Advice From God

Dear God,

Industry-aligned think tank researcher Roy Spencer seems to have been mixing religion and science in his work for the Interfaith Stewardship Center, which advocates a “proper and balanced Biblical view of stewardship to the critical issues of environment and development.” Roy Spencer’s specific work in this area relates to climate change, an issue that Spencer has commented on while working for organizations that take money from Exxon-Mobil.

I’m confused about this idea that there a Biblical view of climate change, given that the Bible was written two thousand years ago, and climate change has only been happening within the last century.

What part of the Bible provides the Interfaith Stewardship Center’s “Biblical view” on climate change?

- Bud

Bud,

It’s very clear. Genesis, Chapter 8 explains it all: “God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged.”

This passage very clearly states that it’s me, God, who makes the weather, not human beings. Furthermore, the passage states that increased winds lead to lower sea levels. Sea levels are rising now, and so that must mean that winds are calming down, and that is an observation that’s completely at odds with climate models of what would take place under global warming.

There you have it. Everything you need to prove that global warming isn’t taking place is right there in the Bible.

- God

Dear God,

In order to try to get Christianity taught in public schools, there are organizations that have created courses designed to teach the Christian Bible as literature, with the idea being that the Bible is such a well written book that it should be studied in order to help children become better writers themselves.

What do you think of this approach?

- Cadman

Cadman,

I have a hard time how anyone can avoid recognizing the literary worth of the Bible. All children have something to learn from the book. Take the following passage as an example:

When Israel finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open ground and where they had followed them into the wilderness, and when all to a man had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai and slaughtered all its people. The number of those that fell that day, men and women together, was twelve thousand, all people of Ai.

Isn’t that just the kind of thing we need children to be reading more of?

- God

Dear God,

I am deeply concerned about global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels. I fear that if we don’t change course quickly, the damage to your creation will be grave and irreparable. It seems to me that this is among the paramount ethical issues of our time. I also know that the Bible is the single source of moral authority available to us on earth. So why doesn’t the Bible say anything about the burning of fossil fuels?

Sincerely,

- Sidney

Sidney,

Good question. As a matter of fact, the Bible used to contain a very specific injunction against the burning of fossil fuels. It was number twelve of the Twenty Commandments Moses brought down from Mount Sinai. I realize it’s not in the edition of the Bible you have, so I thought I’d pass it along. While I’m at it, I’ll throw in numbers eleven and thirteen too, since they’re pretty much directed at the people of your age:

Commandment Eleven: “When thou hast harnessed the power of lightning, craftest thou not thereby images of the trite and banal for the distraction of thy children.”

Commandment Twelve: “Defilest thou not the sacred tombs of primeval groves, nor burn thou the contents thereof.”

Commandment Thirteen: “If thou takest multiple lovers, gird thee thy loins in the vulcanized sap of a tropical tree.”

There are seven more, but I don’t think they’d interest you. They’re for people in the distant future-dos and don’ts of building massive gamma wave sinks to cloak radiation emanating from the solar system in order to fend of interstellar attack, stuff like that.

Sorry those three didn’t make it down to you. Now that I think about it, they could have helped you out with some of those problems you’ve been having down there lately. It’s not really my fault, though. It was those darn medieval exegetes who edited the last ten commandments out, because they didn’t see the relevance to them. I came to them in visions and tried to explain, “Look, guys, it’s not all about you. The Bible is my word to mankind for all time, including the distant future. You don’t have to understand the whole thing, just translate it the best you can and pass it along.” Unfortunately, every time I appeared to them they just took to flagellating themselves all the harder, so I eventually gave up.

I explained the whole thing to the medieval exegetes when they got to heaven, and we all had a good laugh. It’s funny, in the grand scale of things. You may not be able to see the humor in it now, but you will after you die-trust me.

See you then,

- God

Dear God,

In the Bible, it says that some day in the future you will bring forth calamity and destroy the earth. When is that going to happen?

-Bartleby

Bartleby,

I have already brought forth a calamity that will destroy the earth. I created people.

-God

Dear God,

I read just yesterday about how the Bush government has been demanding that search engines like Yahoo, MSN and Google turn over their databases of private information about what web sites Americans have been looking for and visiting. Apparently, President Bush decided that he needed to know what kinds of pornography Americans are looking at. Yahoo and MSN are said to have caved in to Bush’s demands, while Google did the right thing and said no to Bush.

On a legal level, this news disturbs me because it seems illegal for the President to go snooping into Americans’ private behavior just in order to find out what kind of pornography they like. On a more philosophical level, it makes me wonder about what Google really is. The Google database is many, many times bigger than the Holy Bible, or any human-compiled library, for that matter.

So, what I want to know is this: Is Google bigger than you, God?

- Irving Bonn

Irving

Google is bigger than me. In fact, Google is bigger than the universe.

It makes sense, if you think about it. After all, the universe is only the universe. Google, on the other hand, contains the direct records of the universe, plus a huge stream of comments about the universe.

So, if there’s a big rock outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming, Google will have the picture and measurements of the rock, a satellite photo of the rock from space, a map of the rock in relation to prominent roads, a web site about the rock, a blog chronicling developments related to the rock, and a discussion board debating the various qualities of the rock.

Medieval monks illuminating the Bible had nothing on the Googleverse.

Yet, I still have a leg up on Google. Google is bigger than me, but I speak through George W. Bush, the President of the United States. Can Google say that?

- God