gadgetlady

So you're saying Gore OWNS this investment firm (based in London)? I don't know. I didn't write it. Do you have proof and evidence that he's not? Unless you and I can dig down into some public record (and even then, we have to assume it's right) to cull the facts ourselves, there is a certain amount of reliance on outside sources. We all have to choose whether our sources are credible. We can use basic logic and reason and try to find tricks or confusing verbiage within the sources to gauge their reliability, but the bottom line is at some point we CHOOSE to believe one source over another. We also have to factor into this our life experience, which has an impact on those whom we choose to rely. You are choosing to rely on a certain subset of sources, and I am choosing to rely on another. I am perfectly willing to accept the possibility that my sources are not credible, but to do so I'd like to see a little more than someone jumping up and down and claiming and screaming at me that I'm trying to ruin someone else's reputation.

You're the one who's been beating me over the head to investigate things before they're posted, so now when I ask how to get to the core information needed to investigate, you get all huffy. This isn't what I'm looking for. This is a filing by Generation Investment Management, LLP. How would I know 1) how much Gore has invested with them, and 2) that this is his sole investment company?

My goodness! I'm just trying to understand. I've never seen an F13 form before so I don't know how to negotiate my way around one, or around the site that talks about them. Further, I don't see anything about an F13 form in the news article that I posted. Pretend I've never done this before. How would I find a public and comprehensive internet listing of the investments that Gore makes?

How will I find specifically Gore's investments here?

But how can one be sure it is current and comprehensive? Correct me if I'm wrong, but he is under no obligation to disclose his portfolio publicly. Therefore, how can we be assured that what he does disclose is comprehensive?

Where does one find a copy of his current investment portfolio and how can one be sure it is comprehensive?

Newsmax.com - Gore Has Personal Stake in Anti-Warming Campaign While I don't think it's inconsistent to invest in things you believe in, I do believe people should be aware that Gore stands to profit financially from the promotion of "green".

I disagree. I think how he behaves personally has a lot to do with his public positions. Look, if I go around the world proclaiming one thing publicly, but do another thing privately, that has a bearing on how much I truly believe what I am proclaiming publicly. You can say it doesn't matter, but I believe it does.

I think the sheer fact that you're working there would attest to your claim that they're safe.

They're two separate issues. Discussing Al Gore led to the discussion of global warming. I don't know why that's so difficult to understand and I don't really know why you're so hostile about it, but so be it.

And I again renew my question: why did a man who is presumably 100% "sold out" on the environmental movement take 5 years to complete "green" renovations to his mansion? As I said back in February, He's been on the "green" bandwagon for years. Why did it take someone exposing him for him to make improvements on his house? My dh and I put in a solar pool heater about 2 years ago and solar panels on our house just about 6 months ago. We do not fancy ourselves "green" by any stretch of the imagination. We did it to save money on our electric and gas bills. The only thing that stopped us from doing it previously was the cost. Presumably, Al Gore, who has had the funding source AND the "green" drive for many, many years, would have done it prior to now. IMO, if not for someone's exposing his hypocrisy, I doubt he would have done it at all.

The original topic was centered around environmental issues, one of which was the hypocrisy of Gore (not translations of the Bible or abortion, which we have digressed into).

Thanks for bringing this thread back to the original topic! We also do our best with a solar pool heater and now solar heat for our house (our goal wasn't to "save the planet" but rather to "save our pocketbooks" from rising energy costs ). I would love to have fresh veggies but our yard isn't big enough. We do have some fruit trees, but they don't accomplish much.

Pregnant mothers without life-threatening illnesses (which will kill them if they carry a baby to term) get to make all sorts of choices in their lives. The baby has no choice at all. Furthermore, we shouldn't willfully kill someone because another person's mental health may suffer. If the baby is part of the mother's body, then a pregnant mother has 2 hearts, 2 brains, 4 arms, 4 legs, often two blood types, and sometimes male reproductive organs. Saying the baby is the mother's body just doesn't fly.

I understand the point you were making, but you said ". . .is as crazy as saying that a human embryo is superior to a fully grown woman." My point is that no one person, whether the CEO of a major corporation or a homeless person, whether a disabled adult or a healthy toddler, whether a sex-slave in India or a prostitute in DC, has a greater right to live than another. Ours is not a perfect world, but when both parties can live, no one person has the right to kill another because they deem the other's life isn't worthy.

I'm sooooooooo confused. You were questioning whether Mary was a virgin at the time of Christ's conception, based on what the definition of the term "virgin" was (interesting that we're again dealing with defining your terms, BTW). What I said, "off the bat", was that even if the definition of "virgin" had nothing to do with sexuality (and I don't know; I haven't studied it), Mary and Joseph each had a reaction when they were told Mary was pregnant, and that reaction was lack of comprehension as to how. So even if the word "virgin" didn't mean "not having had sex", their reactions confirmed that they hadn't. I don't know why I needed chapter and verse to have that discussion.

Right off the top, without doing any research on this at all, I'd throw this back to one thing: Luke 1:33-34 and Matthew 1:20 -- describing both Mary and Joseph's reactions to the announcement from the angel -- contradict this claim. Because (or if) virgin meant maiden or young woman, that doesn't necessarily means Mary was NOT a virgin (as commonly defined). I don't see this as an inaccuracy in Scripture at all. I understand that you don't want to get into this, but I just have to say I've never seen any. I've seen claims of inaccuracies in the Bible all the time, but I've never had anyone show one to me.

Well, sorry about that. I don't spend much time, if any, on right-wing websites, so I didn't get the idea to define terms from them. For all I know, it's also said on left-wing wing websites. The need to define terms came from the logical assessment of the discussion of evolution. But it is not the controversial one. No one disputes natural selection, so to say that if you believe in natural selection then you believe in macro (molecules-to-man) evolution is not accurate. Precisely why the terms need to be defined. I didn't at all say that believers in evolution don't care about how their actions affect others. I asked the question: why should they care if the "other" animals don't care? Personally, I believe they SHOULD care. That's your belief and that's fine and I can see your reasoning in it. I have theological issues with it, just as you have issues with my beliefs -- and that's fine, too. Can you share some of the inaccuracies you've found?

Yes, I do live on the Left Coast and there are a lot of tree-huggers here – but I find that while we have them in a concentrated fashion, they are really everywhere. I have seen and heard of many situations around the nation where a landowner’s pockets have been drained for patently stupid “environmental” reasons. Woo hoo! We agree on something! I remember very clearly the Kuwaiti oil fires and the Exxon Valdez incidents. The reports were that we would NEVER recover and the earth would NEVER be the same. It’s quite an earth we live on with some amazing capacities for self-healing, because these events, while tragic and unnecessary, did not turn out to have the long-term dire consequences that everyone said without a doubt would happen. What types of "hideous products" are we talking about? I remember when plastic grocery bags came out. You couldn’t get your groceries put in a paper bag to save your life, because everyone wanted to make sure we weren’t cutting down too many trees. Then we discovered that plastic bags were causing their own issues, so you were given a choice: paper or plastic (gee, I like both – so I usually split it up LOL!). Now I’m hearing that plastic bags are about to go by the wayside. The point of my little trip down memory lane is that no matter what we do, we can’t seem to get it right. I agree that fur wool, leather, linen, and cotton are great to wear – but I also don’t have a problem with my crocs, easy-to-clean synthetic purses, and the like. Ah, we’ve come full circle, haven’t we? Please don’t misinterpret or misstate what I’ve said about unborn babies. I do not believe they are “superior” to their mothers, nor are their mothers “superior” to them. I believe they are both human beings and deserve the equal and unequivocal right to live.

I think many people who believe in evolution see human beings as the apex of the evolutionary chain. While this may not universally be the case, if you believe in evolution it shouldn't matter what any species, apex or not, chooses to do -- and how those choices might interfere with other species or the planet as a whole. Other "animals" don't question their decisions or have feelings involved with the killing of other species; for example, bears don’t feel sorrow for the salmon that they eat, nor do they use a pooper-scooper to clean up after their young. If all we are is animals, why should we behave any differently? You are correct: there are indeed people who believe in theistic evolution, or as they are often referred to, “crevolutionists’. They believe that God is the ultimate Creator, but he used evolution as his mechanism of creation, rather than the Creation account as detailed in Genesis. That is indeed what some people believe (as detailed above). I personally find some significant problems with that belief, one of which is death and destruction before the Fall, but that’s for another theological discussion (I think). Well, not really. It's actually mutation and/or natural selection (depending on the process involved, which varies depending on the bacteria). I think it’s very important to define our terms here. Evolution within a species, aka mutation, natural selection, or "micro-evolution" (as it is sometimes called), like bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics or the breeding of dogs to produce different types of dogs, isn't evolution. Evolution requires an increase in the quantity and quality of genetic information -- a change in the DNA. No one that I know or have ever heard of disputes mutation, natural selection, or change within a species. The debate is about macro-evolution, or molecules-to-man evolution. It is about change from one species to another, from a fish to a bird, as it were. And about molecules-to-man evolution there is much debate. I don’t think so. If you disputed man “evolving from apes” (or an ape-like creature), you would not be called an evolutionist (as the term is commonly defined today). Most certainly, scientists who subscribe to evolution theory would say you do not believe in evolution. I commend you for that. What I find especially troubling about most environmentalist wackos (for want of a better term, and as explained above meaning those who are completely sold out to the movement) is that they’re invariably very hypocritical. One day I’ll tell some stories about my environmental wacko, Greenpeace-donating brother. Right back at ‘cha.

I think the problem here is perception. I do not consider myself an environmentalist, but that doesn't mean I believe we should rape and pillage the world around us. I believe in a common-sense approach to the environment. I don't like to swim in an ocean littered with debris or pollution; I don't like to give my children polluted water to drink. I do my best to take care of my little piece of the world. The problem is threefold, as I see it. One prong of the problem is when we subscribe to beliefs that haven't been tested or proven (like global warming), and we make dramatic and life-altering law based on these unproven beliefs. I can remember countless claims throughout my lifetime of scenarios that the earth would never recover from -- and yet the earth has recovered just fine, in record time. The second prong of the problem is what results from making extreme environmental laws to protect certain species, which laws result in disastrous effects. Examples would be not cutting down dead trees to save a particular beetle, and causing an entire forest of dead trees to be more susceptible to forest fires which kill human beings (this happened not too far from my home). Another example would be droughts as a result of clams and mussels being protected. People's lives have been destroyed through environmental legislation that is aimed at protecting insects, frogs, owls, etc. It's foolish and foolhardy. The third prong of the problem is environmentalists and/or animal rights activists who value animal and insect life over human life. For example, the president of PETA has been quoted as saying, "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy." There is a Green Party activist in Finland who says he has more sympathy for threatened insect species than for children dying of hunger in Africa. I read an interview with a well-known environmentalist once (I can't remember his name right now) who said it's no secret that he's not very fond of the human race. When you put these three prongs together, perhaps it might give you a little more insight into why I feel the way I do about environmental movements. I don't hate the environment and I don't believe we should treat it as if it were our trash can. But I also don't believe we should go to such extremes that we grasp at any current fad someone calls "green" and sacrifice human lives for the sake of animals and insects. I believe in being good stewards of the world God gave us. He gave us the gift of a beautiful creation and we should take care of it using sensible and appropriate measures. On the other hand, what's always puzzled me is how evolutionists can be environmentalists: if human beings are the pinnacle of evolution, whatever they choose to do to the world around them is their right as granted through their evolutionary superiority.

LOL! Actually, it was the conviction of the Holy Spirit and a reading of portions of the 2nd chapter of 2 Timothy.

I've been thinking about this for a day now and I feel I owe an apology to everyone reading this thread. Despite any and all perceived or actual personal attacks, I should have been able to "keep my cool" and either respond with the grace afforded me by my identity in Christ, or I should not have responded (to attacks) at all. By allowing my personal feelings to get involved, I succeeded in allowing attention to be diverted from the actual issue at hand. I did not represent my Lord well and for that, you all have my humblest apologies. I will attempt to do better in the future.

Well, I don't know what you've been listening to on the radio or TV recently about this topic, but I'm wondering if you happened to notice the date of the ORIGINAL post in this thread?

I think he's a hypocrite and a sell-out and I don't trust the man -- for a variety of reasons that I've developed over time. It's clear you have a very high opinion of him and that's fine -- I just don't agree. I'm glad it made you think. It has made me think on this issue, as well, and while I believe there are differences (one being that a person's death is irreversible, while many of the things that I've seen in my life being claimed as an environmentally disastrous have turned out not to be so -- and many of the things I've seen in my life that environmentalists claim will solve our problems only exacerbate them), I do see your point. I think we use the term "wacko" differently. I don't necessarily see it as derogatory, but rather defining a person who is completely sold on any given issue. I use the term to mean someone who has no room for shift in their position. And yes, I have used the term to describe myself. It is clear that you perceive it differently (and I can see how you would reach that conclusion because not everyone uses it the same way my family and I do). I apologize for my poor choice of words. I should have expected some people would take exception with the term.