A Call to Serve and Preserve Creation

Dear Mr. Wallis,
I find the article a good one, well actually excellent for greening up our Earth, BUT I don't like the title. I'm a firm believer in my Christian values but they do not include the Creation story as part of it. I do belive in Evolution and I do believe that we will do irriparable damage to the Earth if we don't get busy and work at preserving it now! But we have to stop thinking that God created it because so many folks out there think that GOD will not let anything happen to the Earth and for many that's a reason they do not think the Earth is warming.
Dominick
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Suggest you take the global warming quiz at this site:
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/GlobWarmTest/...

The 0.2 number is compliments of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO.

Alan Carlin is the author of the EPA report that was suppressed. I read about it at the CBS News site and assume it's still posted there.

In the science courses that I've taken from biology to geology, I was encouraged to evaluate hypotheses, not to parrot extremist agendas and rhetoric.

Finally, apparently quite a few "political hacks" share my skepticism since 34,000 scientists have signed a statement debunking global warming.

The 'Geocraft' site with the 'global warming quiz' is anonymously hosted and consists of cherry picked quotes, taken out of context, many of them outdated and all of them extremely biased and misleading. It appears to be targeted at the unsophisticated junior high school age group. Judging from other information ('Fossils of West Virginia') on the site, it was produced in West Virginia, perhaps with the support of the Coal Industry. Anyone who participates in misleading our youth with fake science should be ashamed of themselves and you should be ashamed of yourself for referencing this pathetic site while insulting Jim Wallis and the intelligence of the God's Politics community.

The 0.2 number is compliments of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO.
If you expect us to seriously consider this data, please provide a link to the document at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. This is so we can verify that you haven't cherry picked it out of context. Forgive me for not trusting your information on global warming. So far all of your information, on careful inspection, has turned out to be false or misleading .

The CBS story claiming that Alan Carlin's EPA report was suppressed turned out to be in itself a hoax.
See: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-10722-Orland...

The petition is really a website with an anti global warming petition to sign.
If you don't believe in global warming and you think you're a scientist, you can sign this petition. The most well known petition signatory is Dr. Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb. In the movie 'Doctor Strangelove, or How I Learned how to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb', Peter Sellers plays Dr. Strangelove, a character modeled after Dr. Teller. Did you ever see that movie?

Teller was not a climate scientist, was one of the most right wing reactionary scientists (Hungarian refugee) ever and has been dead since 2003.
There are very few if any actual climate scientists on this list.
There are a lot of geologists, petroleum 'scientists'. and others with questionable credentials.
The Energy Industry generously funds 'researchers' who produce 'research' disputing global warming.
Conflict of Interest?
If anything, this site exposes the shaky scientific ground the anti global warming movement is based on.

Judith, you go out of your way to find any unscientific quackery that will support your indefensible position that global warming is a hoax. Why not go directly to the authoritative scientific sources and bypass all of the political hackery and scientific quackery?

You claim to be trained to evaluate hypotheses, not to parrot extremist agendas and rhetoric -- and yet that is exactly what you are doing.

You just earned a Failing Grade in Science 101, 'Introduction to the Scientific Method".

This bill has nothing to do with caring for creation (which I wholeheartedly endorse as a biblical calling). It is political manipulation that will strangle commerce and leave far greater numbers of people in poverty than the status quo. Even if we accept that 1.7 million "green" jobs will be created, these jobs will go almost entirely to the highly educated, since green energy is basically a knowledge-based field. Those who lose will be from the lower end of the educational spectrum, and they won't be able to recover. This bill has the potential to further widen the already vast chasm between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots.' It is economic redistribution that works in only one direction. Don't think that it is only going to hurt the large corporations. They will be fine. They can adapt (and already are as all the oil companies are rapidly building up their "green energy" divisions). In fact, it is the corporations who will grow in their wealth and power as they step up to the plate to provide the new "green energy solutions." It is those who are already on the lower end of the economic scale who will be most dramatically impacted by this legislation.

SOJO needs to take a more wholistic and critical look at the propaganda and realize that what they are supporting will actually work against their stated aims of lobbying for the alleviation of poverty.

Animal liberation theology:

According to the Bible, God intended the entire human race to follow a vegetarian diet (Genesis 1:29). Paradise is vegetarian. Rashi (Rabbi Solomon von Isaac, 1030-1105), the famous Jewish Bible commentator, taught that "God did not permit Adam and his wife to kill a creature and to eat its flesh. Only every green herb shall they all eat together." Ibn Ezra and other Jewish biblical commentators agree.

According to the Talmud, "Adam and many generations that followed him were strict flesh-abstainers; flesh-foods were rejected as repulsive for human consumption." Although man was made in God's image and given dominion over all creation (Genesis 1:26-28), these verses do not justify humans killing animals and devouring them, because God immediately proclaims He created the plants for human consumption. (Genesis 1:29)

In a letter to Pope John Paul II, challenging him on the issue of animal experimentation, Dr. Michael Fox of the Humane Society argued that the word "dominion" is derived from the original Hebrew word "rahe" which refers to compassionate stewardship, instead of power and control. Parents have dominion over their children; they do not have a license to kill, torment or abuse them. The Talmud (Shabbat 119; Sanhedrin 7) interprets "dominion" to mean animals may be used for labor.

Man was made in God's image (Genesis 1:26) and told to be vegetarian (Genesis 1:29). "And God saw all that He had made and saw that it was very good." (Genesis 1:31) Complete and perfect harmony. Everything in the beginning was the way God wanted it. Vegetarianism was part of God's initial plan for the world.

"It appears that the first intention of the Maker was to have men live on a strictly vegetarian diet," writes Rabbi Simon Glazer, in his 1971 Guide to Judaism. "The very earliest periods of Jewish history are marked with humanitarian conduct towards the lower animal kingdom...It is clearly established that the ancient Hebrews knew, and perhaps were the first among men to know, that animals feel and suffer pain."

After the Flood, God revised His commandment against flesh-eating. Human beings, since eating of the forbidden fruit, seemed incapable of obedience on this issue. One Jewish writer comments, "Only after man had proven unfit for the high moral standard given at the beginning, was meat made a part of the humans' diet."

A Jewish legend says Moses was found to be righteous by God through his shepherding. While Moses was tending his sheep of Jethro in the Midian wilderness, a young kid ran away from the flock. Moses ran after it until he found the kid drinking by a pool of water. Moses approached the kid and said, "I did not know that you ran away because you were thirsty; now, you must be tired." So Moses placed the animal on his shoulders and carried him back to the flock. God said, "Because thou has shown mercy in leading the flock, thou will surely tend My flock, Israel."

In his essay, "The Dietary Prohibitions of the Hebrews," Jean Soler finds in the Bible at least two times when an attempt was made to try the Israelites out on a vegetarian diet. During the period of exodus from Egypt, the Hebrews lived entirely on manna. They had large flocks which they brought with them, but never touched.

The Israelites were told that manna "is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat." (Exodus 16:5) For forty years in the desert, the Israelites lived on manna (Nehemiah 9:15,21). The apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon (16:20) calls manna the food of the angels. Manna is described as a vegetable food, like "coriander seed" (Numbers 11:7), tasting like wafers and honey (Exodus 16:31).

On two separate occasions, however, the men rebelled against Moses because they wanted meat. The meat-hungry Hebrews lamented, "Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots." God ended this first "experiment in vegetarianism" through the miracle of the quails.

A second "experiment in vegetarianism" is suggested in the Book of Numbers, when the Hebrews lament once again, "O that we had meat to eat." (Numbers 11:4) God repeated the miracle of the quails, but this time with a vengeance: "And while the flesh was between their teeth, before it was even chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and He struck them down with a great plague." (Numbers 11:33)

The site where the deaths took place was named "The Graves of Lust." (Numbers 11:34; Deuteronomy 12:20) The quail meat was called "basar ta'avah," or "meat of lust." The Talmud (Chulin 84a) comments that: "The Torah teaches a lesson in moral conduct, that man shall not eat meat unless he has a special craving for it, and shall eat it only occasionally and sparingly." Here, according to Soler, as in the story of the Flood, "meat is given a negative connotation. It is a concession God makes to man's imperfection."

In their book, The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, Dennis Prager and Rabbi Telushkin explain: "Keeping kosher is Judaism's compromise with its ideal vegetarianism. Ideally, according to Judaism, man would confine his eating to fruits and vegetables and not kill animals for food."

In his excellent A Guide to the Misled, Rabbi Shmuel Golding explains the orthodox Jewish position concerning animal sacrifices: "When G-d gave our ancestors permission to make sacrifices to Him, it was a concession, just as when He allowed us to have a king (I Samuel 8), but He gave us a whole set of rules and regulations concerning sacrifice that, when followed, would be superior to and distinct from the sacrificial system of the heathens."

Some biblical passages denounce animal sacrifice (Isaiah 1:11,15; Amos 5:21-25). Other passages state that animal sacrifices, not necessarily incurring God's wrath, are unnecessary (I Kings 15:22; Jeremiah 7:21-22; Hosea 6:6; Hosea 8:13; Micah 6:6-8; Psalm 50:1-14; Psalm 40:6; Proverbs 21:3; Ecclesiastes 5:1).

Sometimes Christians cite Isaiah 1:11, where God says, "I am full of the burnt offerings..." They say the word "full" implies God accepted the sacrifices. However, in Isaiah 43:23-24, God says: "You have not honored Me with your sacrifices...rather you have burdened Me with your sins, you have wearied Me with your iniquities." This suggests, as Moses Maimonides taught and Rabbi Shmuel Golding confirms above, that "the sacrifices were a concession to barbarism."

Jesus taught his disciples to pray for the coming of God's kingdom (Matthew 6:9-10), the kingdom of peace, in which the entire world is restored to a vegetarian paradise (Genesis 1:29; Isaiah 11:6-9). Recalling Psalm 37:11, he blessed the meek, saying they would inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5) The kingdom of God belongs to the gentle and kind (Matthew 5:7-9) Christians are to "Be merciful, just as your Father is also merciful." (Luke 6:36) Those who take up the sword must perish by the sword. (Matthew 26:52)

Jesus repeatedly spoke of God's tender care for the nonhuman creation (Matthew 6:26-30, 10:29-31; Luke 12:6-7, 24-28). Jesus taught that God desires "mercy and not sacrifice." (Matthew 9:10-13, 12:6-7; Mark 2:15-17; Luke 5:29-32) The epistle to the Hebrews 10:5-10 suggests that Jesus did not come to abolish the Law and the prophets (which Paul, and not Jesus, regarded as "so much garbage"), but only the institution of animal sacrifice, as does Jesus' cleansing the Temple of those who were buying and selling animals for sacrifice and his overturning the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple. (Matthew 21:12-14; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46; John 2:14-17)

Jesus not only repeatedly upheld Mosaic Law (Matthew 5:17-19; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 16:17), he justified his healing on the Sabbath by referring to commandments calling for the humane treatment of animals.

When teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, Jesus healed a woman who had been ill for eighteen years. He justified his healing work on the Sabbath by referring to biblical passages calling for the humane treatment of animals as well as their rest on the Sabbath. "So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham...be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?" Jesus asked. (Luke 13:10-16)

On another occasion, Jesus again referred to Torah teaching on "tsa'ar ba'alei chayim" or compassion for animals to justify healing on the Sabbath. "Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?" (Luke 14:1-5)

Jesus compared saving sinners who had gone astray from God's kingdom to rescuing lost sheep. He recalled a Jewish legend about Moses' compassion as a shepherd for his flock.

"For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost. What do you think? Who among you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?

"And when he has found it," Jesus continued, "he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'

"I say to you, likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance...there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." (Matthew 18:11-13; Luke 15:3-7,10)

Jesus insisted upon the moral standards given by God in the beginning (Matthew 5:31-32, 19:3-9; Mark 10:2-12; Luke 16:18), and this did not go unnoticed by early church fathers such as St. Jerome.

From history, too, we learn that the earliest Christians were vegetarians as well as pacifists. For example, Clemens Prudentius, the first Christian hymn writer, in one of his hymns exhorts his fellow Christians not to pollute their hands and hearts by the slaughter of innocent cows and sheep, and points to the variety of nourishing and pleasant foods obtainable without blood-shedding.

Some of the most distinguished figures in the history of Christianity have been vegetarian. A partial list includes: St. James, St. Matthew, Clemens Prudentius, Origen, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, St. Basil, St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, St. Benedict, Aegidius, Boniface, St. Richard of Wyche, St. Columba, St. Filipo Neri, John Wray, Thomas Tryon, John Wesley, Joshua Evans, William Metcalfe, General William Booth, Ellen White, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, and Reverend V.A. Holmes-Gore.

Reverend Marc Wessels of the International Network for Religion and Animals (INRA) writes:

"The most important teaching which Jesus shared was the need for people to love God with their whole self and to love their neighbor as they loved themselves. Jesus expanded the concept of neighbor to include those who were normally excluded, and it is therefore not too farfetched for us to consider the animals as our neighbors.

"To think about animals as our brothers and sisters is not a new or radical idea. By extending the idea of neighbor, the love of neighbor includes love of, compassion for, and advocacy of animals. There are many historical examples of Christians who thought along those lines, besides the familiar illustration of St. Francis. An abbreviated listing of some of those individuals worthy of study and emulation includes Saint Blaise, Saint Comgall, Saint Cuthbert, Saint Gerasimus, Saint Giles, and Saint Jerome, to name but a few."

According to contemporary Benedictine monk, Brother David Steindl-Rast:

"...the survival of our planet depends on our sense of belonging---to all other humans, to dolphins caught in dragnets, to pigs and chickens and calves raised in animal concentration camps, to redwoods and rainforests, to kelp beds in our oceans, and to the ozone layer."

In a sermon preached in York Minster, September 28, 1986, John Austin Baker, the Bishop of Salisbury, England, attacked the overcrowded confinement methods of raising and killing animals for food ("factory farming"), choosing as his example, the treatment of chickens:

"Is there any credit balance for the battery hen, denied almost all natural functioning, all normal environment, lapsing steadily into deformity and disease, for the whole of her existence?" he asked. "It is in the battery shed and the broiler house, not in the wild, that we find the true parallel to Auschwitz. Auschwitz is a purely human invention."

Rick Dunkerly of Christ Lutheran Church says:

"The Bible-believing Christian, should, of all people, be on the frontline in the struggle for animal welfare and rights. We who are Christians should be treating the animal creation now as it will be treated then, at Christ's second coming. It will not now be perfect, but it must be substantial, otherwise we have missed our calling, and we grieve the One we call 'Lord,' who was born in a stable surrounded by animals simply because He chose it that way."

Rose Evans, editor and publisher of Harmony: Voices for a Just Future, a "consistent-ethic" periodical on the religious Left, says there are more Christian vegetarians than Jewish vegetarians. Yet some people still react to the idea of Christian vegetarianism as though it were an oxymoron.

"Every year," says Reverend Andrew Linzey, author of Christianity and the Rights of Animals, "I receive hundreds of anguished letters from Christians who are so distressed by the insensitivity to animals shown by mainstream churches that they have left them or are on the verge of doing so...The time is long overdue to take the issue of animal rights to the churches...

"I derive hope from the Gospel preaching that the same God who draws us to such affinity and intimacy with suffering creatures declared that reality on a Cross in Calvary. Unless all Christian preaching has been utterly mistaken, the God who becomes incarnate and crucified is the one who has taken the side of the oppressed and the suffering of the world--however the churches may actually behave."

I am sorry Jim is support the bill for the opposite reason than those stated by 12centuries. As several respected environmental organizations have pointed out it will not add at all to our capacity for clean energy. I support those for adding solar and wind generation amendments....by tomorrow....Dwolf

Judithod, have YOU read all 1,200 pages?

So, Mr. Wallis, are you lauding this bill because you've read all 1,200 pages? Or are you just repeating Gore's and Pelosi's talking points? Have you noted high energy costs also kill jobs? It's estimated that 1,145,000 jobs will be lost if Waxman-Markey is effected. How long will it take to create those 1.7 million new green jobs? Hopefully, not as long as it's taking to save or create those 3-4 million new jobs promised by the stimulus legislation. And have you considered the farmers? Since farming is energy intensive, it's estimated that Waxman-Markey will be responsible for lowering farm profits by 28% by 2012 and it continues downhill from there. "Climate change" or "global warming" has become a religion for false prophets.

This is an incredibly unjust bill, and I am shocked that Jim Wallis and Sojo are supporting it. It is fundamentally nothing but a tax that does NOTHING to slow down or prevent global warming! It will only drive manufacturing jobs out of the US, creating MORE POOR among us.

I am appalled that Sojo is for this horrible bill! It's almost cruel to support this legislation.

How does Judithod know that Rev. Wallis is repeating Al Gore's and Nancy Pelosi's "talking points"? My question was rhetorical and designed to point out the fallacies in Judithod's attack on Rev. Wallis.

Because that's what she did; re-read her original post.

Why don't you quote that proverb to her?

Your initial comment was quite sly, implying that I must be a conservative because I disagree with Wallis's stance. I did read what Wallis wrote, and frankly, one is either for or against this bill based on its forecast economic outcomes, not to mention its doubtful premise. Why does a bill that's just a "start and still far from perfect" need to be rushed through? This is the point that I made by referring to the rushed, unread stimulus bill. Recall the adage: Haste makes waste.

What I do read and evaluate daily is a balance of publications from the conservative (e.g., Wall Street Journal) to the liberal (e.g., New York Times). Contrary to your smug assumption, I neither watch Fox nor listen to Limbaugh.

The Waxman-Markey 'American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009' (ACESA) H.R. 2454 is a terrible proposal with a harmless sounding title. It is supported by such corporations as Shell Oil, BP, DuPont, Dow, and the coal-burning utility Duke Energy. Traders on Wall Street are reportedly calling the bill's carbon markets a huge playground where big money will be made.ACESA's major flaws are as follows:

1) The cap on greenhouse gas emissions represents reductions of only 1 4 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, far less than climate scientists deem necessary.

2) ACESA overwhelms its own cap by allowing two billion tons of dubious 'offsets' annually, with up to two thirds from international sources which could allow USA emissions to keep increasing until 2040. The offsets provisions have been further weakened by transferring EPA oversight to the USA Department of Agriculture and excluding indirect impacts of biofuels production.

3) The weak cap combined with offsets, would result in a price on carbon far too low to produce the changes in energy use necessary to avert climate catastrophe. Free allowances to utilities and energy intensive industries further mute the price signal needed to shift to a low-carbon economy.

4) Trading combined with 'subprime' offsets would lead to speculative bubbles. ACESA's trading provisions would create a volatile $2 trillion carbon market with unregulated derivatives that could crash financial markets again. Linking trading systems internationally would lead to even larger opportunities for speculation, gaming and fraud.

5) The Renewable Energy Standard (RES) is watered down to just 15 percent by 2020, barely greater than 'business as usual.' Furthermore, ACESA defines 'renewable energy' to include dirty sources such as waste incineration.

6) Through free allowances and a hidden utility tax, the coal industry would receive approximately $150 billion in handouts over the bill's lifetime for 'deployment' of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology that presently doesn't exist and may never materialize. If feasible, CCS would require far more mining, transportation and burning of fossil fuel to produce electricity. ACESA would also give approximately $24 billion in handouts to oil refiners. Why would the world's most profitable industry need still more financial assistance?

7) Pre emption of EPA Authority. ACESA would pre empt EPA's authority to regulate sources of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, while also overriding stronger laws at the state and regional levels. By disabling this regulatory backstop, ACESA would ensure that its climate policy failure would be catastrophic.

The USA Congress must radically overhaul or scrap ACESA.

This bill has nothing to do with caring for creation (which I wholeheartedly endorse as a biblical calling). It is political manipulation that will strangle commerce and leave far greater numbers of people in poverty than the status quo. Even if we accept that 1.7 million "green" jobs will be created, these jobs will go almost entirely to the highly educated, since green energy is basically a knowledge-based field. Those who lose will be from the lower end of the educational spectrum, and they won't be able to recover. This bill has the potential to further widen the already vast chasm between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots.' It is economic redistribution that works in only one direction. Don't think that it is only going to hurt the large corporations. They will be fine. They can adapt (and already are as all the oil companies are rapidly building up their "green energy" divisions). In fact, it is the corporations who will grow in their wealth and power as they step up to the plate to provide the new "green energy solutions." It is those who are already on the lower end of the economic scale who will be most dramatically impacted by this legislation.

SOJO needs to take a more wholistic and critical look at the propaganda and realize that what they are supporting will actually work against their stated aims of lobbying for the alleviation of poverty.

Animal liberation theology:

According to the Bible, God intended the entire human race to follow a vegetarian diet (Genesis 1:29). Paradise is vegetarian. Rashi (Rabbi Solomon von Isaac, 1030-1105), the famous Jewish Bible commentator, taught that "God did not permit Adam and his wife to kill a creature and to eat its flesh. Only every green herb shall they all eat together." Ibn Ezra and other Jewish biblical commentators agree.

According to the Talmud, "Adam and many generations that followed him were strict flesh-abstainers; flesh-foods were rejected as repulsive for human consumption." Although man was made in God's image and given dominion over all creation (Genesis 1:26-28), these verses do not justify humans killing animals and devouring them, because God immediately proclaims He created the plants for human consumption. (Genesis 1:29)

In a letter to Pope John Paul II, challenging him on the issue of animal experimentation, Dr. Michael Fox of the Humane Society argued that the word "dominion" is derived from the original Hebrew word "rahe" which refers to compassionate stewardship, instead of power and control. Parents have dominion over their children; they do not have a license to kill, torment or abuse them. The Talmud (Shabbat 119; Sanhedrin 7) interprets "dominion" to mean animals may be used for labor.

Man was made in God's image (Genesis 1:26) and told to be vegetarian (Genesis 1:29). "And God saw all that He had made and saw that it was very good." (Genesis 1:31) Complete and perfect harmony. Everything in the beginning was the way God wanted it. Vegetarianism was part of God's initial plan for the world.

"It appears that the first intention of the Maker was to have men live on a strictly vegetarian diet," writes Rabbi Simon Glazer, in his 1971 Guide to Judaism. "The very earliest periods of Jewish history are marked with humanitarian conduct towards the lower animal kingdom...It is clearly established that the ancient Hebrews knew, and perhaps were the first among men to know, that animals feel and suffer pain."

After the Flood, God revised His commandment against flesh-eating. Human beings, since eating of the forbidden fruit, seemed incapable of obedience on this issue. One Jewish writer comments, "Only after man had proven unfit for the high moral standard given at the beginning, was meat made a part of the humans' diet."

A Jewish legend says Moses was found to be righteous by God through his shepherding. While Moses was tending his sheep of Jethro in the Midian wilderness, a young kid ran away from the flock. Moses ran after it until he found the kid drinking by a pool of water. Moses approached the kid and said, "I did not know that you ran away because you were thirsty; now, you must be tired." So Moses placed the animal on his shoulders and carried him back to the flock. God said, "Because thou has shown mercy in leading the flock, thou will surely tend My flock, Israel."

In his essay, "The Dietary Prohibitions of the Hebrews," Jean Soler finds in the Bible at least two times when an attempt was made to try the Israelites out on a vegetarian diet. During the period of exodus from Egypt, the Hebrews lived entirely on manna. They had large flocks which they brought with them, but never touched.

The Israelites were told that manna "is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat." (Exodus 16:5) For forty years in the desert, the Israelites lived on manna (Nehemiah 9:15,21). The apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon (16:20) calls manna the food of the angels. Manna is described as a vegetable food, like "coriander seed" (Numbers 11:7), tasting like wafers and honey (Exodus 16:31).

On two separate occasions, however, the men rebelled against Moses because they wanted meat. The meat-hungry Hebrews lamented, "Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots." God ended this first "experiment in vegetarianism" through the miracle of the quails.

A second "experiment in vegetarianism" is suggested in the Book of Numbers, when the Hebrews lament once again, "O that we had meat to eat." (Numbers 11:4) God repeated the miracle of the quails, but this time with a vengeance: "And while the flesh was between their teeth, before it was even chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and He struck them down with a great plague." (Numbers 11:33)

The site where the deaths took place was named "The Graves of Lust." (Numbers 11:34; Deuteronomy 12:20) The quail meat was called "basar ta'avah," or "meat of lust." The Talmud (Chulin 84a) comments that: "The Torah teaches a lesson in moral conduct, that man shall not eat meat unless he has a special craving for it, and shall eat it only occasionally and sparingly." Here, according to Soler, as in the story of the Flood, "meat is given a negative connotation. It is a concession God makes to man's imperfection."

In their book, The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, Dennis Prager and Rabbi Telushkin explain: "Keeping kosher is Judaism's compromise with its ideal vegetarianism. Ideally, according to Judaism, man would confine his eating to fruits and vegetables and not kill animals for food."

In his excellent A Guide to the Misled, Rabbi Shmuel Golding explains the orthodox Jewish position concerning animal sacrifices: "When G-d gave our ancestors permission to make sacrifices to Him, it was a concession, just as when He allowed us to have a king (I Samuel 8), but He gave us a whole set of rules and regulations concerning sacrifice that, when followed, would be superior to and distinct from the sacrificial system of the heathens."

Some biblical passages denounce animal sacrifice (Isaiah 1:11,15; Amos 5:21-25). Other passages state that animal sacrifices, not necessarily incurring God's wrath, are unnecessary (I Kings 15:22; Jeremiah 7:21-22; Hosea 6:6; Hosea 8:13; Micah 6:6-8; Psalm 50:1-14; Psalm 40:6; Proverbs 21:3; Ecclesiastes 5:1).

Sometimes Christians cite Isaiah 1:11, where God says, "I am full of the burnt offerings..." They say the word "full" implies God accepted the sacrifices. However, in Isaiah 43:23-24, God says: "You have not honored Me with your sacrifices...rather you have burdened Me with your sins, you have wearied Me with your iniquities." This suggests, as Moses Maimonides taught and Rabbi Shmuel Golding confirms above, that "the sacrifices were a concession to barbarism."

Jesus taught his disciples to pray for the coming of God's kingdom (Matthew 6:9-10), the kingdom of peace, in which the entire world is restored to a vegetarian paradise (Genesis 1:29; Isaiah 11:6-9). Recalling Psalm 37:11, he blessed the meek, saying they would inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5) The kingdom of God belongs to the gentle and kind (Matthew 5:7-9) Christians are to "Be merciful, just as your Father is also merciful." (Luke 6:36) Those who take up the sword must perish by the sword. (Matthew 26:52)

Jesus repeatedly spoke of God's tender care for the nonhuman creation (Matthew 6:26-30, 10:29-31; Luke 12:6-7, 24-28). Jesus taught that God desires "mercy and not sacrifice." (Matthew 9:10-13, 12:6-7; Mark 2:15-17; Luke 5:29-32) The epistle to the Hebrews 10:5-10 suggests that Jesus did not come to abolish the Law and the prophets (which Paul, and not Jesus, regarded as "so much garbage"), but only the institution of animal sacrifice, as does Jesus' cleansing the Temple of those who were buying and selling animals for sacrifice and his overturning the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple. (Matthew 21:12-14; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46; John 2:14-17)

Jesus not only repeatedly upheld Mosaic Law (Matthew 5:17-19; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 16:17), he justified his healing on the Sabbath by referring to commandments calling for the humane treatment of animals.

When teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, Jesus healed a woman who had been ill for eighteen years. He justified his healing work on the Sabbath by referring to biblical passages calling for the humane treatment of animals as well as their rest on the Sabbath. "So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham...be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?" Jesus asked. (Luke 13:10-16)

On another occasion, Jesus again referred to Torah teaching on "tsa'ar ba'alei chayim" or compassion for animals to justify healing on the Sabbath. "Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?" (Luke 14:1-5)

Jesus compared saving sinners who had gone astray from God's kingdom to rescuing lost sheep. He recalled a Jewish legend about Moses' compassion as a shepherd for his flock.

"For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost. What do you think? Who among you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?

"And when he has found it," Jesus continued, "he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'

"I say to you, likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance...there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." (Matthew 18:11-13; Luke 15:3-7,10)

Jesus insisted upon the moral standards given by God in the beginning (Matthew 5:31-32, 19:3-9; Mark 10:2-12; Luke 16:18), and this did not go unnoticed by early church fathers such as St. Jerome.

From history, too, we learn that the earliest Christians were vegetarians as well as pacifists. For example, Clemens Prudentius, the first Christian hymn writer, in one of his hymns exhorts his fellow Christians not to pollute their hands and hearts by the slaughter of innocent cows and sheep, and points to the variety of nourishing and pleasant foods obtainable without blood-shedding.

Some of the most distinguished figures in the history of Christianity have been vegetarian. A partial list includes: St. James, St. Matthew, Clemens Prudentius, Origen, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, St. Basil, St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, St. Benedict, Aegidius, Boniface, St. Richard of Wyche, St. Columba, St. Filipo Neri, John Wray, Thomas Tryon, John Wesley, Joshua Evans, William Metcalfe, General William Booth, Ellen White, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, and Reverend V.A. Holmes-Gore.

Reverend Marc Wessels of the International Network for Religion and Animals (INRA) writes:

"The most important teaching which Jesus shared was the need for people to love God with their whole self and to love their neighbor as they loved themselves. Jesus expanded the concept of neighbor to include those who were normally excluded, and it is therefore not too farfetched for us to consider the animals as our neighbors.

"To think about animals as our brothers and sisters is not a new or radical idea. By extending the idea of neighbor, the love of neighbor includes love of, compassion for, and advocacy of animals. There are many historical examples of Christians who thought along those lines, besides the familiar illustration of St. Francis. An abbreviated listing of some of those individuals worthy of study and emulation includes Saint Blaise, Saint Comgall, Saint Cuthbert, Saint Gerasimus, Saint Giles, and Saint Jerome, to name but a few."

According to contemporary Benedictine monk, Brother David Steindl-Rast:

"...the survival of our planet depends on our sense of belonging---to all other humans, to dolphins caught in dragnets, to pigs and chickens and calves raised in animal concentration camps, to redwoods and rainforests, to kelp beds in our oceans, and to the ozone layer."

In a sermon preached in York Minster, September 28, 1986, John Austin Baker, the Bishop of Salisbury, England, attacked the overcrowded confinement methods of raising and killing animals for food ("factory farming"), choosing as his example, the treatment of chickens:

"Is there any credit balance for the battery hen, denied almost all natural functioning, all normal environment, lapsing steadily into deformity and disease, for the whole of her existence?" he asked. "It is in the battery shed and the broiler house, not in the wild, that we find the true parallel to Auschwitz. Auschwitz is a purely human invention."

Rick Dunkerly of Christ Lutheran Church says:

"The Bible-believing Christian, should, of all people, be on the frontline in the struggle for animal welfare and rights. We who are Christians should be treating the animal creation now as it will be treated then, at Christ's second coming. It will not now be perfect, but it must be substantial, otherwise we have missed our calling, and we grieve the One we call 'Lord,' who was born in a stable surrounded by animals simply because He chose it that way."

Rose Evans, editor and publisher of Harmony: Voices for a Just Future, a "consistent-ethic" periodical on the religious Left, says there are more Christian vegetarians than Jewish vegetarians. Yet some people still react to the idea of Christian vegetarianism as though it were an oxymoron.

"Every year," says Reverend Andrew Linzey, author of Christianity and the Rights of Animals, "I receive hundreds of anguished letters from Christians who are so distressed by the insensitivity to animals shown by mainstream churches that they have left them or are on the verge of doing so...The time is long overdue to take the issue of animal rights to the churches...

"I derive hope from the Gospel preaching that the same God who draws us to such affinity and intimacy with suffering creatures declared that reality on a Cross in Calvary. Unless all Christian preaching has been utterly mistaken, the God who becomes incarnate and crucified is the one who has taken the side of the oppressed and the suffering of the world--however the churches may actually behave."

Well, I can see from all the strange user names above (first time entries) that the American Petroleum Institute has been busy rounding up all the true Believers. the only biblical analogy that I can think of is the Noah Story and we know what happened to those naysayers.

I agree with you. they have been saying things like this for years and years. they just change the name or dier crisis. I have heartd the temp. of the earth has gone DOWN in the last year. maybe its becasue the sun cycle is over. I always wonder why those who speak of global warming and bring up melting glaciers. Let me think, they want me to use SCIENCE, yet they cant look back a "few" years ago at the time of the ice age and realise, IT ALL MELTED, and without our help. Yet KNOW its our fault, and we should give up all our freedoms to the government to stop it. YES we should be good stewards of the earth. but FOR HEAVENS SAKE we DO NOT serve it or worship it. this is PAGAN all the way. WAKE UP, use your commen sense.

I am sorry Jim is support the bill for the opposite reason than those stated by 12centuries. As several respected environmental organizations have pointed out it will not add at all to our capacity for clean energy. I support those for adding solar and wind generation amendments....by tomorrow....Dwolf

Good specifics. Glad you explained some ramifications of bills such as this. I just about threw up when I read Wallis' support of this bill.

NOWHERE MAN

He's a real nowhere man,
Sitting in his Nowhere Land,
Making all his nowhere plans
for nobody.

Doesn't have a point of view,
Knows not where he's going to,
Isn't he a bit like you and me?

Nowhere Man please listen,
You don't know what you're missing,
Nowhere Man,the world is at your command!

He's as blind as he can be,
Just sees what he wants to see,
Nowhere Man can you see me at all?

Nowhere Man, don't worry,
Take your time, don't hurry,
Leave it all till somebody else
lends you a hand!

Doesn't have a point of view,
Knows not where he's going to,
Isn't he a bit like you and me?

He's a real Nowhere Man,
Sitting in his Nowhere Land,
Making all his nowhere plans
for nobody.

Judithod, have YOU read all 1,200 pages?

Being taken seriously here is the objective? Really? I wasn't aware that was our objective.

justintime thinks calling people traitors who voted against the Waxman/Markey/Pelosi/Wallis charade is good political commentary.

It sounds Bush league to me.

This is not the Middle Ages and global warming deniers are not Galileo.
You're on the wrong side of your own metaphor, Judith.
Galileo was censored and put under house arrest, while Bruno was burned at the stake by deniers of heliocentrism (the Church authorities) -- the medieval equivalent of 21st century right wing fundamentalist global warming deniers.

The nuclear winter scenario never came true because we haven't had a nuclear war -- at least not yet we haven't.

The story about Carlin's suppressed report is a hoax.
I posted a link -- read it.

The Yale.edu article confirms justes analysis of ACESA, not yours.

Krugman is commenting on the politics of ACESA in the House of Representatives.
Climate scientists with credentials have already established the reality of global warming.
Keep your eye on the ball, justontime.