this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2025
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If no new species can evolve, but (as not even creationists dispute) species can go extinct, then the extinction of species over time causes biodiversity to inexorably trend toward zero.

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[–] Bloobish@hexbear.net 32 points 1 day ago

American Christians have a distinct view that because the earth was meant for man that means it is to be used by man at it's maximum ability, i.e. burn the forests and mine the coal fuck everybody else as is puritan tradition.

Tldr American Christians are a death cult.

[–] porcupine@lemmygrad.ml 54 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Creationists also believe that the planet is a flawed consumable created to be used up for their benefit before the imminent arrival of an apocalypse that will usher in an eternal paradise for them personally.

[–] BeanisBrain@hexbear.net 31 points 1 day ago

I love how all the dumbest aspects of Christian cosmology cancel each other out

[–] sewer_rat_420@hexbear.net 35 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They believe the end is imminent and therefore there is no point to save any of it

[–] Lovely_sombrero@hexbear.net 19 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I was watching a lot of debates during the GW Bush years and the basic common denominator belief among creationists is that God made the universe for us to use and have fun with. If we run out of resources, surely God has a plan for that, maybe he will just magic up some more stuff for us. Some maybe believed in the rapture, but didn't say it. Most probably never even considered the possibility of resources running out or species going extinct. But everyone very openly said that "God made this for us" and therefore we shouldn't shy away from "doing his will".

[–] sewer_rat_420@hexbear.net 20 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Its so backwards from how I read genesis to. God gave us a job, we are supposed to take care of this shit

[–] LisaTrevor@hexbear.net 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

coulda sworn there was a part about fracking the garden of Eden in here somewhere...

[–] Lovely_sombrero@hexbear.net 6 points 1 day ago

Let me educate you about religion: angels love acid rain. It is their favorite thing.

[–] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 38 points 1 day ago

(if they're consistent)

wtyp

[–] Abrinoxus@lemmy.today 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

this is how they reason; species get extinct it is gods plan dont worry

[–] Tabitha@hexbear.net 2 points 3 hours ago

Also he made every species for a reason and there was a lot of big thinking and planning involved.

[–] AssortedBiscuits@hexbear.net 20 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Not really. They believe that God created life for humans to lord over. If anything, it's probably more consistent of them to want to drive other species into extinction because if humans no longer have other lifeforms to lord over, then that would mean God broke his humans-lording-over-other-lifeforms promise, so the only way out of this pickle is for God to bring about the rapture.

[–] Tabitha@hexbear.net 1 points 3 hours ago

The Bible says "do not test God", so probably all this arrogant attempts to checkmate him into bringing the rapture early is the reason the US will fall.

[–] BeanisBrain@hexbear.net 15 points 1 day ago

I've heard fundamentalist Christians accuse atheists of worshiping themselves as supreme beings, and reading this comment makes me realize there's probably a lot of projection going into that.

[–] Chana@hexbear.net 19 points 1 day ago

Young Earth Creationists may be the least consistent people on the planet. They're also the types to be obsessed with hating and oppressing lgbtq+ people despite their Bible, in no uncertain terms, telling them to not judge others and to focus on belief in Jesus as redemption.

[–] dougfir@hexbear.net 10 points 1 day ago

somewhat related, there was a street preacher at my college who shouted one time "evolution can't be true, because monkeys wouldn't be FUCKING UP the earth like we are" and i thought, you know what, that's not a terrible point all things considered

[–] Omegamint@hexbear.net 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There is ultimately little point debating with these people because even if you get them to admit you are correct on every front they’ll just say that God is coming to fix it all anyways. I have to deal with this constantly because this is the way my dad is. Not that this isn’t the same thing a ton of people in this topic are saying.

[–] BeanisBrain@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Oh believe me, I gave up arguing with creationists around 15 years ago. I just realized a whole new way their worldview is nonsensical and wanted to share.

It's what always struck me about American Christians. If you talk to church people here in the Netherlands, their take on environmentalism is that it is their duty to take care of God's creation.

[–] CommCat@hexbear.net 14 points 1 day ago (3 children)

they'll just go "it's God's will" that they go extinct.

[–] BountifulEggnog@hexbear.net 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

god wouldn't have given us oil if we weren't meant to burn it

[–] keepcarrot@hexbear.net 13 points 1 day ago

This is unironically the theological basis for that behaviour

Yeah, Chapter 1 of the first book is

“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ … God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’”

So it's like how could the exploitation of natural resources possibly produce consequences? It would be sinful not to be fruitful. If instead they were asked to be a steward of the living creatures they'd just ignore it though

[–] vegeta1@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago

Lmfao imagine reading that God gave his only son for humanity's sake just for you to think extinction is the wave i-cant I swear I can't with these people

[–] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I can't remember the name of the book, pretty sure it was some NY times bestselling lib pop-poli slop. But it made the argument that somewhere around the 60's or 70's the South's? Christianity, and it's view of man being custodians of the earth, butt heads with capitalism. And capitalist forces won. Ever since then the environment has basically been abandoned to the left.

[–] PKMKII@hexbear.net 10 points 1 day ago

Man having dominion over earth went from meaning man was nature’s steward to man being nature’s vampire.

[–] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Weirdly enough, it's the opposite, they think that God made the world for humanity, so it is fine and good even, if we completely destroy the place. They also think that humanity can't actually really effect things like extinctions because that is "god's domain" or whatever, so if a species goes extinct it is because god wants it too. (Why god would create a species solely for it to go extinct is never explained). They also think that Jesus and God will ascend the righteous to heaven any day now, so humanity's time on earth is going to be less than 6000 years total, and we're basically just sitting here waiting for god to finally come and pick us up.

It's absurd and ridiculous. It's kind of like housesitting for someone and just trashing the place on the grounds that "I'm currently staying here, but I won't be here forever, I'll leave when the guy who owns the place comes to pick me up and take me home." Not at all thinking about the idea that god might be pretty damn pissed off at them for wrecking the earth that he presumably worked so hard on for them.

[–] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

It's almost as if it is less of a well thought out series of logical (if esoteric and faith based) beliefs and more of a series of increasingly bizarre justifications for taking the actions they already wanted to take.

[–] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sure is nice of God to come up with a religion for them that lets them behave exactly how they want to with no repercussions or need to change their behaviour. He's clever like that I guess.

[–] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Honestly it is the ultimate synthesis of Christianity and Nietzsche. The saddest part is that it literally existed during his time period, he was just too much of a euro-centric to actually pay attention to what was happening in the U.S. with Protestant Christian ideology.

[–] vegeta1@hexbear.net 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

For sure and hell you'd think the story of the flood wiping out creatures would be a cautionary tale of overindulgence leading to destruction. You'd think a supreme being would be grounds for reducing harm to his creation atleast on a karmic scale or so. Even if you think the apocalypse is on a fixed date why anger this being until then? i-cant Supposed to be custodians and you decided to choose capitalism over the planet when the bible itself says the love of money is the root of all evil. i-cant

[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

you'd think the story of the flood wiping out creatures would be a cautionary tale of overindulgence leading to destruction.

no that would require media literacy and the theological freedom to think god could do something wrong

[–] BountifulEggnog@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago (4 children)

theological freedom to think god could do something wrong

This holy shit. These people will defend slavery and genocide just because their god did it. Because god has to be perfect for whatever reason.

[–] BeanisBrain@hexbear.net 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I was under the impression that in the Christian view, God is omnibenevolent, so whatever he does is by definition right.

[–] RNAi@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

But the oven of Arkhai or whatever proves God can be beaten by a stubborn rabbi

[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago

and iron chariots

[–] vegeta1@hexbear.net 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Hlariously different races, lgbt folks are not in this category i-cant they sure as fuck don't act like it i-cant

[–] BountifulEggnog@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm not sure I follow. I was giving other examples of where Christianity refuses to admit god was wrong. I don't understand what you're saying tbh.

[–] vegeta1@hexbear.net 3 points 1 day ago

I'm saying the same thing. For them god wasn't wrong on genocides or slavery but the way these ppl act they act like he was wrong on different races and sexual orientation.

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 1 points 1 day ago

Because god has to be perfect for whatever reason.

Monotheism doesn't really work without the proposition that the one god is perfect. At least not from any kind of ontological framework that I'm aware of. This is a simplification because I don't remember my Acquinas super well, but I think it more or less goes:

If there are good things in the world, and good things come from God, then God must be that which is good, and the bad things are the things that are distinct of and away from God.

If God was not perfect, then God wouldn't be whole (because there would be good things that are not of God). If God isn't whole, then not all good things could come from God, and there isn't anywhere else they could come from (no other gods they could come from, this is monotheism), then they couldn't exist.

Of course, with the way I framed it you could poke a serious hole by asking "wait but if only the good things come from God then why are there bad things" to which I say "there's not really any substance that is, by itself, bad, but there are actions which are, and maybe you should go read Augustinian philosophy about this instead of hecks bear dot net"

[–] godlessworm@hexbear.net 8 points 1 day ago

consistency has never been something you could count on right wingers or religious fanatics displaying

[–] AntiOutsideAktion@hexbear.net 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've been handed one of those little evangelical comic books that confidently said God wouldn't let any of his creatures become extinct, and that for example, dinosaurs still existed.

[–] PKMKII@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago

Now you know why creationists tend to be virulent deniers of climate change.

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think the term "creationist" almost always is used as a shorthand for young earth creationists that accept the Bible or another religious cosmology literally. Catholics and other Christians that only accept the Bible as a spiritual (but ahistorical) document almost all accept evolution and the Big Bang theory (hell, one of the guys who came up with the theory was a Catholic priest).

[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

old-earth creationists and evolution-believing creationists don't matter as much because they're not sabotaging public education

[–] Blakey@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago

Some OECs are I believe a bit of a worry on this account (they believe the earth is a million or so old, literal flood, minimal evolution, etc) but you're right that YECs are the majority of the problem.

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago

It's really just a slightly different ontological/teleological position that has very little effect on everyday life. Whether you believe the nature of the universe is divine or otherwise is not something that affects much of what you do on the daily.