Is God okay with the planet being trashed?

With environmentalism routinely attacked as "Green Religion", I am prompted to ask where various Christians (and other religious) stand on issues like loss of biodiversity, climate change, environmentally destructive practices and the intersection of religion, ethics and environment.Clearly there is a broad sweep of views out there - from believing that God's Creation should be cared for and husbanded to believing that Jesus will only return when the world is alight with war, evil and environmental degradation - "After the Last Tree is Felled, Christ Will Come Back" (James G. Watt - Ronald Reagan's Interior Secretary) and therefore to be welcomed.Is climate change a sideshow or is is our response to it central to God's relationship to humanity? Has God given us the minimum we need to make informed ethical choices - along with the freedom to choose to completely screw things up, not only for ourselves but for future generations? Will God intervene if we choose wrong or leave us and future generations to suck it up? And is God okay with influential religious voices counting themselves competent to do the assessing and making the choice on behalf of their flock, supplanting individual choice with their own? Would that be a sin of the leaders or of the followers or both?

Thanks for the responses. Maybe another question is to what extent religious people look to the realm of science to be informed. GDR may feel a religious obligation to care for the world but does that care rely on science telling him about biodiversity or about the carbon cycle, greenhouse gases and climate? Knowledge derived from paleoclimatology could be a stumbling block for some kinds of Christians. As for Catholics there are voices like Fr George Rue that count what science reveals about climate as revelations about God's creation. He's been heavily criticised by other Catholics and seems to be at one extreme end of a very broad spectrum of views. Towards the other end is Australia's most senior Catholic Cleric, Cardinal George Pell, who likens those warning of dangerous climate change as green religionists and paganists-

quote:

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In the past pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate capricious and cruel gods. Today they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

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The Vatican seems to accept the reality of the climate problem without the green religion of Rue or the science denial of Pell, but doesn't appear to be acting with great conviction, like it were a God decreed imperative.And there are actual as well as alleged green religionists to consider, with or without the new-age-alternative-neopaganistic belief systems; I'm sure they encompass a very broad spectrum too. I suspect those like Pell include athiestic scientists and those that advocate on environmental issues based on science in the "Green Religionist" category. I want to hear from or about them - but I'm more interested in more widely held beliefs than dwelling too much on the extreme and the absurd.

GDR, thanks for clarification.I see a challenge for humanity in living sustainably within the limits of the world. It is a test our collective powers of observation, intellect and integrity to understand the true nature of our world; only with honesty and accuracy can observation and intellect and observation give a true understanding of the nature of the world we live in and predict the consequences of our actions with any confidence. It takes trust in long running societal institutions of science and learning and a leap of faith and/or leap of trust to accept and act on that knowledge. It takes moral strength to change behavior or make sacrifices in light of it. It's an all round test of our collective maturity as well as of our ability to understand the nature of the world we live in.It seems like thinking like that could be shared between many secular, religious and green religious people with only minor differences.

"Is God okay with the planet's living contents being trashed" may be more to the point - the initial question does have an element of flippancy but I figure most people will figure it out.GDR, that overlap, that has people coming at this from different angles sharing views in common interests me. Some important ethical values seem to be in that area of overlap - truthfulness for example. Without the consistency and accuracy that only being honest brings a true understanding of the nature of our world, of it's limits and of the challenges living within them presents will elude us. And without ethical values that understanding will not give us the capacity to face and overcome those challenges.

Greentwiga, has the (by past standards unimaginable) wealth and prosperity - and the resultant reductions in human suffering - that our fossil fueled civilisation has achieved helped cement a 'fossil fuels are good' position within religious (as well as well-meaning other) people that resists deeper examination? Whether the total amount of human suffering has actually been reduced, given that a consequence of that wealth and prosperity has been enormous growth in human population is a question too; certainly the numbers of people who live in relative prosperity has grown enormously but the numbers who endure suffering has grown too.For commerce and business the choice of position to take is decided primarily on the basis of costs, profitability and competitiveness - environmental consequences readily seen as a case of what-will-be-will-be but the regulation and cost imposts on their activities is readily seen as something that can successfully influenced via established tools for influencing government policy and public opinion. The question of the validity of the science matters less in such a decision making processes than perceptions about the validity of science and perceptions are within their ability to influence and change.That ethical element that values and insists on truth and honesty is not built into the decision making processes of commerce and business so it is incapable of giving a true understanding of consequences. It's collective decisions will be flawed as a result.For religion and science there is a requirement for high standards of honesty. They seem to share at least that core ethical value in common, one that isn't shared by commerce and industry. But religious people want to reduce human suffering and commerce and industry, with a minimum of restriction and regulation, appears to be most successful at achieving widespread prosperity. But I suggest the absence of core ethical values in common makes commerce and business a poor ally for religion and achieving greater good through such an alliance will be significantly impeded by that absence; commerce has a short term focus and, if it appears to not be in their short term interests there will be motivation to resist deeper examination of the basis of their choices. The mediators, and immediate beneficiaries of that kind of alliance - politicians and political parties - make even less suitable and reliable allies if those values really are core ones. Edited by Ken Fabos, : No reason given.

And a lot of fossil fuels could be considered - via science based 'revelation' - to be the dead leftovers of previous trashings. But if you make something you can trash it if the result is unsatisfying. It doesn't necessarily constitute permission or as an example intended to be emulated.Seriously though, the range of religious views is very broad and some do count science as revealing important elements of truth about the nature of the world we live in. I'm as interested in the points of agreement as in the points of difference of religious, non-religious and anti-religious people. And as a human being deeply concerned about the consequences of our current behavior on future generations; the opinions (and votes) of religious people appear to have significant real world influence over the acceptance of global environmental problems and the types of solutions needed.And I'm interested in the actual as well as alleged beliefs and influence of "Green Religion".Edited by Ken Fabos, : minor edit.