Maybe nature shouldn’t be worshipped after all
The pagan worship of nature or It’s elements and the atheist reliance on logic and reason is so limited. It’s all about revering the creations instead of the creator. One can be pro preserving the environment and world we live in without veneration of it.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A statement widely attributed to the great British thinker G. K. Chesterton describes the modern period as perfectly as any single idea can: “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing; they believe in anything.”
One of these substitute gods has been nature.
Indeed, of all the false gods, nature is probably the most natural for people to worship. Every religion prior to the Bible had nature-gods — the sun, the moon, the sea, gods of fertility, gods of rain and so on.
That is why the farther Western society gets from biblical, i.e., Judeo-Christian, religions, the more nature is worshipped.
Everyone on the left and right cares about the environment. But caring about the environment is not the same as environmentalism. Environmentalism, for most of its adherents, is a secular religion. These people, many of whom refer to, and truly regard, the Earth as a goddess (Gaia, the name of the ancient Greek Earth goddess) worship the environment.
The man who, more than any other, started the modern environmentalist religion was James Lovelock, who developed the “Gaia hypothesis” in the 1970s. Almost 50 years later, in 2014, Lovelock told The Guardian, “Environmentalism has become a religion.”
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat described the 2009 James Cameron blockbuster film, “Avatar,” as “Cameron’s long apologia for pantheism, a faith that equates God with Nature, and calls humanity into religious communion with the natural world.” That equation of God with nature was a major reason for the film’s popularity.
Douthat, one of the only religious (as in believing in and practicing a religion) columnists at The New York Times, added, “The threat of global warming, meanwhile, has lent the cult of Nature qualities that every successful religion needs: a crusading spirit, a rigorous set of ‘thou shalt nots,’ and a piping-hot apocalypse.”
When you ask atheists, as I have for decades, what they believe in, the most common answer is “science.” There was a young man, an atheist, at the gym where I work out, who responded, “Science!” (in place of “God bless you”) whenever someone sneezed. There is nothing higher than science for an atheist because the natural world is all there is. So, worship of the Earth, the environment or nature is almost inevitable in a secular world.
The Bible takes an entirely different view. As explained at length in my Bible commentary, “The Rational Bible,” the first verse of the Bible — “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth” — contains the most radical idea in history. It stated, for the first time in history, that God created nature and is not part of nature. It is one of the reasons I believe the first five books, the Torah, are God-given. No human beings 3,000 years ago in the late Bronze Age would have come up with an idea so opposed to the way the human mind naturally works — to regard gods as part of nature.
From the point of view of the secular, Gaia-worshipping world, Genesis gets even worse when, 27 verses later, God tells human beings to, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.”
Both instructions infuriate Earth-worshippers. Regarding being fruitful, they oppose people having more than one child, and many advocate having no children so as to have minimal human impact on Mother Earth. But the second part — ruling over nature — is what really angers them.
Maybe the coronavirus will awaken young people, who have been taught by nature-worshipping teachers and raised by nature-worshipping parents, to the idiocy of worshipping nature rather than subduing it. Nature, it turns out, is not our friend, let alone a god. If it were up to nature, we’d all be dead: Animals would eat us; weather would freeze us to death; disease would wipe out the rest of us. If we don’t subdue nature, nature will subdue us. It’s that simple.
Nature is beautiful and awe-inspiring. It’s also brutal and merciless. “Nature, red in tooth and claw,” as Alfred Tennyson aptly describes it. Nature follows no moral rules and shows no compassion. The basic law of all biological life is “survival of the fittest,” while the basic law of Judaism and Christianity is the opposite: the survival of the weakest with the help of the fittest. Nature wants the weakest eaten by the strongest. Hospitals are as anti-natural an entity as exists.
Only human beings make hospitals. We do so not by worshipping nature but by subduing it.
If the COVID-19 virus destroys the foolish veneration of nature and leads more people, especially the young, to a new respect for the Judeo-Christian worldview, it might be the one silver lining in this catastrophe.
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From the point of view of the secular, Gaia-worshipping world, Genesis gets even worse when, 27 verses later, God tells human beings to, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.”
Both instructions infuriate Earth-worshippers. Regarding being fruitful, they oppose people having more than one child, and many advocate having no children so as to have minimal human impact on Mother Earth. But the second part — ruling over nature — is what really angers them.
Maybe the coronavirus will awaken young people, who have been taught by nature-worshipping teachers and raised by nature-worshipping parents, to the idiocy of worshipping nature rather than subduing it. Nature, it turns out, is not our friend, let alone a god. If it were up to nature, we’d all be dead: Animals would eat us; weather would freeze us to death; disease would wipe out the rest of us. If we don’t subdue nature, nature will subdue us. It’s that simple.
Nature is beautiful and awe-inspiring. It’s also brutal and merciless. “Nature, red in tooth and claw,” as Alfred Tennyson aptly describes it. Nature follows no moral rules and shows no compassion. The basic law of all biological life is “survival of the fittest,” while the basic law of Judaism and Christianity is the opposite: the survival of the weakest with the help of the fittest. Nature wants the weakest eaten by the strongest. Hospitals are as anti-natural an entity as exists.
Only human beings make hospitals. We do so not by worshipping nature but by subduing it.
Where are all the tree 🌲 hugging eco freaks who swear by global warming hoaxes and climate change frauds who really do worship the elements and the earth old fashioned pagan style to defend their religion and it’s religious beliefs instead of what the author of the article believes? There are earth worshipping groups and individuals who openly proclaim worship of the environment and Gaia as a current religion.
Most people do not worship science but rather have grown convinced that the science method is quite sound. It might be difficult to imagine, but quite a few people are convinced by the extraordinary success of science that the scientific method is one of if not the most reliable source of quality explanations of reality. Accordingly, when well-founded research results in a scientific finding that contradicts religious beliefs, there are quite a few rational individuals who find the contradicted beliefs to be wrong. Among these rational individuals are devoutly religious people such as Dr. Francis Collins.
To make an extremely clear example, the religious belief that human beings dropped onto a newly formed planet as fully formed homo-sapiens 6,000 years ago is patently ridiculous. This notion is contradicted huge by many disciplines of science within archeology, genetics, biology, geology, cosmology, etc.
Science, unlike religion, is a self-correcting mechanism. Science does get things wrong and there are individuals who abuse the scientific methods to produce (temporarily) false claims. But eventually these falsehoods are corrected by science itself. Religions, however, make claims and seek to find ways to support their claims sometimes in direct contradiction to well-founded knowledge (e.g. the 6,000 year old Earth nonsense).
Best way to operate, in my opinion, is to follow the evidence to where it leads. Divining a conclusion and trying to cherry-pick 'evidence' to support the belief is a great way to 'know' a bunch of things that are simply not true.
Where are all the tree 🌲 hugging eco freaks who swear by global warming hoaxes and climate change frauds who really do worship the elements and the earth old fashioned pagan style to defend their religion and it’s religious beliefs instead of what the author of the article believes? There are earth worshipping groups and individuals who openly proclaim worship of the environment and Gaia as a current religion. This is for the ones who are into the religion of environmentalism not for the atheists or those who hate the Judeo-Christian God.
It is interesting watching you try to portray science as a religion. Just like Kent Hovind, Ken Ham, Ray Comfort, et.al. The tactic attempts to equate the scientific method with religion to try to eliminate the critical flaw of belief sans evidence. Trouble is, truth is a persistent thing. Science is and will always be based on evidence: follow the evidence to where it leads. Religion is the opposite: postulate a belief and then try to justify the belief (often in spite of true evidence to the contrary).
On top of that, you repeat your inexplicably confused notion that atheists (people who are not convinced a god exists) hate a human-defined 'god'. Not only do atheists, generally speaking, not hate what we consider to be a character of fiction, but atheists do not hate the people who hold religious beliefs. If so, we would be hating most of our family and friends. You do not seem to recognize that either. In my personal experience in online debates, facts and reason are typically proposed by atheists whereas name-calling, snark, hatred, venom (and other less-than-honorable tactics) typically stem from my religious interlocutors.
Actually, it's more laughable. If not outright pathetic.
Basically, it equates to intellectual laziness and/or dishonesty.
It's not just your experience TiG. How many discussions have we seen devolve into juvenile or asinine comments, dishonest debate tactics, or just plain CoC violations, the majority of which are done by theists.
What nonsense. More proof Dennis Prager is an idiot.
Who created "nature"? The atheist generally says "no one" because nature is a given, something that has always existed and thus never "created". The Christian though will answer that God created nature and that God comes from outside of what we call "nature" (this existence). So if nature is inhospitable to human beings and needs to be "subdued", it is all God's doing. Prager's thought process about this is almost childlike.
The nature we have now is not as it was when God created the world. The curse that is the result of sin changed everything. Pragers thoughts are consistent with Jewish and Christian beliefs.
that is all nonsense.
it does explain why right wing christians are anti-environmental though - nature is our enemy.
God created and allowed sin.
Sorry, but this is an illogical wormhole to infinity.
Total waste of time.
I understand the leader of your denomination has accepted evolution along with some others but many others have not. Pragers whole approach is exactly right as told in the article. Do you think people should worship nature and it’s elements instead of God or as a god? Do you see logic and reason to be a God substitute?
Why did you waste your time here?
No one should worship nature as if it were a God.
Period.
Don't waste your time kids.
Do not worry yourself,
I have very limited tolerance for bumping up seeds of no value to me.
Especially Pragerisms.
Shalom
And yet people do exactly that now. It’s been done throughout post flood human history.
Dennis Prager is a great American. His creators syndicate articles are always interesting as is Prager U.
All this is is more anti-atheist crap.
Acting like Christians should not love the land that nurtures them is ridiculous in itself.
If not anti teachings.
If you had bothered to read the article you wouldn’t have written what you did. First he said all care about preserving and caring for the environment we live in and around. Then you also wouldn’t have said it was anti atheist either since it was directed at pagans old and neo who worship earth and or the elements as their theism.
Say what now?
Are you suggesting atheists and earth worshipping pagans are the same thing?
I am suggesting that this man is lumping everything as anti-Christian.
If you were at least a little bit knowledgeable in such things, you would know the answer to the question,
and know how to spell 'worshiping'.
Google should be a most frequently used tool.
And that's just crazy for a person raised as a Jew, don't you think?
No such thing.
He isn’t a Christian himself!
He still is a Jew, always has been one.
There was a world wide flood about 4000-4500 years ago. https://arkencounter.com/about/
Citing AiG as a source. These are the people who believe dinosaurs coexisted with human beings and that the Earth is 6,000 years old.
Good grief man, it is 2020. The abundance of available, well-founded information is staggering yet you go with one of the worst peddlers of misinformation (aka bullshit) around. Why??
Sadder still, wouldn't one think?
Geologists believe there was a cataclysmic flood in the days of Noah but it wasn't world wide. Probably seemed like it was to those that were in it's path.
I was going to say that. There was evidence of a flood in the area.
As you said, I don't think it was worldwide.
Things like that actually bother me more than lying.
It is taking a truth and twisting it into a lie.
Why is his being Jewish sad?
Why does thou assign things that were not said?
What is fact is that no human, mammal that doesn’t live in the water, or bird on the earth then that was outside of the Ark survived it.
I am happy for you. believe that if you want. It makes no more difference to me than someone saying life was planted by aliens.
Just do not preach to me nor try to say that what you believe is what others should learn.
If you cannot understand just simple facts like that, well, then there is just no hope.
I don't mind dialogue, I mind others trying to tell others how to live or be, which is about the only thing I see from you. Only my way or the highway bullshit that does nothing but turn people off and to a cause harm to that, that you actually seem to hold dear.
Kind of counter productive I would say, if not just born out of ignorance.
A claim of certainty. Deliver the evidence that a worldwide flood destroyed every form of life outside of water dwelling creatures. And why were water dwelling creatures spared? And were salt water creatures spared leaving the fresh water creatures to die?
You made the claim of certainty, now back it up. If you cannot do so, then your words are mere opinion (based on what other people have told you to believe).
Demonstrably false!
How is that a fact exactly?
When people accept beliefs as facts, strange things can happen. This is the essence of why we see some cults engaging in mass suicide,etc. Heaven’s Gate, for example, all donned tennis shoes and took poison so that they could catch the Halley's comet spaceship to Heaven. To them, this belief was fact. Same deal with Islamic martyr suicide bombers who hold as fact their belief that they are following the will of Allah by murdering infidels.
Sound's like delusional thinking to me. Strange indeed.
Wouldn't a torrential rainfall of fresh water change the salinity of the oceans and cause ocean dwelling mammals and fish to die?
Did Noah get some whales and dolphins on the Ark? What about halibut, flounder, and sharks?
I'm not particularly religious but I do believe in a higher power (call it The Force if you want), but no I'm not sure the earth was completely covered in water at one time. I didn't study geology, so I don't know.
Thanks. Are you feeling better?
I'm glad you're fully recovered. A month is a long damn time to be sick. Are you going to donate some plasma for that study they're doing?
"Gods Green Earth"...
If God created the Earth, as you have said in the past, how do you think She is would feel if the people She created destroy Her creation? Didn't think this one out did ya?
Because it suits the game he is playing, if something more controversial and/or divisive came along he would change to support that
Lol didn't you know the Fiesta deck was where Noah built the aquariums for all the water critters. There were mermaids in one tank but Noah forgot to clean their tank once and the ick got them, oh well.
It seems counterproductive to make ridiculous claims. If someone makes claims that I find to be ridiculous I tend to downplay subsequent comments. I would think that this method of determining credibility of an author is not unusual.
That's true. A few billion years of geological activity will do that.
No, that's just nature.
Which means what? Oh right, absolutely nothing!
Then those "many others" or just willfully ignorant and flat out wrong! Especially considering all the empirical evidence supporting evolution.
Unlike your god, at least we know nature exists and can see it. Which is a big deal for the whole credibility thing.
I see it as far superior to mere belief or religious delusion.
Nice to have that freedom, eh?
You tell us! After all, you seem to think atheism is a religion.
That's nice. Prove it! That would also be impressive, since current scientific information and evidence contradicts the notion of a world wide flood.
Even certain water dwelling organisms wouldn't survive it. But there is no evidence of any such mass extinction event.
“When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing; they believe in anything.”
One of these substitute gods has been nature.
Indeed, of all the false gods, nature is probably the most natural for people to worship. Every religion prior to the Bible had nature-gods — the sun, the moon, the sea, gods of fertility, gods of rain and so on.
That is why the farther Western society gets from biblical, i.e., Judeo-Christian, religions, the more nature is worshipped.
Everyone on the left and right cares about the environment. But caring about the environment is not the same as environmentalism. Environmentalism, for most of its adherents, is a secular religion. These people, many of whom refer to, and truly regard, the Earth as a goddess (Gaia, the name of the ancient Greek Earth goddess) worship the environment.
The man who, more than any other, started the modern environmentalist religion was James Lovelock, who developed the “Gaia hypothesis” in the 1970s. Almost 50 years later, in 2014, Lovelock told The Guardian, “Environmentalism has become a religion.”
Demonstrably false! And believing in god is also part of believing in anything, or anything.
Who are you to decide which god is false or not? You can't even prove yours is true.
Many religions predate the Judeo-Christian ones.
I'm beginning to wonder if you even know what religion means, when you make asinine statements like that.
That's not what environmentalism is.
No, it's at best a political or social movement. Hardly a religion in itself.
The final arbiter of all that is known to man kind has spoken....🤮😴
If he is wrong, engage him with facts and reason.
That's just a [deleted] cop-out answer, which addresses nothing. Try again! Preferably with evidence and/or facts. Baseless claims and statements is meaningless.
Faith and belief is all you are going to get. Deal with it no matter how much you “challenge” our expressions of what we believe, who we believe in, or what we do for others because we do.
You are free to believe as you wish. But you do not seem to understand the difference between expressing your religious beliefs in a public forum and making claims of certainty in a public forum.
Expressing your religious beliefs in a public forum is almost always proselytizing. It is, in a real sense, no different from a street 'preacher' standing at a corner announcing in a loud voice: "God is Real!".
Further, making claims in a public forum that your religious beliefs are true (e.g. what you recently posted):
are claims of certain truth ... that these are facts. In a public forum, when someone asserts something as fact you should expect challenges.
This is especially true when you make demonstrably ridiculous claims of fact such as: 'evolution is pseudoscience - a worldwide conspiracy perpetrated by godless scientists'.
You continue to make your claims of certainty and also inexplicably complain that people challenge your claims.
As I have suggested, there is an easy remedy. Post your seeds in a private group and thus keep them from the front page. If you want to proclaim your beliefs or make (at times) utterly ridiculous claims that contradict well-founded facts then your audience will be limited to those who will embrace your message rather than challenge it. Alternatively, there exist religious social forums where one can echo-chamber religious beliefs and claims with far less fear of challenges.
Bottom line, posting religious beliefs in a public forum is almost always proselytizing. Posting religious claims of certainty (e.g. evolution is bullshit) in a public forum will naturally result in challenges. Finally, posting attacks on science aficionados, skeptics, etc. will obviously result in a challenge. You have only yourself to blame when you knowingly choose to post this content in a public forum.
If the COVID-19 virus destroys the foolish veneration of nature and leads more people, especially the young, to a new respect for the Judeo-Christian worldview, it might be the one silver lining in this catastrophe.
Utterly amazing. You would find it equitable for people to die as long as that encourages others to 'get (your) religion'.
Talk about an emotional overreaction to something never said.
Then what were you trying to convey with your words? The COVID-19 virus is killing people. Have you noticed? You see a silver lining in that.
If that is not what you were trying to communicate then now is your chance to set the record straight.
I didn’t say anything. I clearly and obviously quoted what someone else said and attributed it. Why make stuff up you know isn’t accurate?
When you place the words of other people in a comment, you are using their words to make your point. Especially if their words comprise your entire comment.
This is the first time I have seen anyone use this dishonest tactic — claiming that they do not mean to convey the meaning of a quote they posted as their sole comment.
Neither the author nor myself said the corona virus was good. The whole seed was about the bad effects of harsh elements of nature on humanity. Nothing good was said about the virus. We all know full well that a silver lining is one sliver of hope coming out of a bad thing so stop misrepresenting what he said that I quoted. So far it seems to be accurate based on behavior observed since this calamity began.
Given what you posted:
Seems pretty crappy in the face of a pandemic that is killing people to muse about how this might positively affect religious recruitment.
silver lining - Dictionary Definition : Vocabulary.com
Apparently you did not read what I wrote:
Seems pretty crappy in the face of a pandemic that is killing people to muse about how this might positively affect religious recruitment.
To some secularists that silver lining is their darkest cloud of all.
I can tell you now, it simply isn't worth the effort to explain what you quoted because it will not change what the perception of one person thinks it means.
But, hey, dumb old me actually understood it!
Go figure!
BTW, did anyone say anything similar when an article was posted that talked about the lowering levels of pollution because of the effects from Coronavirus? That the author was crappy for musing about the benefits of lowering pollution in the face of an epidemic that kills thousands?
One could just as easily muse that this pandemic shows that there is no loving God who has our back. I think that kind of thinking (either way) is beyond inappropriate in the midst of a pandemic.
Maybe let the dust settle a bit before counting your chips?
We make no apologies whatsoever for daring to try to find something positive to hold on to in a time of severe hardship. In fact it’s time in this case to double down on that lining and help those who are turning from your way to ours for the aid and comfort they seek and need. The charities and hospitals we operate are ready and willing to help.
The double-down should be on combating the pandemic rather than counting new recruits into your belief system.
What do you think we are doing with our food pantries, homeless shelters, disaster relief agencies of all kinds as well as our hospitals?
I’ve seen the hype about the environmental benefits of the pandemic too and not a word of objection. Of source this seed is about earth worshipping so that should be no surprise here.
Wait, w-h-a-t?
Do you mean to say that people came together as a community of God, formed churches, and did good works together as a result of their religious beliefs?
W-h-a-t????
That is the type of doubling down to which I referred. Those are examples of working to get through the crisis. Do you see the difference between positive steps at fighting the pandemic versus counting new recruits you might get from this crisis?
You got it! What a concept.
Do you really think that when we do acts of caring and compassion in the community or around the world that we don’t mention why we do what we do and Who motivated us to do it? Why shouldn’t we be able to talk about those we help with direct easing of human suffering aid or with providing hope and purpose because they seek it? It seems like the fact that this disaster has brought people back to us in search of answers is a personal setback to those who not only don’t believe but do all they can to make certain no one else does either.
Why ask this question? It does not correlate with any claim I have made so I do not see the point.
Again, you ask a question that has nothing to do with what I have written. Hello?
You really need to spend more time reading what people write. You come up with some of the wildest ideas — seems to me that you are drawing from a stereotype. Bad way to operate.
Note that Gordy and I are responding to claims of certainty. Typically from you. We are not frequenting articles in groups held by Enoch or CB, etc. and trying to stop them from believing (part of your ridiculous stereotype). It is when religious claims of certainty, attacks on science, attacks on skeptics, etc. are put forward on the front page that you see challenges from some of us.
Real simple. Keep putting forth your claims of certainty in a public forum and I will continue to challenge you if I see a problem with your position. If that is a problem then I suggest you work within a private group or some other site.
When you put claims on the public forum you should expect to be challenged.
Challenge away. Just don’t expect any response when we are called unreasonable or illogical or any other comments based on condescending arrogance toward the believer and what we believe. God is real. Creation is the source of origins. The global flood really did happen. The Christian God as described by the Bible is its inerrant message of love to mankind. Heaven is also very real. Those are the certainties we have a rational faith to believe in and act upon. And by acting on that includes all the good works done as a result of that being saved by faith.
How do you know this to be true? Evidence, logic, or do you simply accept what other human beings have told you?
Excuse me but that's all you've been doing in this entire seed. TiG posts something...you respond. Gordy posts something...you respond.
And the responses are typically BS too.
That has to be the stupidest fricking comment that I've ever seen on NT.
How has subduing nature worked out so far...Have we stopped hurricanes, tornados, wildfires, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and pandemics (they are part of nature)...
The author of the article should get his head out of his nether regions and get some oxygen to the ''on life support'' brain of his.