A Rebuttal to Emma Frances Bloomfield’s Article on Engaging Christians About Climate Change

Understanding Christian Pollution of Society & Environment

Photo by Li-An Lim on Unsplash

Christianity is a pollution of society, culture, and the environment through its dominant position that forces everyone to treat this nonsense as though it were anything other than fiction. In my research of Christianity and Environmentalism, I came across Emma Frances Bloomfield’s article on The Conversation U.S., “Understanding Christians’ climate views can lead to better conversations about the environment,” which proves just how deeply polluted our society is by this ridiculous religion.

Christians, evidenced by their majority voting for a party that does not support environmentalism, are quite comfortable with raping the earth of natural resources and have always felt comfortable opposing anything green. Bloomfield shows us this ridiculous position in her article when she cites a historian from 1967 who “argued that Christian beliefs promoted the domination and exploitation of nature, and therefore were incompatible with environmentalism.” Bloomfield then states, “Almost half a century later, polls showed that fewer than 50% of all U.S. Protestants and Catholics believe the Earth is warming as a result of human actions.”

Yet, Bloomfield sees this belief not as a byproduct of dysfunctional thinking caused by basing rationality on an implausible scenario but as a communication problem. She hammers away on this communication point, dividing Christians into categories of separators, bargainers, and harmonizers to reflect their “diverse range of attitudes,” not just concerning environmentalism but also climate science. Most importantly, two of these “diverse” categories of Christians, separators and bargainers, do not believe the environment needs any action.

What is most glaring about the polluted nature of Bloomfield’s discussion is the fact that she defines “total science denial” as a communication issue, evidenced by her book that she claims contains strategies to “engage with Christians about climate.”

Christianity’s opposition to climate change is not a communication issue; it is a total and complete failure of rationality and education due to a religious indoctrination that convinces people that somehow climatology is, as Bloomfield reports in the Christians’ words, “good causes to further evil agendas.”

The same faith-induced aversion to the science (that has for decades warned and continues to blare the siren to stop the escalation of environmental damage) is the same faith-induced aversion that convinces Christians that election fraud, government conspiracies, and minorities warrant blame for all their problems.

Like most academics, atheists, and the general public in the Western world, Bloomfield is utterly polluted with Christianity to the point that she, despite being an Academic and Communication scholar, sees this Christian perspective equal in merit to science. She must believe this perspective because no other reason explains how she deduced or suggests using her strategies to engage Christians in climate conversations:

– Strategy 1: Treat conversations as dialogues
– Strategy 2: Locate common values
– Strategy 3: Avoid relying on science

Bloomfield claims these strategies hold importance for us, but she says little about convincing Christians of anything except being receptive to a conversation about the climate crisis. Here is what Bloomfield’s Christian polluted strategies do not take into account:

Strategy 1: Treat conversations as dialogues

Conversations about climate change with Christians are not dialogues. Denying science at the start of the conversation defeats any form of rational discourse since Christians argue from an erroneous position. If you deny climate change, you essentially deny the sky is blue, and this is not a reasonable conversation. It is an exercise in lunacy equal to arguing with creationists, who also happen to be Christians in most instances, that the earth is older than 10,000 years.

Discussing climate change with Christians is not a dialogue since the conversation does not aim at resolving opposing perspectives. Instead, it forms an endurance test of listening to resistance to science in the form of bad opinions based on faith.

Christians are not capable of a constructive dialogue, as proven by their decades of denying climate change.

Strategy 2: Locate common values

One would assume Christians would desire climate change correction based on the most common value of saving lives, notably their own. Yet Christians resist the science of climate change because it is bad for business, cuts against faith by elevating science, or simply because they believe some nonsensical conspiracy theory that tells them climate change is “good causes to further evil agendas.” No matter the belief, Christians revealed the ridiculousness of their so-called values when they outlawed abortion for murdering babies while believing in their right to destroy the air and pollute the water that those children must now breathe and drink.

How can you share values with someone who has no consistent values?

Strategy 3: Avoid relying on science

Yes, you read correctly. Bloomfield thinks relying on science is a bad thing when engaging Christians because that makes them “double down” on their faith. Never mind that climate change is a science-based argument, Bloomfield wants us to rely on more than just science in our discussions, begging the question: what? Should we quote scripture as so many people do to try to convince the Christians the earth’s warming and pollution are killing us? Climatology is science and Bloomfield suggesting this strategy elucidates her dissonant thinking that recognizes climate change while simultaneously denying science as the means to this recognition.

This is like saying, “Do not argue there’s a pandemic using medicine.”

The Total Pollution of Logic

Now, the total pollution of Bloomfield’s argument and logic appears in the avoidance of science as the basis for a dialogue with Christians. She comes full circle in a desire to inspire Christians towards environmental science by embracing their lack of science that allows for their anti-climate views based on faith.

Here is the Christian pollution in plain sight, revealing just how nonsensical a person becomes in the desire to appease the Christians, not offend the Christians, and to reason with the Christians on their ground. Bloomfield thinks this way because she accepts, just like many other academics, scientists, politicians, and even philosophers, that Christianity holds equal merit to science. How could she not believe this about the religion when she has so brazenly asked us to ignore science when discussing climatology with Christians so as not to turn them away? If not, is she saying Christians are like little children: incapable of understanding basic science and in need of less complicated discussions? No Bloomfield is just another victim of our Christian-dominated culture that demands everyone be civil and constructively criticize while overlooking the false comparison of climatology and religion.

All the while, the earth burns.

Christianity is not science. It is not even philosophy. Yet we engage it as if it were, and this is the reason climate change views remain constant in Christians. We allowed them equal standing in the debate, sought an equal exchange of ideas with their irrational points, and tried to sway them to a rational conclusion. Clearly, they had no intent of entertaining an opposing view, however logical or scientific.

Bloomfield and others like her suffer Christianity’s total pollution of science, education, and all other areas of society that makes them believe we must deal with Christianity on the same plane of thought as physics, meteorology, oceanography, biology, geology, and of course, climatology.

All of these comparisons are false.