Secular Scientists…the Present Day Noah!
http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2012/04/17/secular-scientists-the-present-day-noah/
by Tripp Fuller
by Tripp Fuller
April 17, 2012
As for Noah, Bill Leonard asks a bunch of questions – good ones. Be wise. Listen to his awesome visit to the podcast & go check out his post on Noah.
If you wondered exactly what our modern day Noah has to say check out Paul Gilding’s recent TED talk ‘the earth is full.’When did the people of Noah’s day finally realize that what was happening to them was more than just a stationary front? Why do some religious folks take the Noah story literally but resist the possibility of a contemporary global catastrophe, one essentially of human creation?
Is biblical literalism clearer for the past than the present? How many glaciers must collapse and heat waves smolder before we literally read the “signs of the times?”
Wouldn’t it be weird if “secularists” turned out to be the ones who discerned earth’s impending judgment on our lives and lifestyles? What if global warming is true and we don’t have sense enough to see the planet itself as ark?
Like Noah, we still could labor together to find “grace in the eyes of the Lord.” Or just turn up the church air conditioning.
Published on Feb 29, 2012 by TEDtalksDirector
http://www.ted.com Have we used up all our resources? Have we filled up all the livable space on Earth? Paul Gilding suggests we have, and the possibility of devastating consequences, in a talk that's equal parts terrifying and, oddly, hopeful.
Paul Gilding is an independent writer, activist and adviser on a sustainable economy. Click through to watch the onstage debate that followed this talk.
Why you should listen to him:
Watch the debate with Peter Diamandis that followed this talk >>
Paul Gilding has spent 35 years trying to change the world. He’s served in the Australian military, chased nuclear armed aircraft carriers in small inflatable boats, plugged up industrial waste discharge pipes, been global CEO of Greenpeace, taught at Cambridge University, started two successful businesses and advised the CEOs of some the world’s largest companies.
Speakers Paul Gilding: Writer
Paul Gilding is an independent writer, activist and adviser on a sustainable economy. Click through to watch the onstage debate that followed this talk.
Why you should listen to him:
Watch the debate with Peter Diamandis that followed this talk >>
Paul Gilding has spent 35 years trying to change the world. He’s served in the Australian military, chased nuclear armed aircraft carriers in small inflatable boats, plugged up industrial waste discharge pipes, been global CEO of Greenpeace, taught at Cambridge University, started two successful businesses and advised the CEOs of some the world’s largest companies.Despite his clear lack of progress, the unstoppable and flexible optimist is now a writer and advocate, travelling the world with his book The Great Disruption alerting people to the global economic and ecological crisis unfolding around us, as the world economy reaches and passes the limits to growth. He is confident we can get through what’s coming and says rather than the end of civilization, this could be the beginning! He argues we will rise to the occasion and see change at a scale and speed incomprehensible today, but need to urgently prepare for The Great Disruption and “the end of shopping”, as we reinvent the global economy and our model of social progress.
Read his reaction to attending TED2012: "Will the techno-optimists save the world?"
Quotes by Paul Gilding
“It takes a good crisis to get us going. When we feel fear and we fear loss we are capable of quite extraordinary things.”
Watch this talk »“We can choose this moment of crisis to ask and answer the big questions of society's evolution — like, what do we want to be when we grow up?”
Watch this talk »“Our system — of debt-fueled economic growth, of ineffective democracy, of overloading planet Earth — is eating itself alive.”
Watch this talk »“The Earth doesn't care what we need; Mother Nature doesn't negotiate.”
Watch this talk »“Thanks to those pesky laws of physics, when things aren't sustainable, they stop.”
Watch this talk »