ExFundie

We’ve established the following scenario, underlying Man’s relationship with Nature in the Christian fundamentalist world view:

Man had the say in where he and his descendants would end up, morally and spiritually. But he also had the say – at least that once – in what would happen to the physical world as well, seemingly right down to the atomic level. When he went down, he took the whole physical world with him.

This means that from the moment he chose to separate himself from God, things began to die. This was the beginning of entropy. Even if living systems are maintained and fed with the fuel they need to live, eventually they wear out or suffer some misfortune, and they die. Every amoeba, every plant, every animal. Even rock can wear away eventually. A fundamentalist may not explicitly blame this inanimate wearing-away on sin, yet every flaw or aberration in nature is taken by them as evidence that the world is “fallen” along with Man.

Therefore, Adam and his descendants, and the entire physical world, are skewed because of their separation from God. This is not just an explanation of why things now go wrong, but is far deeper and more insidious than that. It means that using “naturalness” as evidence for the properness of something can be dead wrong. It is not a positive recommendation, to say that something “comes naturally.” In fact, the more “naturally” a thing comes (especially relating to moral issues), the more likely it is to be wrong or outright forbidden. Its “coming naturally” is one of the things that condemns it. We will return to this in later installments.

Meanwhile, there wasn’t only punishment after Man’s fall. God, in his mercy, still made provisions for human beings and set them up to live in the world as it now was. It was going to be a lot harder to live in the fallen world, but there was no hint that God had entirely rescinded the authority he had given Man in the world. It was certainly still his possession and responsibility. The authority over nature was now more of a “legal” authority than his previous “magical” authority (i.e. being able to change the character of nature itself with a single moral choice). But the original command, given before the Fall, seemed still to stand: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth…And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Genesis 1:26, 28, King James Version). This of course implies that nature is his to use as he sees fit; he is in charge of it while he lives in the world.

One might assume that this authority implies a wise stewardship of God’s “good creation,” but many fundamentalists sidestep this implication. They often emphasize man’s “dominion” and “subduing” more than any “stewardship.” Even among those who speak of stewardship, there is a tendency to justify practices that might leave nature in bad shape, if they appear to do some sort of good for Man, who is more important than nature in general.

In their view of the universe’s life span, Nature is going to be destroyed anyway. God doesn’t plan to leave the world as it is now, all imperfect and skewed. At the end of time, when God judges everyone, he will re-create the world and it will be perfect again. Therefore, for Christian fundamentalists especially, keeping nature in good shape is far down on the priority list, especially since they believe the end of time is actually quite near. They believe that keeping nature in good shape would be a waste of efforts better devoted to things that are far more important as the end of the world approaches.

For fundamentalists, environmental concerns are like trying to tape up the gaping hole in the Titanic. This is crucial for us to understand. If their premises were true, this position would be completely logical and even commendable. You don’t waste time trying to fix a ship that’s irrevocably sinking; all efforts must be directed toward saving the passengers. At the most, you may block a few holes to stem the inflow of water a bit, but only in passing and only as a means to the primary end: saving the people.

This means it is not an automatic fact that a fundamentalist who doesn’t care about the environment has those opinions because he/she is a nasty person. If their premises were correct, it would in fact be criminal to spend too much time trying to fix or maintain the sinking ship. They may actually be ignoring the environment because they are good people. Hard to imagine, isn’t it, for those of us who don’t accept their premises? But the whole purpose of these essays, after all, is to help people understand the world from the point of view of the fundamentalist.

We must differentiate, of course, between fundamentalists who ignore the environment because they think people are more important and time is short, and those who deliberately violate it for their own gain, even though it hurts many people. The latter group are not good people, and we can agree on this. They use fundamentalism to disguise their rapacity, and adopt a “survival of the fittest” mentality to justify trampling people. The former group, however, may have good motives which would make sense if their view of the world were correct. We may balk at admitting that there really are some fundamentalists who are good people, and de-value environmental issues “only” because they believe the physical world is a sinking ship and it’s more important to rescue the passengers. But we cannot paint them all, conveniently, with the “evil” brush. Their position is more complicated than that and we commit an intellectual error by caricaturing them to make our position seem stronger.

Indeed, there is constant debate in the fundamentalist communities about Man’s stewardship of the world, and the responsibility to pass a decent physical world to future generations, just in case the end of the world isn’t as near as some think. We don’t hear about these people because they’re not the ones trumpeting their positions all over the media, or influencing the government. But they are there, and are trying.

There is another thing we must consider, which is also unpopular among those who simply want to write fundamentalists off as absolutely crazy loonies whose views don’t need to be given any hearing. Remember these things: 1) the world was created by God; 2) Man was created in God’s image; 3) the implication is that Man can therefore understand God. And another implication is that Man can also understand God’s creation.

And voila! Science.

What?? But – but –the fundamentalists are against science, aren’t they? Fundamentalism pretty much squashes true scientific inquiry. Doesn’t it? Doesn’t it??

Well, yes, in practice it seems to. And no, in theory it doesn’t actually have to. If their premises were true, and God’s created world were understandable by Man made in God’s image – why, scientific research would actually be the crowning achievement for the fundamentalist scientist. And in fact, some of the early scientists who made great research breakthroughs were Christians energized by the conviction that they were deciphering the underlying physical laws of God’s created world. (For example, James Clerk Maxwell, who developed the theory of electromagnetism. Scroll down on this site to page two, where the scientist himself describes his views on the relationship of his beliefs and scientific study.) This basic belief – that the universe was created by a rational God, and can therefore be understood by rational humans created in his image – can be conducive to honest scientific inquiry.

BUT. You knew there would be a “But,” didn’t you?

The idea of humans being in the intellectual image of the creator God actually justifies science, inside the fundamentalist world view. But abuses almost inevitably creep in and take over, stemming from other parts of their belief system which over-ride scientific objectivity.

The problem arises when scientific evidence contradicts the claims of the fundamentalist’s sacred book (the Bible, the Qur’an, or other sacred writings). In the Christian fundamentalist world view, the Bible is the truth, and anything that contradicts it is false. Period. Even if there is a pile of evidence for it.

We’ve seen the types of responses to this situation. Evidence that contradicts biblical claims may be ignored, or its existence simply denied. People who still believe in a flat earth fall into this category. Or contradictory evidence may be explained away, sometimes with bizarre “explanations” that are more religious than scientific. My favorite in this category is the claim that fossils were placed in the rocks by Satan (or even God!) to “tempt” people to believe that the earth is more than the biblical 6,000 years old. (One can understand Satan wanting to tempt people this way; what this says about God if he’s the one who planted the fossils is another issue these people need to explain!)

There are some who try to explain the evidence in different ways than usual, again generally stemming from religion although there can be science mixed in with the explanations. Creationists and – more insidiously and recently – people promoting “Intelligent Design” fall smack into this category.

Then, of course, there are those who simply hide evidence that contradicts their world view or, worse, who even fabricate evidence to promote their world view. “Ex-gay” organizations fall into this category, as well as fundamentalist organizations trying to “prove” that teaching total sexual abstinence to teenagers will reduce sexual activity and reduce unwanted pregnancies (when in fact the exact opposite happens). A lot of fundamentalists involved in the oil industry are busily fabricating “evidence” trying to show that global climate change isn’t happening or – more recently, since it’s becoming harder and harder to deny – that all the changes it is bringing will be beneficial if we just “adapt” a little bit.

Or, if really pushed to the wall about scientific evidence contradicting biblical claims, there is the final fundamentalist fall-back that we’ve already encountered. This is the answer that if some evidence has convinced you that a biblical claim is untrue, you only believe it because your reasoning power is “fallen.” You are obviously not in a proper relationship with God, so of course the truths about God’s world will seem contradictory to you. But the fundamentalists no longer have that problem, and God’s true explanations are good enough for them, and they can now merely laugh at facts that appear to contradict their beliefs. And this is where intelligent dialogue stops, utterly.

This has been a bit of a diversion which we may explore in greater detail later. But I wanted to explain the fundamentalist view of Nature, and how that world view impacts on two of the big issues: environmentalism and science in general.

To sum up the basic beliefs about Nature in the Christian fundamentalist world view:

1. Man’s moral choice affected all of Nature, taking it down and corrupting it; Nature is skewed and “un-natural” compared to how it was originally supposed to function

2. Therefore, what “comes naturally” may not be a recommendation, but may in fact be considered wrong because corruption (moral as well as physical) is now built into the physical realm

3. Man’s authority over Nature was changed from literal control to a sort of “legal oversight,” meaning that he can use it as he sees fit

4. Environmentalism isn’t considered a high priority because the end of time is near, and Nature will be destroyed and re-made anyway; the number one priority is saving human beings for eternity rather than saving the planet temporarily

5. The idea of Man being in the image of the world’s creator suggests that science should be a very high calling for fundamentalists; but whenever scientific evidence contradicts biblical claims, the biblical claims are considered true while the scientific evidence is ignored, discarded, explained away, or even falsified

This leaves us with a pretty grim picture. Are you starting to understand why Christian fundamentalists are so consistently and relentlessly negative, about every possible thing?

Next: Promises, Promises

Back to: So, What's Wrong With People?