Stuart McAllister said, “While an unexamined embracing of our culture is certainly precarious, the impulse to retreat may be equally as dangerous. Life can involve so much more than myopic self-protection. We have an exhilarating challenge from God to craft a culture of goodness, equity, and beauty. Essentially, we have the option to transform culture rather than run away from it or be swallowed up by it. The call is to live in the world, not of the world, but for the world.
Over the past decades Americans have been denied access to oil reserves located in the Alaskan Wilderness and off our coasts. These reserves represent nearly 100 billion barrels of oil. Recently Congress blocked a program to produce oil from a large amount oil shale (rocks) located in the Rocky Mountains between Colorado and Canada. It is estimated that this deposit contains as much as a trillion barrels of oil. Just 1/10 of that would increase our nation’s existing oil reserves by more than 400%. In addition, the technology exists to liquefy coal and turn it into gasoline. The U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of coal, and liquid coal fuel could powers cars in the U.S. without shortages for decades if not centuries. But Congress has also blocked the use of coal-liquefaction technology.
Now, with gas exceeding $4.00 per gallon, people are finally realizing that our politicians and their environmentalist alarmist allies are to blame, and that basic energy needs trump environment, but they have no idea what to do about it. Buying new light bulbs, investing in an over-priced hybrid automobile or refusing to purchase gas on Monday won’t help. The only way out of upward spiraling fuel prices is to abide by God’s “Creation Mandate.”
Gen 1:27-31 reads: So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living creature that moves upon the earth. And God said, See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the land and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to all the animals on the earth and to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the ground to everything in which there is the breath of life I have given every green plant for food. And it was so. And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good and He approved it completely.
According to the Amplified Bible, the phrase, “subdue the earth,” literally means to use all the earth’s vast resources in the service of God and man.
The “be fruitful” part of the mandate has been efficiently followed, as human multiplication has produced over six-billion human beings. The best selling book, The Population Bomb, written by Paul R. Ehrlich in 1968, predicted disaster for humanity due to overpopulation and the “population explosion.” Ehrlich predicted that hundreds of millions of people will "starve to death" sometime during the 1970s and 1980s, and that radical action was needed to limit overpopulation of the planet. Although it didn’t happen, this elitist viewpoint, that the earth is vastly overpopulated, is still held by some pseudo intellectuals who haunt the halls of academia. But God has assured His creation that the magnificent planet He created is well capable of feeding as many human beings as can populate it. Humans are in no way near to overpopulating Earth. If every man, woman and child alive today moved to Texas, that state would easily contain them, and allow over a third of an acre of living space for each individual. Famine is not a result of over population, it is almost always a result of either poor government management of resources or intentional government withholding of food to control its citizens.
Here’s an important point: If God has created a planet that can support the humanity that occupies it, wouldn’t He supply a mechanism to produce the energy that those people require? Of course He would.
We have all the energy that we need. According to Jerome R. Corsi, author of Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil, the deep abiotic theory of oil, that was developed by Thomas Gold, is a more reliable theory than the fossil fuel theory. Gold argues that oil is abiotic: "a primordial material that the earth forms and exudes on a continual basis" and is "pushed upward toward the earth's surface by the intense pressures of the earth's core and the influence of the centrifugal force that the earth exerted upon the specific gravity of oil as a fluid substance."
Says Corsi, The 1970s scientific study known as Hubbert's Peak, predicting we would exhaust oil reserves by 2003, has been proven false. We are currently sitting on more proven petroleum reserves than ever before despite the increasing rate at which we are consuming petroleum products. New and gigantic oil fields are being discovered at an increasing rate; in places there the fossil fuel theory would never have been predicted as possible.
Fear mongering alarmists warn that protecting our fragile environment is well worth the high price of energy. However the rapid recovery in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez accident in Prince William Sound has shown that God has provided a mechanism by which the earth cleanses itself. In addition, modern technologies assure that Americans can drill for oil, extract oil from shale, liquefy coal to fuel our cars, and extract natural gas to heat our homes, and still protect our environment.
With a little common sense directed toward resource management we will never run out of the energy resources that we need, even if we never put a single drop of ethanol on our gas tanks. In fact, the very idea of producing Ethanol from a food staple to be used as a fuel additive is not only imbecilic, it is a violation of the Creation Mandate. God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the land and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.” That means food in our bellies … not in our gas tanks!
As Newt Gingrich says, “Drill here, drill now, pay less!” The common sense use of the Earth’s, and, by extension, America’s, vast resources in the service of our citizens is not a sin; it is a mandate from our creator.
Interpreting the Bible to solve a practical problem isn't necessarily bad or delusional, but it is both if what happens is an IDEOLOGICAL fixation, if one doesn't allow themselves to be corrected by the evidence and practical conditions reality shows us.
So fine, be creative in looking at alternatives to foreign oil, alternative energies, be practical, look at reality, see where the resources are.
But having FAITH that one's actions will not result in bad side-effects or disaster, is DELUSION (whether or not a scriptural interpretation is used as justification).
If you must look for a religious way of stating this objection, consider it a question of the delusion of PRIDE. In all humility, we ought to allow reality to correct us, otherwise what option is there but arrogance?
This argument is heavily dependent on faith not only in an interpretation of a 3000+ year old text, but also in an attempt to reconstruct the intentions of a Being whose thoughts are supposedly not our thoughts. In other words: it is meaningless.
Some points:
1.) The word translated as "subdue" is kabash meaning "conquer, rule, dominate."
2.) If your citation of Genesis 1:29 is meant to preclude the use of plant material for anything other than food, then you will need to completely dismantle and reconstruct from scratch out entire technological culture.
3.) Unless one believes that planning for the future is moot because Jesus will come back soon, one would do well to develop alternative energy sources. Fossil fuels ARE finite, regardless of the extent one believes of our reserves, and as supply decreases the cost will increase.
4.) "Drill here, drill now, pay less" is meaningless demagoguery. Oil wells simply do not magically appear with a wave of a wand. Significant capital must be laid out to develop these resources and the costs of that outlay will be passed along to the consumer.
On some of the points raised - the costs passed along to the consumer for oil wells is, frankly, a nonsensical argument. This has been going on for the entire history of oil, and it simply does not outweigh the benefits of oil production. "Drill here, drill now, pay less" is neither meaningless, nor id is demagoguery. It is a rational and effective plan to reduce the pump price... cost of prospecting and drilling is simply not one of the objections to that plan.
I think one of the points of the article was that "fossil fuels" appears to be an improper moniker - because the evidence is indicating that oil is NOT actually from fossil sources, and that it is actually a renewable resource.
And speaking of that evidence... I would suggest that some discussion on what delusion actually is, and who is deluded may be in order here.
I'm not opposed to developing our own oil reserves. Instead, I'm all for it. I just reject the fanciful delusion that it will be be an immediate magical fix-it-all.
LVinvictus said: "If your citation of Genesis 1:29 is meant to preclude the use of plant material for anything other than food, then you will need to completely dismantle and reconstruct from scratch out entire technological culture."
I believe that the author was making a point about corn, which America has provided as a food staple for many starving nations, the rising costs and increasing scarcity of which are now making that valuable food source less available to those who most need it.
In addition, the author didn't say, nor does he believe, that oil is a "magical fix-it-all." But oil sure is more efficient than wind farms.
Speaking of delusion ... it's interesting that we have been trying to develop viable alternatives to oil for energy since before the Carter presidency, and, with the exception of nuclear power (oh yeah, we can't consider that alternative) we have yet to discover anything that is remotely as efficient as oil. So much for quick fixes.
It is also interesting that the proven oil reserves today are considerably larger than the estimated reserves during the Carter years. Hence, we are gaining reserves, not using them up, and we're not going to run out of oil for a very long time.
If we had been allowed to drill for the oil that we have always had, gas would still be selling for about $2 per gallon. Had we been drilling for just the last 5 years gas would still be well under $3.
I keep hearing that we can't drill our way out of the current energy crisis, when drilling is the only way out of the current energy crisis. And while we are using all that beautiful oil, that God has provided, we can still be developing those magical and elusive alternative energy sources that the libs keep talking about.
I'm willing to hear any information about abiotic oil, I have no way of figuring out how likely it is or not myself, I understand it is controversial, hopefully there is some truth to it.
I'm also willing to consider nuclear power, safety measures, security required, etc.
I see no problem with someone urging us to look into details involving effort, the cost, the locations of our own national resources, and how the use of these may help us out.
It isn't demagoguery to have a position. To urge us to drill here and drill now is a position on matters of prudence and practicality which can certainly be discussed on such terms instead of being dismissed as mere demagoguery. It isn't mere demagoguery.
My point had to do with the way religious notions are used on such issues. I'll grant you that for many propositions one may bring in religion to argue the point one way or another, just as they may leave religion out.
But the question of whether or not abiotic oil theories are true or not, whether we have enough resources of a certain kind, etc., have to do with things that can be investigated scientifically, and it won't be settled by religious rhetoric. It would be delusional to act as if one could settle such questions theologically or apologetically. They are practical questions and there are many practical scientists of various viewpoints who are working PRACTICALLY on the REAL aspects of the problem.
As an example, relying on the Bible Code may or may not inspire some scientist to solve the problem, because creativity and practical problem-solfing insight isn't predictable, but practical questions will be shown to be as they are by reality, by probing reality, by testing our theories against reality, against practical tests, etc.
Stuart McAllister said, “While an unexamined embracing of our culture is certainly precarious, the impulse to retreat may be equally as dangerous. Life can involve so much more than myopic self-protection. We have an exhilarating challenge from God to craft a culture of goodness, equity, and beauty. Essentially, we have the option to transform culture rather than run away from it or be swallowed up by it. The call is to live in the world, not of the world, but for the world. 
