The Massive Ark on the Moon (very OT, but of high interest)

Jan 30, 2015 - 10:32am PT
I just mentioned it as a fun fact. That is all.

Balderdash and poppycock. You hoped to ally your canted biblical worldview with that of a man of science and letters. You, of course, never counted the number of books John Muir owned about botany, geology, Roman history, biography, or poetry. You have an agenda and you were looking for fodder to feed your fixation.

Muir owned a few bibles, sure. But an inspection of the extent library shows that many of these were New Testements, and not collections of pre- and antediluvian mythologies. Please don't attempt to fantasize about, or simplify Muir's complex and subtle religiosity to suit your own beliefs.

Muir was decidedly NOT a Calvinist. He memorized the Bible because he had to "endure" his father's literalist dictates, and avoid beatings as a child. It's unlikely he would have done so if his mother had played a greater role in his upbringing, and if Daniel hadn't been such an unreasonable and overbearing fundamentalist. (And we all know what a fundament is…) There is almost nothing in Muir's history to indicate that he an old-school, Old Testament believer in such things as Lucifer, prophetic invasions of celestial aliens, or any of the other nonsense that you posit.

Muir found evidence of God in nature and in science, and not in the weird interpretations of ancient collections of early Hebrew consonants.

Spirituality

It seems unanimous that John Muir was among the world’s most important
environmentalists. While many factors and events from his childhood to his
accident causing temporary blindness undoubtedly influenced his choice to
concentrate on “God’s inventions rather than man’s,” our focus is on his
spiritual views. John Muir’s expressions of spirituality cannot be separated from his actions to preserve wild places. His spirituality and
environmentalism went hand in hand. They were inseparable. By focusing on
his spirituality, we have the best chance to understand his conservation
ethic. However, we must exercise great care so as to guard against dressing
Muir in our own cloak of spirituality. Like anyone else, Muir believed what he believed because of how he was raised, the time in which he lived, what he read, heard, and experienced. In the end, Muir’s own words shed the most light on his spirituality like his actions revealed his environmental
commitment.

Childhood

Born April 21, 1838 in Dunbar Scotland to Daniel Muir and Anne Gilrye, John
Muir was their third child and eldest son. He attended Dunbar’s common
school taking the usual subjects of instruction such as Latin. Additionally,Daniel Muir required his children to study the King James Bible, including the memorization of lengthy passages. When it was all said and done, John knew by heart all of the New Testament and 75% of the Old Testament. He participated regularly in the training and activities of the local religious community, such as church services and his overall thirst for knowledge was unquenchable (Miller, 2005). In 1849 Daniel brought his three oldest children to America. The rest of the family followed once a homestead had been established in the Wisconsin wilds.

Actions of Faith

No longer under his father’s direct influence, in 1861-62 while at the
University of Wisconsin at Madison, he often visited and preached to Union
soldiers at the state fair grounds, urging them to avoid temptation and live the Christian life. He was known around campus too as one eager to share his faith (Miller, 2005). In order to give something away, you must first be in possession of it. John Muir’s efforts to share his faith suggest that he was actually in possession of such a faith to begin with.

A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf

Two thousand years ago our Saviour told Nicodemus that he did not know
where the winds came from, nor where they were going...

My First Summer in the Sierra

This quick inevitable interest attaching to everything seems marvelous until the hand of God becomes visible; then it seems reasonable that what interests Him may well interest us. When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. (p. 60)

My First Summer in the Sierra

I feel sure I should not have one dull moment. And why should this appear extravagant? It is only common sense, a sign of health, genuine, natural, all-awake health. One would be at an endless godful play and what speeches and music and acting and scenery and lights! - sun, moon, stars, auroras. Creation just beginning, the morning stars "still singing together and all the sons of God shouting for joy." (p. 98, 100)

There is almost nothing in Muir's history to indicate that he an old-school, Old Testament believer in such things as Lucifer, prophetic invasions of celestial aliens, or any of the other nonsense that you posit.

Muir found evidence of God in nature and in science, and not in the weird interpretations of ancient collections of early Hebrew consonants.

In 1867, two years after the close of the Civil War, Muir set out on foot to walk from Indiana south to Florida in order to botanize and observe wildlife. When he arrived in northern Florida, he was struck by the totally callous attitude of people for alligators:

"Many good people believe that alligators were created by the Devil, thus accounting for their all-consuming appetite and ugliness. But doubtless these creatures are happy and fill the place assigned them by the great Creator of us all. fierce and cruel they appear to us, but beautiful in the eyes of god. They, also, are his children, for He hears their cries, cares for them tenderly, and providers their daily bread."

"Nevertheless, like anything else worthwhile, from the very beginning, however well guarded, they have always been subject to attack by despoiling gain-seekers and mischief-makers of every degree from Satan to Senators, eagerly trying to make everything immediately and selfishly commercial, with schemes disguised ..."

That anyone would try to destroy [Hetch Hetchy Valley] seems; incredible; but sad experience shows that there are people good enough and bad enough for anything. The proponents of the dam scheme bring forward a lot of bad arguments to prove that the only righteous thing to do with the people’s parks is to destroy them bit by bit as they are able. Their arguments are curiously like those of the devil, devised for the destruction of the first garden. . . .

These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar.

Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people’s cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.