Wisdom calls out
"Does not wisdom call out?
Does not understanding raise her voice?" - Proverbs 8:1
This past Friday night, I went out to Martinis and IMAX with a group of friends to go see the showing of Antartica at the Fernbank. For anyone not from Atlanta, this event is one of the really cool things to do on a Friday night and has been consistently voted as one of the "best first dates" in Atlanta. That was an aside... but the real meat of the blog comes from some of the conversation that was spawned before and during the showing of this IMAX movie.
Before: I got the Evite a few days before the social and was very amused by the influx of political commentary that peppered the message board of the Evite. Most of it was anti-Al Gore, Barack Obama, etc. ranting about a previous experience watching the Grand Canyon's film's take on global warming and climate change and some calling it propaganda. I believe that there is propaganda being propigated on both sides, but the ranting against the left wing version of it was overpowering.
During and After: The film was very good. I highly recommend it. And of course, as you could probably predict by the text in the last paragraph, there was some attention given to global warming and climate change. They talked about some of the evidence coming from Antartica that we may be starting to see a trend here. On another note, when I was in Estonia one of the students talked about how the apples are blooming much earlier than before (February, I believe) which I thought was a little strange. Anyways, a case was made for the impact on man-made chemicals being released into the environment being a cause of some of these trends. The film didn't talk about the political implications of their statements, but just merely made the statements.
After the movie, we headed to Virginia Highlands to hang out and grab a bite to eat. On the ride over there, a friend of mine talked about the whole "climate change debate" in terms of "Well, some scientists believe in global warming, but some scientists do not believe in global warming." I knew that there is disagreement in the scientific community, but do want to be open-minded. So, I asked my friend what that meant... which was followed by "You know, some scientists are for it, some don't believe in it." So... what do you think? The thought I had (and I think a lot of pro-oil conservatives think like this) was that it wasn't conclusive and I have people who can back me up so I'm going to align myself with the people who say what I want them to say. I could be wrong, but I get the feeling that this type of thinking is relatively prevalent.
Thinking along the line of something I heard Andy Stanley say a while back that keeps ringing in my ear... that question "What is the wise thing to do?" In my opinion, if I have options available to me and one may harm the environment and one will not, I should pick the option that does not harm the environment. If scientists are saying that there is a chance that we're harming the environment (and thus our quality of life for the long term) with the choices we make... don't we have an obligation to listen to them and evaluate it? Sometimes I think that the fact that Al Gore has chosen to champion this cause is enough reason in many conservatives' minds to strictly write the whole debate off as "propaganda" just out of our personal dislike of Gore as a politician. That honestly doesn't make sense. We don't want our liberal friends discounting our ideas just because George W Bush may have the same opinion, do we?
Wisdom is not prone to propaganda... it is something we must seek out and own for ourselves. Sometimes, the way we react to debates that have entered our political landscape show us (and me) how much we need to seek wisdom versus talk out of our sides' sound bites. She (wisdom) will save us, both as individuals and as a people.
No more political speech here... but I will say that, although I lean conservative, I do not believe that massive drilling for oil is the answer long-term. Or for that matter, short-term as it would take over 5 years to explore and build the infrastructure to get the oil we find to market. We need to use this opportunity (in my opinion) to free our country from the addition to this energy crack cocaine we call petroleum and make this a stronger and cleaner nation. Just my $0.02.
Chris <><
Does not understanding raise her voice?" - Proverbs 8:1
This past Friday night, I went out to Martinis and IMAX with a group of friends to go see the showing of Antartica at the Fernbank. For anyone not from Atlanta, this event is one of the really cool things to do on a Friday night and has been consistently voted as one of the "best first dates" in Atlanta. That was an aside... but the real meat of the blog comes from some of the conversation that was spawned before and during the showing of this IMAX movie.
Before: I got the Evite a few days before the social and was very amused by the influx of political commentary that peppered the message board of the Evite. Most of it was anti-Al Gore, Barack Obama, etc. ranting about a previous experience watching the Grand Canyon's film's take on global warming and climate change and some calling it propaganda. I believe that there is propaganda being propigated on both sides, but the ranting against the left wing version of it was overpowering.
During and After: The film was very good. I highly recommend it. And of course, as you could probably predict by the text in the last paragraph, there was some attention given to global warming and climate change. They talked about some of the evidence coming from Antartica that we may be starting to see a trend here. On another note, when I was in Estonia one of the students talked about how the apples are blooming much earlier than before (February, I believe) which I thought was a little strange. Anyways, a case was made for the impact on man-made chemicals being released into the environment being a cause of some of these trends. The film didn't talk about the political implications of their statements, but just merely made the statements.
After the movie, we headed to Virginia Highlands to hang out and grab a bite to eat. On the ride over there, a friend of mine talked about the whole "climate change debate" in terms of "Well, some scientists believe in global warming, but some scientists do not believe in global warming." I knew that there is disagreement in the scientific community, but do want to be open-minded. So, I asked my friend what that meant... which was followed by "You know, some scientists are for it, some don't believe in it." So... what do you think? The thought I had (and I think a lot of pro-oil conservatives think like this) was that it wasn't conclusive and I have people who can back me up so I'm going to align myself with the people who say what I want them to say. I could be wrong, but I get the feeling that this type of thinking is relatively prevalent.
Thinking along the line of something I heard Andy Stanley say a while back that keeps ringing in my ear... that question "What is the wise thing to do?" In my opinion, if I have options available to me and one may harm the environment and one will not, I should pick the option that does not harm the environment. If scientists are saying that there is a chance that we're harming the environment (and thus our quality of life for the long term) with the choices we make... don't we have an obligation to listen to them and evaluate it? Sometimes I think that the fact that Al Gore has chosen to champion this cause is enough reason in many conservatives' minds to strictly write the whole debate off as "propaganda" just out of our personal dislike of Gore as a politician. That honestly doesn't make sense. We don't want our liberal friends discounting our ideas just because George W Bush may have the same opinion, do we?
Wisdom is not prone to propaganda... it is something we must seek out and own for ourselves. Sometimes, the way we react to debates that have entered our political landscape show us (and me) how much we need to seek wisdom versus talk out of our sides' sound bites. She (wisdom) will save us, both as individuals and as a people.
No more political speech here... but I will say that, although I lean conservative, I do not believe that massive drilling for oil is the answer long-term. Or for that matter, short-term as it would take over 5 years to explore and build the infrastructure to get the oil we find to market. We need to use this opportunity (in my opinion) to free our country from the addition to this energy crack cocaine we call petroleum and make this a stronger and cleaner nation. Just my $0.02.
Chris <><
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