That's all.

PAGANPLACE:
We have sewage disposal otherwise... The difference in that an CO2 ruining the enviornment is people can see it while CO2 is an invisible gas. When the human mind is set to the task who knows what is possible?

Swartznager is going to make California energy independent by using cow manure to generate natural gas according to a press release last fall. It dinked the price of natural gas on the market when it came out.

You're not confusing me with a evangelical I hope. And, for sure not an antienviornmentalists. I paid the price for a Toyota Camry hybrid realizing I'll never recover the cost in gas savings. It gives me a feeling of power to shift to "B" and let the motor reverse itself and become a generator that is absolutely priceless. I'll never replace the brake pads but I will set a record of agravating those behind me that love to race to the red light and make a death defying panic stop.

Put a little common sense in your tree hugging. Birds build nests and people build houses as a matter of natural law.

Oh, and let's not forget that you have the idea of a 'suffering son' and a 'dutiful and submissive mother' for the sexes to base their ideas of 'who to emulate in order to escape the wrath of the father figure:' both models say, 'Suffering is good for you, so the abusive father figure is really showing 'love,' when you suffer and are told it's your fault.

Both are promised to be spirited away to some ill-defined perfection where the abusive father figure will love them and all the bad people in the world will be horribly punished.

I think it *directly* parallels abusive situations, though which started out emulating which, who can say. The patterns are certainly often entwined.

And, this is why people who want to *shut off* rational debate or response are also the ones who want to hammer people with Christian language in public life. It triggers all the dissociation from reason that the patterns promote.

Of *course* it's abusive. You can *see* it, when people are trying to scare your kids or terrorize gays, or condemn and exclude and villify anyone who might tell them different.

To make someone think that this wonderful world is hopelessly-messed up and isn't worth preserving, that takes a *lot* of pain and fear.

Furthermore, it's the very *picture* of an abusive dynamic to psychologically-torture kids into believing that what's happening to them is their own fault, however arbitrary this may be: that all one's misfortunes, for that matter, only 'prove' you're unworthy of life and even comfort.

When people *grow up* believing this, they can end up with very self-destructive patterns, an inability to show real affection, (because they were shown none) possibly walk around constantly trying to appease a wrathful father-image, fear that he's 'gonna get them and it'll be my fault' if they don't join in the abusive pattern. ...there's often a pattern of fear that if siblings 'misbehave,' it'll only bring that wrath down on everyone.

The abusive pattern in fact often has everything to do with, 'This abuse is *love,* be grateful for it, you unworthies, and be glad we don't hit you harder, we have every right to.'

People subject to this kind of thing often lash out at anything that might rock their boat, while embracing the most ridiculous and harmful ideas and actions that might help isolate them from the fact that they *have* been abused.

Yeah, it's a circular pattern, which is what makes it so pernicious. Consider, though, how people would react if this kind of treatment were performed in the name of anything *but* the Christian God.

" Gary d ames:

Of course there is a hell. It is a place of absolute justice where in the fire is in reality but a final act of mercy as it takes your mind off far worse things - like for instance the fact that you have no one to blame but your self for your current predicament- however God sends not one last soul there. There is no need for you see lest God, for his own purposes, chooses to rescue you that is where you will spend eternity.

Please explain how it is child abuse to warn some one of an impending dread reality?"

Cause it's often easier for kids to believe that the world's going to end, that they're unworthy of life, and that if they're very good they won't be arbitrarily punished forever, than accept the possibility that how they're being treated by Mommy and Daddy is wrong, so they feel compelled to go on and abuse others in order to keep their personal universe together?

To wit: It walks like a duck. And certainly quacks like one.

"What with all the great minds I wonder why someone hasn't thought of REMOVING CO2 from the atmosphere if it's a problem. Plants do it so why can't man invent a "plant" that can be made and operated cheaply, create a new industry."

While that's a nice idea, of course, there are big problems with it: For one, what are you going to *power* this plant with that couldn't just replace fossil fuels in the first place?

Another problem is, of course, *where to put it.* What becomes your coal and oil represents *millions of years of carbon sequestered in the ground.* While deforestation of the rain forest (among the best ecosystems for absorbing Co2, next to phytoplankton in the oceans,) certainly is making things worse, even a healthy biosphere wouldn't be able to keep up with all this.

It's good that some evangelicals are saying no to the mad apocalyptic anti-environmental trip. I've had fundamentalist bosses who opposed recyling programs, and once they were in place, actually ordered us not to recycle the tremendous amount of paper waste the business generated, on the basis that 'God made the world with just enough resources to last until the Apocalypse. '

I was like, 'Well, then wouldn't you feel pretty silly if you ran out early.'

There's plenty of fundamentalists out there who seem to *want* this to happen.

You have to wonder if Bush, who when asked if he thought these were the End Times, hemmed and hawwed and didn't answer, had something like that in mind when he cut the funding to detect Earth-crossing asteroids, or if the 'faith-based' Iraq invasion had anything to do with that country just *happening* to be where Babylon was.

Hahahahahaha. Another leftist kook praying at the altar of her earth worshipping religion. Is Balmer campaigning for installation as the high priestess of the Al Gore global "warming" religious cult? Is anyone surprised that this tree hugging leftist freak is adored by Newsweek magazine?

The book of Revelation and those who take it "illiterately" proves that faith is not in God but rather it's faith that the Bible as a whole, Revelation being just a part is God's word. The Bible is a proved hoax. That cures the Revelation problem.

I can only smile when I hear "fundamentalists" say they take the Bible literally only to go into some of the most ridiculious interpretations of Revelation. Fundamentalists, all need to learn a little history to realize that at the time Revelation was written it could actually be taken literally.

The way things were, 300CE, (AD).
1. The earth was flat.
2. The sun was a 2 foot diameter ball of fire.
4. The science said that all light came from fire.
5. Stars were living creatures, firefly size.
6. The seas and forrests were filled with monsters, demons, critter varmits of all kinds.

There's more but that covers what one needs to realize Revelation belongs in "Homeric" literature that was taken as fact at the time. Having been written as letters to "churches" tells us it was all about terrorizing people.

Religion has never solved a problem. It is the problem, a mental illness. From time to time religion resorts to overt terrorism like today. When the insane are collared they thrive on the covert terrorism of threats, apocalypse and hell being two with hell the one that works best. The cure for it is education.

Get educated at http://www.hoax-buster.org Remember that the world was once flat, all light came from fire, stars were once living creatures and no size at all but were capable of "taking key and opening the gate to the shaft that goes down to the abyss" (Revelation). Other things that have changes since the Bible was written can be found at that web site. Don't be the last ignorant person alive.

"Global Warming" as we know it, as it is being force-fed to us by the godless media elites, is a myth. Pure and simple. The folks behind all of this are anti-cpitalist fear-mongers who hate individual freedom and the creativity of the marketplace.

Right.

Right?

Dear BrotherS & Siters, Praise SOURCE ONE. :-)'

Att: Handles; MELVILLE, EFAVORITE, ANONYMOUS (My Eclat-arian aware one), et al:

As an ECLATi-on, ALL that I speak or write about is a GENUINE PROPHECY. Please note: Your Lord G-d is NOT, again NOT a He nor a She. Can you dig it?

Today APOCALYPSE, NOT Biblical as in scripture or in Sura, is about "Spiritually escaping your Caterpillar state and mentaly, yes true knowledge of REALITY a/k/a TRANSFINITY and tranfornating and thus finaly becomming a Butterfly" and escaping from that Pre-Apocalyptic poison that you have given away to both congregationally and most probably finacial waisting or aquandering for wrons reasons, hence thinking, believing & being philosophicaly misguided by your Parent(s), friend(s) or self like.

yes, G-d is great. Dis you know I get this electricity flowing through my body an i get these goose bumps and I want to shout shout shout and cry out loud and say, "Thank You Lord in my HOLY HEARTBEAT, My ETERNITY AVOIDING LONLINESS THROUGH ME & OTHERS.

This is LOVE, we are born in MIRACLE and there is ZERO SIN about being born and birth (Creation) ITSELF (G-d Inside You and you are in IT my fellow HUMATE from Space-Ship MotherEarth.

Please never say, "Amen." Never! Because those words historicly Eponymously, epestimologically & Ontologically meand or translates to: AMON. Meaning an Egyptian Half-Man & Half-Beast!

This my Brothers & Sisters is a "FREUDIAN SLIP OF GENUINE PROPHECY" from the NOVELIST MOSES et al writtenly sewn into the INFIXIS BOOKS and for ALL the Future Bound Thinkers & SECULAR MINDED folk can use as, in the Great Conquest, just one exposed and un-exploded bullet that have been implanted by the BIBLIO TERRORISTS of ancient times.

They are starting to go POOF-TIME & so will you, family friend & Enemy's too, which is same as going through a mental Apocalypse.

Note: There is ZERO nothing Physical or that which involves Mother Nature no. It is about the alligment of you Hueristics (intel) or view or angle of reality.

Your view of someone elses G-d, via human writing by zero Godly tribes men, is like you see the bend, distortion or defraction of the stick or stirrer in your every day glass of water, juice etc.. thus the reality the truth.

The hour Is Indeed Near. Your kids and their kids .........., will be SAVED, sort of speak. Don't be a Cow or a Mop: WAKE-UP and join the SICM movement. SHOLOM. :-).

Isy Keys says, "He wants to you to know Him as your Saviour and Lord and desires to be your best friend in this whole entire world. He wants to heal your diseases, set you free from all the pain and sorrow in your heart. He wants to fill that empty void in your heart. "

And if you DON'T accept him, he'll send you straight to hell, to suffer horribly for ETERNITY.

I had a best friend here on Earth once who was sort of like that. He took me to a lot of nice places, showered me with gifts, promised me he’d always look out for me, and always told me how good looking and smart I was. I really appreciated the attention and we had some great times together. I told him he was smart and good looking too and how lucky I was to have him for my best friend. He agreed heartily with my assessment.

Then, once I went out with some other friends and he got REALLY mad, threatening to say bad things about me and take my money and burn my house down. For a minute I was really scared he would do those things, and I certainly didn’t want to lose his friendship. But then I figured he must be kidding. No real friend would act like that.

But no, he actually did all those things – ruined my reputation, stole my money and even burned my house down! He completely turned on me – and just because I went out with some other friends. I mean, if it made him so mad, couldn’t he have just dropped me without ruining my whole life? What an sadistic, egotistical control freak he turned out to be!

I left town and started from scratch somewhere else. I’m real careful now about how I pick friends. If anyone over-promises or is fawning or possessive, I know to keep my distance.

Apocalypse will be an actual act of the spiritual world to wake up mankind. Its not supposed to happen for a while yet. It wont be very nice. I dont want to see it myself.
Of course nobody believes this because nobody believes theres a spiritual world. Not yet anyway.
We're all in for a great surprise in regards this.
Right now Bush is creating a false apocalypse so he can control the people thru fear. We are so controlled. People are beginning to believe that one.
Thats probably why youre thinking apocalyptically,
because of Bush.
When apocalypse comes, global warming will be the least of our worries I suspect.
Sleep well little sheep.

Of course there is a hell. It is a place of absolute justice where in the fire is in reality but a final act of mercy as it takes your mind off far worse things - like for instance the fact that you have no one to blame but your self for your current predicament- however God sends not one last soul there. There is no need for you see lest God, for his own purposes, chooses to rescue you that is where you will spend eternity.

Please explain how it is child abuse to warn some one of an impending dread reality?

One important distinction between Biblical end times and global warming is that natural disasters don't discriminate. Everyone gets nailed regardless of how much they've ignored the impending crisis.

As the Jewish community becomes increasingly nervous about a growing anti-Semitism in Europe and a re-thinking about American Israeli policy, it has turned to the wacky world of Christian Zionists, chief among whom is evangelist John Hagee...

The global warming threat, while very real, is far less imminent than is the potential for our administration, influenced as it is by the Christian Right, to bring on Armageddon, without the hand of God...Hagee and others are pushing for an invasion of Iran to force God's hand in redemptive history...

The net result is that all the unbelieving Jews will be slaughtered...If that isn't love!

"Oh, McChurch, you've done it again!"

Stan Moody, Christian Policy Institute, author of "McChurched: 300 Million Served and Still Hungry."

The truth is that unless you become born again and asking Jesus into your heart, yes there is the threat of hell. The Bible clearly states that you must be born again and believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that he became the Word as man incarnate. He died on the cross, was buried and was resurrected on the third day and shortly afterwards ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of His Father. To see the kingdom of heaven is to have a close, intimate relationship with God Almighty. Those who reject Jesus will unfortunately go to hell. It talks about it in the Bible. We as Christians need to bring the good news to this world that they have a Saviour who loves them so much that He died for them. He wants to you to know Him as your Saviour and Lord and desires to be your best friend in this whole entire world. He wants to heal your diseases, set you free from all the pain and sorrow in your heart. He wants to fill that empty void in your heart. He loves each and every one of us, but He cannot make you choose Him, He has given us the choice whether to know Him and spend eternity with Him or to not know Him and be eternally separated from Him. Jesus wants you so please if you haven't asked Him into your heart, then do it today so that you will know Him for all eternity.

Love your sister in Christ Jesus

The end of this world appears inevitable, but it isn't clear whether that will be because someone sets off all the bombs, or by solar extinction in a few billion years. But in a society where so many decisions are made based on the "bottom line" for this quarter of the fiscal year, Rev. Balmer is right in suggesting that we do have to worry about some longer-term issues, the environment and global warming being among the very important issues that have tended to get short-changed when day to day decisions are being made. A responsible religious voice thinking about the long term need to feed the hungry, cure the sick, house the homeless, etc., may provide a better motivation than either the strictly economic voice or the purely scientific one.

On a more light-hearted note out of a somewhat different theology, my father used to enjoy speculating about the Messianic Age. One of his more lighthearted forms was a traditional Jewish story, how will the coming of the Messiah affect the tailor business? I have a form of it on my web site at
http://ordman.net/Edward/Tailors.html

End of the world?

We should be very concerned with global warming, for we can alter the climate and eventually create a condition where warming of the climate not only melts the icecaps and floods much of the worlds landmasses as oceans rise. In addition, under some scenarios, warming might create conditions that create more warming, and hence a runaway condition comes to pass.

But we must also look at absolutist religions re the end of the world. Certainly today, the end of civilization could come from battles for religious supremacy, between competing groups, each of whom is convinced they are correct. Extremist branches of Islam certainly are a problem. So are the Catholic Church and some right wing Protestants groups who also believe they are infallible. The underlying issue issue is to admit anything they have said is wrong is to end their aura of infallibility, and then the whole faith system can come crashing down.

Faith - I'm often forced to ask if Faith is perhaps mankinds worst danger, for it shuts down thinking and questioning with the brain that God gave us. Of course there are other terrible types of faith, e.g. non-religious, but look at how blind faith in leaders who use fear, and hence its cousin hatred can rally people to a mad cause. Look at what Hitler did with the Germans, who were a cultured people. To some extent Pr. Bush did the same, getting people to believe him about Iraq, WMDs, 9/11 complicity, and 'Democracy for the Middle East'. Personally, as a life long repub I wondered what was wrong in 2000, but still voted for him. By 2004 I understood what a blind man he is, listening only to himself and those who use him to advance their own neo-con, or is it neo-fascist agenda.

In my personal opinion, it is all related.

Randal, don't worry, you won't live to see it.

We all live in individual worlds. When we die this world ends. The question, is that the end, has dominated the thoughts of man from the beginning. It must be a natural and normal part of our psyche.

Threatening children with the end of the world does at least border on child abuse in the opinion of many. Threats of hell are abusive enough.

Global warming only signals the end of "the world as we know it" (title of a pop song?). What with all the great minds I wonder why someone hasn't thought of REMOVING CO2 from the atmosphere if it's a problem. Plants do it so why can't man invent a "plant" that can be made and operated cheaply, create a new industry.

The ozone layer can be replinished by ozone generators, baloons with static electric devices. Problems can be solved by means other than eveyone holding their breath. Maybe we need a better class of leaders? "Go to your churches, temples, synagogues, mosques and pray" W's response to 9-11 only lead us to Iraq.

What with science and religion getting together the world may well end for everyone any minuite. I doubt Jesus will come swooping down out of the sky to save the righteous. They're not contributing to the solution to the problem, are an integral part of the problem.

Child Abuse: Fear of Hell Indoctrination

My main god Ba'al is too polite.

Controlling a child with the indoctrination of the fear of hell, that the child will Burn if she doesn't obey God (and her parents), that she is a creature full of sin,

IS by any reasonable definition from professional psychological bodies

psychological *abuse* of a child.

Jesus (or whomever) coming at the last day to "pour out his wrath on the sinners", as one other poster here so sweetly puts it,

is a profoundly destructive myth.

well put norrie-

It does seem "man," at least as represented in the United States currently and perhaps to be joined by others in the near future, may well not be able to stop his own destruction. Is it arrogance or stupidy? I find I'm unable to bet on the goodness of man to find a way to live on this planet without destroying it. During my lifetime, first there was the bomb hanging over our future and now global warming. What will our children fear in their lifetimes and how long will our, ie, the world's future be? I find these questions most troublesome.

Mr. Balmer writes "I spent a lot of my childhood thinking and worrying about the end of time as predicted in the New Testament book of Revelation. "

You were a victim of childhood indoctrination that approaches abuse.

Focusing one's attention on the coming end of the world, may, in some cases (probably rare) confer the same benefit as can be obtained by contemplating one's own end: your attention can focus entirely on the present moment, in meditation on the question of what things are all about (if anything).

"Knowing he is about to be hanged concentrates a man's mind wonderfully."

well said