Tag: ask

Well, if you consider all those things you said “much”, then I guess there is much we can do to slow climate change, because I’m actually all for those things. I stand corrected. I really don’t trust the American government, right or left, to be able to handle that, though. When they’re not ignoring the problem so they can spend tax dollars on themselves, they’re going at the problem completely backwards. Some divine force is going to have to intervene, because we’re screwed if we’re on our own.

I think religion can be a tremendous force for bringing about change, and religious people who organize for climate and environmental causes give me a lot of hope. It’s very easy to get discouraged in the face of the rampant political corruption in the U.S. (and everywhere tbh, to different degrees and in different ways), and if I believed in God I think it would be easier at times to hope for divine intervention rather than keep fighting in the face of insurmountable forces.

The thing is, though, I don’t think the God of the Bible ever said to just wait for him and let the world go on as it is in the meantime. He said to treat the least advantaged people in our communities with compassion and dignity, not to wait until he came along to save them. In Genesis he said to take charge of the Earth, not to step back and let him handle it. I believe religion is at its best when believers realize that God needs people of good faith, all faiths, to do the work of the divine.

After all, no one knows when the Kingdom of God is coming–he will come like a thief in the night, so no one can say he’s just around the corner or he’ll be here at a set date. The people who say they know are lying. In the meantime, we have to count on each other and help each other, and try to make better whatever corner of the world we can.

Concerning capitalism, God has not ordained it specially, so I assume he’s fine with any economic system practiced righteously, with a preference for divinely regulated socialism. I’m sure He’s all welcome for attempts to reform the sorry state capitalism is in. But when you look at who the US’s politicians are, I don’t think we can trust a socialist system to them. Money’s going to disappear right into the government’s pocket. Socialism is against the US Constitution anyway for better or worse.

Hey, here’s a thought: Politicians aren’t dropped from heaven, nor are they grown out of the soil. They are elected or otherwise put in power by PEOPLE.

Also, if you think all changes to the Constitution are bad I have some news for you about a little something called the Thirteenth Amendment.

Well I mean theoretically it’s possible to practice socialism without compulsion… It’s just in practice it hasn’t worked out too well. But as pertaining to the earth and its fate, there’s not much we can do about climate change. But we should do all we can, because this world is a gift and it’s our God-given responsibility to take care of it. Keep in mind, though, that these disasters were all prophesied beforehand and the changing of the earth is not coincidental.

I’ll take “did not use the Google” for $500, Alex.

Not much we can do about climate change? Like, maybe stop pumping unprecedented amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere? Not much? Switch to renewable energy? Not much? Stop letting a few big corporations let the earth burn for their profit? …Not much?

Actually fulfill the God-given responsibility to take care of this gift by fighting and organizing for change, or sit on our asses and let it be destroyed for profit? Such a dilemma! But nah, climate change can’t be anthropogenic despite the overwhelming scientific consensus and it’s all prophecy and God’s will.

You know, I don’t hold much truck with anti-theists calling religion the ultimate evil, but I’ll make an exception just for you. The way you practice your religion is a pox on the world that plays into the hands of those in power and breeds pious, bleating helplessness that would have us praying to heaven while the Earth burns. You and your fellow end-times cultists–and by this I don’t mean Mormons in general, there are some in every group including plenty of Christians and secularists–can jerk it to the thought of being magically airlifted to safety where you can party forever away from the suffering of the rest of us peons. You are a self-deceiving hypocrite who has given up on your religious and even human responsibility of basic honesty and compassion, and you disgust me.

I don’t think Jesus was gay but He was definitely socialist and Jewish. But godless socialism has been shown to corrupt and lead to poverty. Jesus’ brand of socialism is the only kind that works. (We Latter-day Saints call it the law of consecration.) Socialism as men practice it is based on compulsion, not compassion, and that’s why it never holds up. If the world could be selfless, a socialist utopia would be entirely possible. When Jesus comes to reign, the world will be ready for socialism.

Well we don’t know Jesus’s sexuality so one speculation is as valid as any other. Also that’s a mighty convenient excuse that socialism as exercised by humans is sinful so we have to endure this capitalist hellscape until literally kingdom come–or, likelier, environmental calamities from unchecked development and global warming wipe us all out. Does our sinful nature mysteriously disappear with capitalism? Not from what I can see. Like try looking up “democratic Socialism” sometime.

I’ve never seen JJ say Finn is based on Moses. That would be different. I’ve Only seen prince of Egypt aus which seemed inappropriate.

JJ didn’t say so, but the parallels are unmistakeable and blatant (link). I’m not in a place to judge whether a PoE Finn AU is appropriate, but if the ones doing it aren’t Jewish themselves I wish they wouldn’t. It would be so much better to carry forward the common themes in Finn’s and Moses’s stories to tell Finn’s own awesome story.

As a center rightist, I’m surprised at how little I disagree with leftist TLJ haters, whereas right-wing TLJ haters make me roll my eyes sometimes. (They have a point about Canto Bight though. If any agenda was shoved most obviously down our throats it was that the 1% are baaaad. I’m all for condemning crony capitalism and war profiteering but they did it in most cringeworthy fashion.)

Agreed, and I discussed why conservative and left-wing fans can make common cause against TLJ (link). What progressive messages there were in the movie were just badly-done propaganda, done in a way that discredits the entire idea of progressive fiction. It’s like Atlas Shrugged for the left.