ANYTHING that distracts the clergy from its ludicrous obsession with sexuality can’t be all bad. So two cheers for climate change – an issue that’s suddenly started sinking into ecclesiastical consciousness.
At the beginning of June we were treated to the daft spectacle of the Bishop of London, a replica ark, and around 200 “Christian” school children dressed as animals, converge on a spot adjacent to the Palace of Westminster.
“Operation Noah” was held to draw attention to:
Christian concern about the crunch UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December.
Attendees – including Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change – heard the Anglican Bishop of London, Rt Rev Richard Chartres, say that:
Noah, as the first recorded person to respond to climate change, offers us a story of hope in the face of disaster, provided that bold and ambitious action is taken.
Oh my ears and whiskers!
Noah responding to the challenges of climate change
Miliband added:
Now is the time for decisive action and faith groups have a decisive role to play in fighting climate change. We need people of faith because they have particular regard for future generations.
Which is bloody offensive to those of us with no religious faith, for it suggests that WE don’t give a flying fuck about “future generations”.
We are not the only ones offended by this tosh. Mark Dowd, campaign strategist for Operation Noah, reported yesterday that he was pulled up short by an email he received after the event “from a fellow Christian”. It read:
You’re only doing this climate change crap for its political advantage. There is not a damn thing to worry about and not a damned thing you can do about it anyways. You people are such fools and are doing a fine job making Christians look foolish.
Meanwhile, we learn that the Methodist Church has also jumped on the climate change bandwagon. It is urging Christians to “repent of the sins that contribute to climate change”.
A report received at the annual Methodist Conference in Wolverhampton yesterday encourages people:
To acknowledge their complicity in systems that exploit creation and prey on the powerless.
It comes after the spotlight was turned last week on some of the Church of England’s unethical investments. The C of E’s two biggest investments, totalling in excess of £200 million, are in oil companies. One of the companies from which it is seeking to profit, Royal Dutch Shell, was criticised in a report by Amnesty International last week for bringing widespread pollution and environmental damage to the Niger Delta, and “destroying lives”.
The Church also has a major investment in Exxon Mobil which was last week revealed as giving hundreds of thousands of pounds to lobby groups who have published “misleading and inaccurate information” apparently seeking to denigrate theories of climate change.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
July 8th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
This reminds me of Stephen Green's Question Time appearance in which Dimbleby asked him if God is responsible for the ice caps melting. The Birdshit of Alcatraz could only reply "It worries and concerns me" or somesuch – about the only time he hasn't presumed to speak God's mind for him when given the chance.
I wonder if Green hopes to be forgiven for his carbon footprint since he has boasted about driving 250 miles just to donate some clothes – http://www.christianvoice.org......ess063.h... – at this month's March of Repentance.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
The cartoon`s hilarious – where did it come from? However, forget the woodpeckers, what always puzzled me was, how did Noah manage to transport the woodworms?
July 8th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
Google images, Barrie
July 8th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
The Birdshit link ain't working – but the link on Christian Vice's site to the March of Repentance made me chortle, for it contains the following heart-wrenching appeal:
So far we would like to announce that we have tried our very best by the grace of God to cover the costs to put this march together but there is a still small shortfall of £3,600 towards the staging/PA equipment at Trafalgar Square we would ask if you feel led please could you donate any amount of money towards this last stage, all proceeds will go direct towards this cost.
See http://www.repentuk.com/
Clearly the Great British Public has a far greater appetite for Atheist Bus Campaigns …
July 8th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
The religiots have no interest in "saving the planet" or in improving the lot of its inhabitants. When Billy Graham was pressed on this he always answered that if people got their "relationship with Christ" sorted out, everything else would fall into place. By and large, this is the evangelical position. However, others are more extreme. When I was a member of the Plymouth Brethren I constantly heard people claim that the worse the state of the world became the better this was for believers, as it meant that the "coming of the Lord" must be very near! Even in those days I couldn`t believe that any reasonably intelligent person could make such a crassly stupid statement!! The religiots have never been interested in improving the world, as their interest lies in the "spiritual" and the "hereafter". It is only those of us who are aware that THIS is all that we have, who take seriously efforts to improve things here on earth. To them, although they may pay lip service to such efforts, and be happy to feature in the publicity, in their heart of hearts they think it is just a waste of time.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Try http://www.christianvoice.org......ess063.h... It was during his attempt to get a certain foot-high statue that he has never clapped eyes on destroyed.
Why do they need thousands of pounds? Trafalgar Square IS a fucking stage and the anti-war demonstrators that I have seen there make do with a few megaphones.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Found it (eventually!). I`m surprised that you didn`t use the photograph of the actual remains of Noah`s Ark, up in the mountains of Turkey, Barry. Doesn`t look in the least bit like a strange rock formation to me!!
July 9th, 2009 at 8:45 am
On a similar note, the only creatures that didn't enter the arc in pairs were the maggots as they went in apples!
sorry…….
July 9th, 2009 at 8:47 am
"A particular regard for future generations"??? Don't they think they're all about to be swept up by god and taken into heaven? They don't give a monkeys about future generations – not the true believers, at least.
July 9th, 2009 at 8:56 am
'…how did Noah manage to transport the woodworms?'
In a lump of 2×2.
(Two by two…geddit). Oh why do I bother?
July 9th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Silly me, I see it clearly now: The religious want to speed up the Earth’s destruction so they can go up to a place that doesn’t exist and we go down to a place that doesn’t exist.
July 9th, 2009 at 9:36 am
That`s exactly what I said, and what that vicious email was all about. He`s the "true" Christian!
BTW You`re not that evangelist Tom Rees, who was quite popular in the 1940s/50s, sending us snippets of wisdom from "the other side", are you? Was everything you said then crap as well, Tom?
July 9th, 2009 at 9:38 am
I don`t mean that YOU are talking "crap" Tom – I was referring to the headline of this item!! Thought I`d better make that clear!
July 9th, 2009 at 9:44 am
That`s exactly what they DO think, Angela_K! Even if Jesus was coming back for "His Own", how could that predestined event be in any way influenced by the way that people behave? And wouldn`t the logical conclusion to that line of thought be to close down all the churches, and stop preaching and campaigning, so that things became (in their view) as bad as possible in the shortest time possible? It really is gobsmackingly idiotic, but then so is all religious belief. How did "Theology "ever become a subject which could be taken seriously in academic circles? It`s just childish nonsense, and they make themselves look stupid every time they open their mouths.
July 9th, 2009 at 10:06 am
I'm a bit disturbed to hear Richard Chartres saying "Noah, as the first recorded person to respond to climate change….."
I know they set the bar low for clergy these days, but even if they only study theology you'd think at least a bishop would be aware of mythical figures in other religious pulp fiction older than the Bible. As for intimating that Noah was a real historical figure….oh, just fetch him a funny jacket that ties up at the back!
July 9th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Actually, before I got distracted by the ramblings of Chartres, I meant to say that the reason godbotherers are harping on about green issues would be that it's an easy vote winner. If you're the middle class touchy feely type with spare cash they're eager to get back to church you don't have to do anything about it except send off your direct debit to a faith-based charity to ease your 'guilt'. By comparison, such loaded liberals don't tend to respond to preachiness about sexuality, and are willing to do anything to protect the environment except (rather like church leaders) actually pay tax or give up their privileges.
This way you get to keep your middle management job with a big corporation, shag who you want within reason providing no horses are frightened, pay some guilt tax to the churches, who get rich…..every hypocrite in sight stays happy!
July 9th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Do you not realize, Stuart, that there are a great many intelligent, educated evangelical believers in this country who seriously believe that Noah was the first man to see rain fall on the earth, and that there had never been a rainbow in the sky until after the Flood? I`m not making this up – I know some of them personally!
July 9th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Thought for the day (relax, no Anne Atkins)
Noah gathered up two of every animal, yet by the law of averages wouldn't some of them be homosexual and refuse to mate?
July 9th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
I've bumped into a few myself, though I should add I once spent Christmas working as a trainee nurse on a psychiatric ward where TWO patients thought they were Jesus. After that, very little anyone says startles me, but I've never been able to take sincere religious belief seriously either.
On the bit about Noah being the first bloke to see rain fall, my wife would probably add "and the last".
She's forever giving me grief for not bringing the washing in when it rains.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Like the unicorns!
July 9th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
No, Stuart, definitely not. There is a letter in The Daily Mail, this very day, from a certain Roy Donaldson, of Bognor Regis no less ("Bugger Bognor"), which informs all us ignoramuses that homosexuality is "against the laws of nature"! (Have I not read that somewhere before?) He actually goes on to say (after a long diatribe re " this acceptance and outrageous courting of homosexuals" being "degrading and demeaning" and "against the Law of God"), "there is no evidence whatsoever of any other species…being anything other than true to their gender and behaving in that manner…only the human species has become corrupt and resorted to homosexual acts. And only humans continue to live and act in denial of nature`s truth." Boy – has he got a lot to learn!!
July 9th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
wasn't it 7×7?
July 9th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
I know that people do have these ridiculous views, but is there not a responsible adult left at The Mail who is capable of filtering out this peurile rubbish from all the letters that they receive?
July 9th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
isn't Ed an atheist? what is he doing giving these folk a sop?
July 9th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Godworshippers can be intelligent, or there would be no recovered godworshippers such as myself and Barryjohn. But given that the facts are no further away than the nearest university library, anyone who believes that Noah (a dialectal form of the Egyptian rain goddess Nukie) was a real person is assuredly NOT educated.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Hang on a minute…….The xtains, muzzies, catlickers et al have done more than any other other group to mess up our planet because they are anti-birth control, anti-abortion and tend to breed like rats. More humans require more of the Earth’s dwindling resources. This jumping on the climate change bandwagon is just the sort of bare faced hypocrisy to be expected from religious twats.
July 9th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
It`s called PR – otherwise "grovelling for votes"!!
July 9th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
What, and deprive us all of a barrel of laughs at their reader's draconian principles, pig-ignorance, irony-free Alf Garnett impressions and general Bible-centric, bigoted misery-gutsing? I say keep them coming!
Btw, here is a wicked little anti-Daily Mail site that analyses their reader's rantings as well as the columns.
http://www.angrymob.uponnothin.....lreaderw...
July 9th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
There was another letter in The Mail yesterday (and I`m not making this up!) from Catherine Straker, of Peasmarsh, explaining to us all in words of no more than two syllables that "since time immemorial" the Church has taught that God told Abraham to leave the Cities of the Plain because of their homosexuality, and if you look at the site of Sodom and Gomorrah now (she never could bring herself to actually put their names in print), these "homes of the homosexuals" have disappeared! "There is nothing except the Dead Sea; not a stone, not a brick" she declares, as if this is somehow proof that her delusions are true – not proof that they never existed in the first place!! However, her last two paragraphs really do take the proverbial biscuit: "Not far away are the outskirts of Jericho, from where you can see the happy little boys, climbing the luscious trees, and gathering the dates. Surely it would be very wrong to allow children to be brought up by homosexuals, and if people really cared about these orphans they would not allow it to happen"!!