Lynch finds a strange argument against climate change.
My biggest argument against putting the primary blame on humans for climate change is that it completely takes God out of the picture. It must have slipped these people’s minds that God created the heavens and the earth and has control over what’s going on. (Dear Lord Jesus…did I just open a new pandora’s box?) Yeah, I said it. Do you honestly believe God would allow humans to destroy the earth He created?
Well, actually…let’s think this through. At least the guy has made a discrete argument, that there are certain phenomena that are incompatible with the god hypothesis. He’s got it backwards, trying to fit the data to his hypothesis, but I prefer to think of it this way: if a god would not allow humans to destroy the earth, but humans are destroying the earth, then there must not be such a god.
Hey, didn’t that guy Augustine say something about pegging your faith to issues of science?
That guy Augustine said a lot of things. And that guy Nero had his horse put in charge of Rome for a day. Damn Romans.
One good thing about fundies is that they never let the facts stand in the way of faith.
Fuckwits.
Morph
But what if god wants to punish us? Hasn’t this guy been watching his Pat Robertson?
What we have here is Genuine Dangerous Thinking…
Yes, so let’s all just go out and get our Hummers…
Once again: Nihilism, Inc.
Extinction is a blasphemous concept. The Lord God wouldn’t permit his creations to cease being.
Ergo, there must be passenger pigeons aplenty. They’re just… hiding.
“Do you honestly believe God would allow humans to destroy the earth He created?”
Why the hell not? He’s trashed it enough himself.
“Do you honestly believe God would allow humans to destroy the earth He created?”
Yes, isn’t that what “free will” is all about? Second, we’re not DESTROYING the planet, just changing it. Third, we’re only destroying (er, changing) ONE planet, not “all of God’s creation”.
Fight for education and understanding:
http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8797
I’ve thought of a good way to stop global warming. We should cull all religious people. That would greatly reduce the carbon footprint of humans, increase the average global IQ, and eliminate the need for military spending. All we need to do is invent a virus whose only effect is whenever somebody both says and means “I believe in God” their brain explodes. Go to it, folks.
While I and others like me know you’re joking, Evil Overlord, this is exactly the kind of thing Religious nut-burgers will cut, paste, and trot out when they’re asked “Why do Atheists inspire such hatred?” I know people like Pat Robertson say things like that all the time, but that’s exactly why you shouldn’t, we have to be better than them.
So while it’s just in jest (or at worst wishful thinking) I implore you to refrain from speaking of ‘culling’.
Interesting. Isn’t this essentially the “problem of evil” argument? Strange that it’s coming from a fundie, though.
“And that guy Nero had his horse put in charge of Rome for a day.”
I thought that was Caligula.
According to Dante, Hell lies at the center of the earth.
Assuming a constant percentage of humans are sinners and go to Hell (a conservative assumption–in these decadent times, the percentage of the damned is likely increasing?), the exponential increase in population will inevitably mean that the population of hell is also exponentially increasing. If the process of damnation is even slightly exothermic (scripture describes sinners as “burning”, which would suggest this), then we clearly have an explanation of geothermally-induced global warming that is consistent with Scripture.
EvilOverlord – they’ve already got this planned for themselves. It’s called the rapture. If the rapture actually happened, then all of the sensible people would be left behind.
I wish I believed in the rapture, just so that I could look forward to it!
Hey, maybe we could use this to get all of the god botherers on board with reversing the global climate change!
The reasoning goes like this:
Humanity is supposed to be the shepherd to the earth (or some such idea, it’s been a looong time since I read the Bible). Wouldn’t god be really mad if we ruined all of his toys just because we like our fossil fuels so much? Therefore, taking care of god’s creation means reversing global climate changes!
Yeah, I know it’d be a hard sell.
Riiiight. God won’t allow humans to destroy the Earth with global warming, yet the person making that claim no doubt believes the events supposedly detailed in Revelation are just a few short years away. If you do believe in that stuff God is hardly going to be worried about a bit of global warming when he intends to let untold millions, or is it billions, be killed as part of the Second Coming.
Howie,
People are supposed to go to heaven or hell AFTER the final judgment, are they ? So I supposed hell and heaven are currently… empty.
The quote is from an editorial/viewpoint piece originally in 2005 but updated on February 7, 2007, by a local weatherman in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Chris Allen, see http://www.wbko.com/unclassified/1270907.html. His bio doesn’t provide any information on his educational background. It is interesting to see his entire comments in light of the fact that this is a TV weatherman with a regional audience in the Bible belt.
Mr. Allen requests comments be sent to: [email protected]
This is ironic, coming from someone who no doubt believes that God on one occasion destroyed the whole surface of the earth with a giant flood — allegedly, because of humanity’s evil. Given that precedent, how can he say what his God will or won’t permit?
This guy is proof of the irrationality coming from those who believe in the unseen and unprovable. Love and thought are unseen but imminently provable through expression.
God, however, allegedly created and set this universe in motion. But it is questionable whether God is still present in his creation or not. Theology is still out on that as far as I know.
There are far too many contradictions in Christian theology and teaching to be useful at a human level. They want their cake and eat it too but that will only happen when they finally realize that God is nothing like they concieve it to be.
“God on one occasion destroyed the whole surface of the earth with a giant flood — allegedly, because of humanity’s evil. Given that precedent, how can he say what his God will or won’t permit?”
The Bible says that the rainbow is the sign of his covenant to never do that again (at least with water)
In Genesis 9:11: “I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
If I hear that complete BS phrase “we’re destroying the Earth” ONE MORE TIME I’m going to go postal. I care not whether it comes from the left or the right or [bleeping] Al [bleeping] Gore!
We’re NOT destroying the Earth…the Earth is going to go right on it’s merry way. It cares not one whit for us because it’s a large ball of rock with some organic scum on the surface.
We, being part of that organic scum, are going to screw up our ecological niche, wipe out a whole lotta species, probably re-arrange the coastlines a smidge, but the planet will largely remain untouched.
Life will continue. Something’s gonna win out in Darwin’s race.
It just might not be us.
I want to scream “We’re not destroying the Earth, you asshats, we’re destroying OURSELVES!!!”
But then they go on about the Sky Fairy, and I start banging my head on the desk…
I think that the flaw in the argument is that God wouldn’t let humans destroy the world he created. I think most religious fanatics would say that it is all part of God’s plan and that it is written in revelations. Or they’d just say that global warming is a lie created by the left wing media to undermine the poor oil companies.
PolSci –
Believe it or not, there is actually a movement among some evangelicals using that very point of view. Sky fairies or not, there may be some hope after all.
Bruce there was a small part of the origins of man exhibit at the AMNH.
It pretty much states that the environment is changing to the detriment of man which is preventable and that if we don’t change our ways the earth will just continue to change without us. The earth does not care. Our existence could be just a scar on the surface in 1000 years. Modern man would be just a 6,000 year blip in the history of the planet.
There’s no guarantee the climate will favor us just because we’re here. We’ll die out, species will evolve and life continue for hundreds of thousands of years. We just won’t be around to see it.
This is the letter I sent to Mr Allen:
Dear Mr Allen;
I find your comments regarding the human impact on global climate change to be rather interesting. On the one hand, you don’t think that there is enough scientific evidence of human impact, despite an overwhelming consensus of the best and brightest climatologists in the world, and on the other you are willing to believe – without any scrap of evidence whatsoever – in a supreme being who has a keen interest in you, your life, and the lives of all the billions of people in the world.
I particularly enjoy statements such as “Funny…I haven’t heard a word about man-made global climate change since this cold spell took over” I suppose it is difficult to hear with your head so firmly impacted in the sand. Perhaps your head isn’t in the sand but is firmly planted elsewhere.
The truly flabbergasting part of all of this is that you have a platform from which your supreme ignorance can be spewed and influence the gullible. Rubes certainly deserve to be fleeced by preachers shilling for god, but television viewers tuning in for the weather deserve to get the science behind the weather, not fairy stories based on bronze age superstition. If you are unable to reconcile your “faith” with reality, perhaps you should find another line of work where you will do less damage to the public: village idiot springs to mind – you can continue to entertain, while doing no real harm.
Thank you for your kind attention to this matter.
The Bible says that the rainbow is the sign of his covenant to never do that again (at least with water)
In Genesis 9:11: “I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
Thank you; I knew that. Doesn’t say anything about preventing us from fouling our own nest to the extent it kills us, does it? (Hey, if we’re gonna be Biblical literalists, then let’s be Biblical literalists…). But my comment (before butchering) related to the irony of his silly views: that given his God doesn’t have all that good an environmental record himself, on what basis does he claim the Almighty will magically rescue the planet from our folly?
A Christian environmental ethic (and there are such) is a nice thing to see, for pragmatic reasons alone — but we’re never going to get one from denialist dorks like this.
well yeah, he’s so busy “opening and closing wombs”, designing new protein mutations, cutting and pasting all sorts of *stuff* to make earth work, listening to prayers, and damning heathens that he didn’t notice we had an industrial revolution and now we “spray the heavens” with greenhouse gases. His bad; we’re screwed.
There is no “god hypothesis” until you define “god”, and everyone has different definitions, usually vague, substanceless generalities. Tha goes for all potential supernatural/paranormal entities, e.g. ghosts, souls, poltergeists, river sprites etc…
Archive that webpage. Someday this jokster will claim that he “never made that statement” (just like a more prominent global warming denialist that I could mention).
What a selfish idiot.
We are referring to the ‘god’ who claimed responsibility for the Great Flood et.al…
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
“I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
God, being a clever lawyer, left himself a loophiole in this contract. This time the rising waters will not cut off all life; the fish and cocroaches will do just fine . . .
Hey PoliSi –
E. O. Wilson, entomologist and humanist, actually already has out a book called “The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth.” In it, he appeals to the religious folks to help stop global warming. That’s all I know about it – haven’t read it.
After reading all the replies, it’s obvious that people don’t appreciate the things God has given us. I don’t think God is ready to turn over the Earth’s affairs to mankind yet. So the Earth has warmed 1/2 degree over the past 100 years – big deal. I’m glad I listen to God instead of man. He makes a lot more sense.