On my continuous struggle to get along with all these right-wing Christians....
Stevie has a buddy. His buddy is in TAG class, the accelerated math class, and loves Star Wars. They get along great.
But the buddy and his family don't believe in global warming. Stevie informed me of this yesterday, out of the blue.
"What do they believe in?"
"God."
Shocker! But I know lots of people who believe in God AND global warming. They even believe that humans have something to do with global warming, along with thousands of scientists around the globe. So how does a family just decide to not believe in global warming? Did this decision come after they had exhausted the research and come to the conclusion that there just isn't enough evidence to support the hypothesis that says humans have contributed to climate change? My gut tells me no.
According to Random House's college edition (so it must be right), to believe is 'to have confidence in the truth or the reliability of something without absolute proof'. In that case, I believe in global warming and in the human actions that have led to it or at least made it worse. I've read a few things (not whole books, though) and there is, well, data to support the claim that the planet is going through a significant climactic change and there is even data that supports the claim that humans have a lot to do with it. And have you seen all of those melting glaciers?
In science there is rarely 'absolute truth' but that doesn't mean that scientists aren't trying to find it.
Why is this so politicized? Knowing what I do of Stevie's buddy and his family, I've judged them to be the type of folks who politicize and religiousize issues that shouldn't be either. The solution to the issues can and will have political and religious input, unfortunately, but the issue itself?
Let's take vaccines. What you choose to do with the knowledge, gleaned from scores of years of scientific research, that administering vaccines helps people avoid dread diseases is up to you. Politics weighs in (give free vaccines to poor kids to wipe out polio?) as does religion (choose prayer over vaccines) and personal dumbass decisions (don't vaccinate because Hollywood Moms say it's bad). It's hard to not 'believe' in the effectiveness of vaccines even if there are questions about side effects and whether or not they are necessary.
I'm not trying to say that you should just believe in every study that comes out of mythical Science World. I am pretty skeptical of scientific claims until they become more than a hyperactive blip on the local news; until lots of other scientists come out and say, "Hey! I got the same result!" But I don't like this picking and choosing; this believing in some of the results of the scientific method and rejecting others. And, I strongly suspect, rejecting them because of deep-set religious/poltical views.
That's what I really don't get. Would believing in global warming, an issue highlighted by a not-so-liberal Democrat, make you less of a Republican? Less of a Christian? Does the sanctity of the free market trump all? If you want to have 5 kids and drive around in a huge SUV and believe in the wisdom of dumbasses like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh...well, I can see how accepting the research-based conclusions of thousands of scientists around the globe who know a helluva lot more about the climate of that globe than you do might rock your center-of-the-universe world.
There is another issue here that is personally more worrisome to me. Stevie has mentioned several times that he thinks very differently than a lot of his classmates. For instance, he doesn't believe in God and everyone else does. Just yesterday we were listening to the news and they were talking about gay marriage in D.C. and he said, "I don't understand why people think it's bad for gay people to get married." It was later that day that he told me about the global warming conversation.
He can get along with these kids just fine, regardless of their heavily-parent inspired beliefs. But what if other moms and dads start asking Stevie questions? 'What church do you go to?' comes to mind. I've actually told Stevie that he might want to keep his atheism under wraps unless he feels it really necessary to spill it. It's ridiculous to me that Christians--esp. the rural mid-Missouri variety--are always carrying on about how they're so persecuted in a society where the majority of people at least believe in God and most of them say they're Christian. It sometimes seems as if this whole town revolves around them and their activities. They say a prayer before City Council meetings here, and I just had to suffer through another asinine 3-minute preaching spot on the local radio station followed by an absolutely hideous 'modern Christian' song. And I worry about my kid saying too much at a sleepover and finding out what it's like to be branded a bad influence.
I told Stevie that his dad and I have some pretty strong views about things, and it's evident that he (Stevie) is absorbing those views. But what we really want to teach him is to think for himself and find his own answers to things, even if they are counter to ours. We've even offered to take him to church and encouraged him to go with the couple of people who have asked him. He has no desire to go. And he believes that we mean what we say about him thinking for himself. He also loves talking about this stuff with us and, I think, he is seeing us more and more as a refuge from the stuff he hears out in the world. I don't want him to have a hard time. I just love that kid so much. Now there's something that you can believe in.
But the buddy and his family don't believe in global warming. Stevie informed me of this yesterday, out of the blue.
"What do they believe in?"
"God."
Shocker! But I know lots of people who believe in God AND global warming. They even believe that humans have something to do with global warming, along with thousands of scientists around the globe. So how does a family just decide to not believe in global warming? Did this decision come after they had exhausted the research and come to the conclusion that there just isn't enough evidence to support the hypothesis that says humans have contributed to climate change? My gut tells me no.
According to Random House's college edition (so it must be right), to believe is 'to have confidence in the truth or the reliability of something without absolute proof'. In that case, I believe in global warming and in the human actions that have led to it or at least made it worse. I've read a few things (not whole books, though) and there is, well, data to support the claim that the planet is going through a significant climactic change and there is even data that supports the claim that humans have a lot to do with it. And have you seen all of those melting glaciers?
In science there is rarely 'absolute truth' but that doesn't mean that scientists aren't trying to find it.
Why is this so politicized? Knowing what I do of Stevie's buddy and his family, I've judged them to be the type of folks who politicize and religiousize issues that shouldn't be either. The solution to the issues can and will have political and religious input, unfortunately, but the issue itself?
Let's take vaccines. What you choose to do with the knowledge, gleaned from scores of years of scientific research, that administering vaccines helps people avoid dread diseases is up to you. Politics weighs in (give free vaccines to poor kids to wipe out polio?) as does religion (choose prayer over vaccines) and personal dumbass decisions (don't vaccinate because Hollywood Moms say it's bad). It's hard to not 'believe' in the effectiveness of vaccines even if there are questions about side effects and whether or not they are necessary.
I'm not trying to say that you should just believe in every study that comes out of mythical Science World. I am pretty skeptical of scientific claims until they become more than a hyperactive blip on the local news; until lots of other scientists come out and say, "Hey! I got the same result!" But I don't like this picking and choosing; this believing in some of the results of the scientific method and rejecting others. And, I strongly suspect, rejecting them because of deep-set religious/poltical views.
That's what I really don't get. Would believing in global warming, an issue highlighted by a not-so-liberal Democrat, make you less of a Republican? Less of a Christian? Does the sanctity of the free market trump all? If you want to have 5 kids and drive around in a huge SUV and believe in the wisdom of dumbasses like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh...well, I can see how accepting the research-based conclusions of thousands of scientists around the globe who know a helluva lot more about the climate of that globe than you do might rock your center-of-the-universe world.
There is another issue here that is personally more worrisome to me. Stevie has mentioned several times that he thinks very differently than a lot of his classmates. For instance, he doesn't believe in God and everyone else does. Just yesterday we were listening to the news and they were talking about gay marriage in D.C. and he said, "I don't understand why people think it's bad for gay people to get married." It was later that day that he told me about the global warming conversation.
He can get along with these kids just fine, regardless of their heavily-parent inspired beliefs. But what if other moms and dads start asking Stevie questions? 'What church do you go to?' comes to mind. I've actually told Stevie that he might want to keep his atheism under wraps unless he feels it really necessary to spill it. It's ridiculous to me that Christians--esp. the rural mid-Missouri variety--are always carrying on about how they're so persecuted in a society where the majority of people at least believe in God and most of them say they're Christian. It sometimes seems as if this whole town revolves around them and their activities. They say a prayer before City Council meetings here, and I just had to suffer through another asinine 3-minute preaching spot on the local radio station followed by an absolutely hideous 'modern Christian' song. And I worry about my kid saying too much at a sleepover and finding out what it's like to be branded a bad influence.
I told Stevie that his dad and I have some pretty strong views about things, and it's evident that he (Stevie) is absorbing those views. But what we really want to teach him is to think for himself and find his own answers to things, even if they are counter to ours. We've even offered to take him to church and encouraged him to go with the couple of people who have asked him. He has no desire to go. And he believes that we mean what we say about him thinking for himself. He also loves talking about this stuff with us and, I think, he is seeing us more and more as a refuge from the stuff he hears out in the world. I don't want him to have a hard time. I just love that kid so much. Now there's something that you can believe in.
posted by lulu | 6:29 AM
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