Attenborough blames the Bible for environmental devastation and says Darwinism is the cure
Ben W. writes:
You wrote: “The Darwinian orthodoxy is far too entrenched in the modern mind for [it to be decisively rejected in the near future]. But its demise, however long it may take, is certain.”
The problem is that it has acquired a social function. It now serves as both a psychological and cultural view of nature and our environment. See this article at WorldNetDaily:
Is the Bible to blame for trashing Earth?
TV wildlife star says creationism leads to ‘devastating’ environment
In promoting a new special that commemorates the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, one of the most popular and enduring naturalists has declared that the Bible is to blame for humanity’s destruction of the environment.
Sir David Attenborough, who for 50 years has been the face and voice of the BBC’s natural history programs popular in both the U.S. and U.K., says that the Book of Genesis has taught generations that people can “dominate” and “devastate” the environment under the excuse that God gave humanity dominion over the earth.
Attenborough insists that Genesis has allowed people to justify destroying the environment and that embracing Darwinist evolution frees people from their biblical excuse.
Attenborough further explained to the science journal Nature, “That’s why Darwinism, and the fact of evolution, is of great importance.
In the promotional video, Attenborough further insists that Darwin’s theory of evolution has been conclusively proven beyond doubt.
“Evolution is not just a theory, as many a correspondent writes to me and says,” Attenborough claims. “It is a historical fact like any other historical fact and as certain as the fact that William the Conqueror landed in 1066, except it’s more certain because the evidence for it is from a much wider range of fact.”
LA replies:
This is dementia.
The Soviet Communists wreaked horrible environmental devastation on their land. Were they followers of Genesis Chapter One?
The Chinese as a result of their rapid industrial development are now poisoning their own environment. Do the Chinese believe in the God of the Bible?
As the Soviet example in particular suggests, it is not belief in the transcendent God of the Bible that leads to the human destruction of nature, but the rejection of God and the elevation of the human will, no longer restrained by God, over the world.
I would further argue that in our own country, the excessive development that has been so damaging has been an expression, not of the biblical view of life, which puts man under God, but of unconstrained human will without God.
How do we account for such demented beliefs as Attenborough’s? I think the answer lies in the same rejection of God that is the source of the environmental damage he decries; specifically, the answer lies in modernity and in liberalism, which is the ideology of modernity.
We begin with the tripartite order of existence, meaning the natural/biological order, the social/cultural order, and the divine/spiritual order. Liberalism, taken consistently, is the most thorough rejection of this order of existence that there has ever been. It rejects the natural, social, and divine orders because they conflict with equality, put restraints on human freedom, and create distinctions between different peoples and societies, violating the liberal belief in mankind as a single equal blob. The more people reject the order of being in favor of the liberal blob, the more crazy they become and the more they embrace horribly false beliefs in order to justify their rebellion. In the place of the truth, knowable through human reason, they unleash pure human will. The more they pursue the liberal rebellion against truth, the more they end up in a void, saying demented and evil things. Thus we arrive at David Attenborough.
LA continues:
And notice who, according to Attenborough, is ultimately at fault for the ruin of life on earth: the Jews.
LA writes:
In another entry, Terry Morris wrote:
I can almost see it now, the next cover of Columbia University’s magazine: “Why don’t Americans get Darwinism?”
Or, how about a cover of the Columbia magazine that says:
“Why don’t Americans get that there is no God?”
or one that says:
“Why don’t Americans get that Islam is a religion of peace that is enriching our society?”
or:
“Why don’t Americans get that they’re racists?”
or:
“Why don’t Americans get the morality of open borders?”
or:
“Why don’t Americans get gay marriage?”
or:
“Why don’t white Americans get that blacks have moral authority over them?”
or:
“Why don’t Americans get that the government should run the economy?”
or:
“Why don’t Americans get the redistribution of wealth to poor countries?”
or:
“Why don’t Americans get global governance?”
or:
“Why don’t Americans get global children’s rights?”
or:
“Why don’t Americans get animal rights?”
or (coming in a few years):
“Why don’t Americans get equality for human-animal relationships?”
To liberals, the perverse recalcitrance of Americans is a never-ending puzzle and bother.
But what does this have to do with the discussion about David Attenborough? And what do these plaintive questions/demands have in common? They all involve the liberal rejection of some aspect of the natural, social, and divine order of existence. Therefore, what specifically bothers liberals about Americans (meaning those Americans who haven’t gotten with the liberal program) is that, notwithstanding their total engulfment in liberal propaganda, they still adhere to some aspect of the order of existence and resist its reconstruction.
- end of initial entry -
Ken Hechtman, VFR’s Canadian leftist reader, writes:
“Sir David Attenborough, who for 50 years has been the face and voice of the BBC’s natural history programs popular in both the U.S. and U.K., says that the Book of Genesis has taught generations that people can ‘dominate’ and ‘devastate’ the environment under the excuse that God gave humanity dominion over the earth.”
If this was ever true in the past, it is flat-out wrong now. On the environmental issue, Christians have have become part of the solution and they’ve used the Book of Genesis to get there.
Even the most politically and socially conservative evangelical churches don’t read Genesis 1:26 the way Attenborough claims and they haven’t for at least 25 years. They don’t take the word “dominion” as meaning “the right to devastate”. They take it as meaning “the responsibility to practice good stewardship”. Here’s an “Intro to Christian Stewardship” piece, from Creationism.org, no less:
The philosophical justifications might be different but there’s nothing in the conclusions that an atheist Darwinian environmentalist could possibly disagree with.
Terry Morris writes:
“Therefore, what specifically bothers liberals about Americans (meaning those Americans who haven’t gotten with the liberal program)…”
Why don’t liberals get why Americans don’t get with the liberal program? ;-)
Kristor writes:
The man who has dominion over a patch of earth is a householder, a proprietor. What kind of an idiot sets out to ruin his own land, and destroy his children’s patrimony? Attenborough is dominus of his own house; has he trashed it, or has he taken care of it? As an owner, which is he more likely to do? Hasn’t Attenborough heard of the tragedy of the commons?
I first heard that trope of Attenborough’s back in like 1965. At that time it was being used to contrast the horrible West with the noble American Indians, who were great ecologists. It made total sense to my boyish heart (I really admired Indians—they could walk noiselessly through the forest!). Remember that commercial with the Indian chief crying over pollution? Oh, the humanity!Then I found out about how Indians hunted by shooing immense herds of antelope and buffalo over cliffs; that they prepared the woodlands of Illinois for hunting by setting forest fires; that they hunted the native American horse to extinction. Oh, and that their women tortured prisoners of war by skinning them alive, burning them, cutting off little bits—such fun for them!
Attenborough is as antiquated as the unreconstructed hippies that still stumble pathetically about down on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, still thinking it’s the summer of love.
One thing I am really looking forward to, with the Obama administration, is the moment when all the left-liberals look around and realize that Obama is just a guy, and that everything is going to keep muddling along pretty much the way it always has. At that moment, they will realize that they have been thinking they were the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, when really they were just a bunch of addled hippies wandering about on Telegraph Avenue thinking their conversations were So Significant. What a comedown! Of course, they’ll blame the Republicans, the Christians, and Israel for their inevitable disappointment …
But, seriously, how long can it be before the liberals themselves—those fearless iconoclasts—begin to realize that the reigning liberal orthodoxy is … a reigning orthodoxy? That they have become the System they set out, back in 1964 in Berkeley, to smash? That they are the new tyrants? Now that left liberalism has a lock on all the major institutions of society (aside from samizdat media such as the blogosphere and talk radio), how long can it be before left liberals realize that they have become The Problem? That the dissent they have so long insisted is truly patriotic is now all directed at them, and their Establishment?
February 3
Ken Hechtman, VFR’s Canadian lelftist reader,writes:
Kristor wrote:
But, seriously, how long can it be before the liberals themselves—those fearless iconoclasts—begin to realize that the reigning liberal orthodoxy is … a reigning orthodoxy? That they have become the System they set out, back in 1964 in Berkeley, to smash? That they are the new tyrants? Now that left liberalism has a lock on all the major institutions of society (aside from samizdat media such as the blogosphere and talk radio), how long can it be before left liberals realize that they have become The Problem? That the dissent they have so long insisted is truly patriotic is now all directed at them, and their Establishment?
I can’t speak for the other liberals but it really clicked for me with the Sarah Palin nomination. We used to believe conservatives wanted to turn back the clock, a matter of debate how far but at a minimum to before the 1960s. But they don’t. Except on abortion, most self-described conservatives like the freedom and choices us dirty hippies won for them over the last forty years and have no intention of giving them up.
Michael Steele should make it click for most other liberals who still don’t get it. For the next three years, the face of the Republican party is a black guy who works to get pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage candidates elected.
Forty years ago, Sarah Palin and Michael Steele couldn’t have been Republicans. They couldn’t even have been Democrats. They’d have had to be hippies. Nobody else would have taken them.
So you don’t believe in Haight-Ashbury acid dreams? Look around—we’re living in one.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 01, 2009 04:16 PM | Send