There’s something like a question of theodicy implicitly wrapped up in the debate about global warming among Christians. It goes something like this:
Why did God create oil?
One answer is that the burning of fossil fuels is simply a divine trap for unwitting and greedy human beings, who would stop at nothing to rape the earth. Another answer is that there is some legitimate created purpose for fossil fuels.
Kishore Jayalaban, Director of Acton’s Rome office, appeared on Kresta in the Afternoon yesterday to discuss a number of topics relating to religious freedom in the European Union, including abortion, homosexuality, “retrograde” Poland, and the troubles in Slovakia relating to the approval of a concordat with the Vatican.
On January 21, 2006, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, author of Smart Sex: Finding Life-long Love in a Hook-up World and a Senior Fellow in Economics at the Acton Institute, gave this lecture at the Centesimus Annus Conference in Rome. Dr. Morse talks about the failure of the European welfare state to sustain economy and the demographic implications resulting from the “marginalization of the family.” Dr. Morse covers quite a bit of ground in this lecture, beginning with a critique of the evidence of a failing “European Social Model” and following up with the “Catholic alternative.”
The traditional formula for understanding the relationship between the developed and the developing world is the following: Aid = Economic Growth. That is, foreign aid spurs economic development in poorer nations.
A few others have addressed this issue in previous posts, but I wanted to jump in with my two cents.
Yesterday’s New York Times notes that a group of evangelical leaders have entered the debate over climate change:
The Chicago Tribune has a story about the Evangelical Climate Initiative (ECI) launched February 8th. (See my initial response here.) Most reports of this story have been somewhat fair. But the Chicago Tribune story takes an unjustified swipe at evangelicals who disagree with the ECI statement. The reporter, Frank James, describes the disagreement among evangelical Christians this way:
Read more on Who Argues that the Environment Doesn’t Matter?…
Following the recent discovery of new species and a reports of a “lost world,” a primitive pristine paradise on the Indonesian island of Papua, I thought I’d pass along some thoughts of F. W. J. Schelling, the 19th century philosopher and contemporary of G. W. F. Hegel and Friedrich Schleiermacher, who was one of the last great German idealists.
In this season of taxation, it is refreshing to consider strategies for lowering taxes and making governments more efficient. London’s Institute of Economic Affairs recently published a fascinating monograph by Richard Teather, The Benefits of Tax Competition. It’s available for download here.
One aspect of the evangelical involvement in debates over global warming and climate change that has intriqued me has been what I deem to be a rather large blind spot about the relation of religious conservatives to science.
Following Michael Miller’s recent Acton Commentary, “Why Johnny Can’t Compete with Sanjay”, and the resulting comments, two of America’s best political commentators have also weighed in on the subject.
First there’s Charles Krauthammer’s Time article, arguing that America is doing fine, partly as a result of less dependence on government-funded research.
Read more on The State of American Science and Culture, cont’d….
