We have a special guest this week: Shrike, president of his local Audubon Society chapter and an active environmentalist for more than 30 years. The Herd asks him to tell us about the new green movement among evangelical Christians. Is the fundies' approach to saving the planet different from the traditional one? Do Christian bears shit in the woods? Chew on this phrase: Creation Care. Will the environmental movement be hijacked by a religious agenda? Shrike is willing to use all the help he can get. (0:00)
Or is he? Ex, fretting about religionists' involvement, poses a challenge. Would Shrike be willing to start his Audubon Society meetings with a prayer? The lifetime environmentalist doesn't have to think twice about his answer, but can you predict what it is? We wonder: If evangelicals are around, won't they ... duh ... evangelize? Philly worries what Shrike and others would be called if they walked away. (14:20)
SI finds a Creation Care website that looks mighty religious to him. After our disclaimer about Democrat bashing, we bash Obama. On ethanol. Shrike is not happy with this bogus response to the energy/environmental crisis. He likes his corn flakes and hopes a Democratic Congress will resolve this. The cynical Herd doubts that it will happen. (26:04)
Another Goddamned Puzzle, Poll and Quiz. Atheists need poetry, huh? Well, at least a different combination of those letters. Is Evo actually bright enough to be testing our listeners? We give a marginal thumbs-up to Atheist Nexus. Our conclusion: Join, but don't expect any miracles! However, do feel free to become a member of our group there. Not surprisingly, it's called ... ta-da ... "Another Goddamned Podcast." (49:11)
Opening Music [00:00]: excerpt from "Another Goddamned Draft"
Bridge Music [12:57]: excerpt from "One of Many"
Bridge Music [25:00]: excerpt from "Swing to the Left"
Bridge Music [39:24]: excerpt from "Heathen Boogie"
Closing Music [51:50]: excerpt from "As Jazzy as I Get"
(All music: copyright 2008 by Rachel Murie)
This Week's Goddamned Links
Creation Care
Christian Care Students Abroad
Wikipedia on Evangelical Environmentalism
Washington Post on The Greening of Evangelicals
E.O. Wilson: The Creation
David Pimentel: "Biofuel Skeptic Extraordinaire"
John Stossel report on Ethanol
Alternative Energy Source: Vertigro
Puzzling Listeners
Another Goddamned Puzzle:
Aly, J-Mil, Question Everything, Venjanz, Yunshui
Evo's Science Quiz:
Aly, Derek, EnoNomi, IsThatLatin, J-Mil, Konradius, Paul (shudd3r2th1nk), Question Everything
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13 comments:
i am curious as to know whether or not knowing how "poetry heh" or "poetry huh" would be spelled as to how Ex said it on the podcast, or is figuring this out in itself part of the question?
Shud:
Yeah, you're right that my pronunciation was unclear. It so happens that you aren't the first listener to be misled.
So I amended the post to spell out what I said. But to answer here in the comments as well: I'm looking for an anagram of POETRY, HUH.
[citation needed]
WHAT anti-abortion initiative is Bush trying to push? In the Democrat controlled congress, has this even been to committee? RvW can only be overturned by the Supreme Court BTW.
Pharmacy won't fill your birth control prescription? Go to another one. If one if far away, use condoms until you can get there. Can't get there or afford $.50 condoms? Don't have sex unless you are willing to risk having a child until you can get the pills. And certainly don't have the government loot my wallet for your crotch-spawn because you can't control your biological urges.
1/6 the size of New Mexico. Well fuck that's a small endeavor. Let's build an industrial facility that's only 20,778 square miles, or twice the size of Massachusetts.
We can't grow a significant amount of sugarcane in the Conus-it's too cold here.
He's trying to reclassify birth control as abortion.
Venjanz - you won't be surprised that I (of all people!) would disagree with you.
You don't want to "pay" for the irresponsibility of others. But pay you will, one way or another.
If your government doesn't provide healthcare, sex education, contraception, and access to whatever you need from whatever pharmacist you choose to go to, then you will pay with the increase of unwanted babies being born to people who aren't emotionally prepared to parent and aren't economically able to provide. Believe me, the government isn't going to let that kid starve or even be illiterate. YOU will pay for that.
Beyond the obvious financial issues I raise, there are many hidden costs. Like when those kids grow up and end up repeating the parenting mistakes of their mothers and fathers, commit felonious behaviors and end up spending many years being taken care of by the state, in prisons and mental hospitals.
Think it over.
I know many Christians who are sincerely interested in environmental issues. They look at it as a matter of stewardship. Since God has entrusted the care of the earth to humankind, they have a responsibility to take good care of his creation.
We need to be careful not to stereotype evangelicals. They are not all rabid 24/7 evangelists. When I was an evangelical minister, I served on the board of directors of my son's day care center for two years. It was a secular group and I had no problem with that. I never proselytized other board members, I never suggested that the curriculum should include Sunday School stuff, I never expected us to pray at board meetings or even say grace before family potlucks. People knew I was a Christian, but I didn't shove it down their throats (in those contexts - you've already read about my street corner antics). I was not too dissimilar from most of the evangelicals I've known.
Having said that, there are some evangelicals who might try to Christianize Shrike's Audubon Society if given a chance to do so. If they started to do that, the society would have to squelch those efforts at the start. Period. If Christians want to have a Christian Audubon Society wannabe, then they should start one.
Good episode. Great topic and guest.
Chappy:
Don't evangelicals always evangelize? By definition?
Nice straw-man augment Evo, nobody here will fall for that, BTW.
But to rebut you points...
If your government doesn't provide healthcare, sex education, contraception, and access to whatever you need from whatever pharmacist you choose to go to, then you will pay with the increase of unwanted babies being born to people who aren't emotionally prepared to parent and aren't economically able to provide. Believe me, the government isn't going to let that kid starve or even be illiterate. YOU will pay for that.
You obviously think that "The State" should control pharmacies, sex education, and birth control.
Why should I pay for another persons health care?
What responsibility do parents have NOT have children they obviously can not afford? And why should they accept state-funded contraception if a child will just bring in more welfare cash? And WHY should I pay for any this?
Would your solution be state-funded abortions? I wouldn't pay for that either.
Why should a pharmacist be forced to sell drugs that they object to selling?
Why should The State teach my child about sex?
Socialism = No personal responsibility, and that is attractive to many people.
You commies will never get past this, either, even though you claim strive for fairness:
Since "The State" is a bureaucracy controlled by humans, and humans have prejudices, pride, ambitions for power, and emotions; the socialist state bureaucracy will always be unfair, because of the nature of humans.
Q.E.D.
Venjanz:
Well like all other Ayn Rand idiots, you've got a very nice concept for Cloud-Cuckoo-Land, but one that doesn't reflect the realipolitik of America. So you can either walk around with your righteous libertarian head shoved up your righteous libertarian ass, screaming to your righteous libertarian intestines about laissez faire and pure capitalism, or you can do your best to come into the real world and make our market as free as you can.
You may not like the concept of paying for another person's health care, but you will, regardless of whether you like it or not. So, if you're practical, you should probably prefer to fork out the relatively small amount for preventive medicine, rather than the larger amounts for treatment. And doctors in America don't operate under a pure free market system, anyway. There is no competition in the libertarian sense. They're licensed by a crypto-governmental system of colluding universities & hospitals, a system that essentially creates monopolistic policies in which the "buyer" has absolutely no choice. There's no bidding for goods and services in the Adam Smith sense. Our present medical market is hardly a laissez faire one.
As far as pharmacists go, it's not even a question of laissez faire. A person who becomes licensed as a pharmacist must actually fulfill his contractual obligations under the license; in other words, he has to be a pharmacist, not a dealer of random drugs that suit him to whomever he feels like selling them. No socialism there, pal. The free-market part is that everyone has the choice to pursue whatever profession he wants. Certainly no socialism there, either. But once you decide to put on that smock, your job is to dispense medications without discriminating, just as a streetcleaner's job is to clean all the streets in his territory, even those in front of the house of the asshole he can't stand named Venjanz. Why? Because that's the fucking job he agreed to do contractually.
A pharmacist has a metaphorical contract with the purchasing public. Just as police and firefighters and public school teachers and bus drivers and airplane pilots and your friendly neighborhood garbage collector have metaphorical contracts with the public. You may not like that, but what if every shopkeeper in your neighborhood decided that it was his or her laissez faire right not to sell supplies to blacks, or Christians, or men over 30, or, in particular, you? "Let's get rid of those disgusting Venjanzes by not giving them an opportunity to buy groceries around here." Nope. It's illegal to discriminate that way -- and it should be.
So go buy yourself a candy bar -- as you can at any store that sells them -- and think a little more realistically about some of your pie-in-the-sky ideas. Atlas Shrugged is a cute ideal, but it ain't gonna happen. The answer to "Who Is John Galt?" is: nobody.
I can't help but laugh at the "Socialism = No personal responsibility" line when everything you're arguing for Venjanz is essentially the right to avoid personal responsibility, from not contributing to society to not fulfilling your contractual obligations as a pharmacist.
Furthermore, what's also laughable is faulting "The State" for being "controlled by humans, and humans have prejudices, pride, ambitions for power, and emotions" yet what is business and your free market run by? Robots? If the choice is between two human entities, the state or the market, I'll go with the state since it has laws, is responsible for its actions and has obligations to society whereas the market exists for itself alone.
Venjanz - rather than give my own response, I'll just associate myself with the comments by Ex and Philly. I do have one question though.
What was my straw man argument? I don't like using logical fallacies and, if I did, I'd really like to know so I can avoid it in the future. I read my comment again and the only thing I could find suspect was my assertion (more or less) that you would have to pay for babies either way, and I guess you could argue that I'm starting for an assumption that people will be "irresponsible" and that we just have to accept that.
Since one doesn't need any legal standing to become a parent, the point about "responsible" is a bit moot. But if we are concerned about it, the best way to handle it is through education. I assume that in your perfect free market society you don't think people need to be responsible finding a way to get educated. That would be provided by YOUR tax money, no? If we agree on that, why would we leave sex education off of the curriculum?
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