Dear Christians
18 November 2006 by Bob
Warren over at The Indigestible has us blogrolled under “Digestives” — thanks Warren! — and I wanted to point to one facet of his “Dyspepses” category (under “Stool Samples”) called “Dear Christians”:
Intelligent Design is Bullshit [...] Those of you who listen to authorities who tell you ID is worth pursuing: You are being lied to. Ask your church leaders why they are lying to you. Demand that they stop lying to you. You have nothing to lose but your ignorance. Which is not bliss, by the way; it is slavery.Stop Stealing Good Men’s Minds [...] The United States was not founded as a Christian nation; the founders, in fact, very deliberately avoided religious establishment. So stop lying about the roots of democracy, which is actually founded in the ideals of equal justice, intellectual honesty and education. Stop trying to corrupt children away from their birthright. Stop ruining this country. If you really want to experience life in a theocracy, try living in Iran for a while. And please, don’t come back.
Warren rocks. GIFS like Warren. Warren nice.
18 November 2006, on 3:06 am
Jeez. Thanks. I always like a nice mensch.
And hey, course you’re in the blogroll. The Indigesible, after all, is about reality, not mythical bullshit ghosts.
Such as this “god” thing I keep hearing about.
What is it with this “god” guy and lollipops, anyway?
18 November 2006, on 4:07 am
Keith olberman’s “Worst Person” Today is OKlahoma Senator James Inhoff - He’s the head of the Senate Commitee for the Environment and public works. Appaerantly he’s declared that global warming is from natural causes - due to the sun. “God’s still up there” he says…
Somehow I’m not reassured by god still being up there, maybe this guy shouldn,t be the head of the commitee for the environment and public works.
18 November 2006, on 10:39 am
jimmy dean, fortunately, Inhoff will soon be relieved of his position;
“Moving on to the Senate Committee of the Environment and Public Works, Sen. James “Global climate change is a hoax” Inhoff will be replaced by Sen. Barbara Boxer of California. I sure hope Inhoff takes his blood-pressure medication — he’s gonna need it. Boxer takes man-made climate change very seriously, so look for bills boosting alternative energy and bills to penalize, mitigate or sequester all things CO2.”
18 November 2006, on 11:00 am
Jeez. Shades of James Watt all over again.
Why, oh why, doesn’t anyone seem to have a memory deeper than a few years about this stuff?
18 November 2006, on 2:10 pm
Warren’s really cool!
Check out his link to “Freethunk” too. Hilarious cartoons by Nick Kim! ROTFL!
18 November 2006, on 3:28 pm
On a marginally related note, check out this embarrassing mix of American conservativism and good ol’ Xian stupidity:
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Candidate_spends_concession_urging_opponent_to_1117.html
Wow.
18 November 2006, on 6:00 pm
Yeah I’m with you on that. Xians please Cease and desist from your continued degradation of our freedoms.
Joel B.
Rae Hart Anderson is a frickin retard.
19 November 2006, on 10:37 pm
Jimmy Dean wrote:
In spite of his religious outlook, he’s right about global warming. The science is far from settled.
19 November 2006, on 10:50 pm
Revenant: Settled or not, it’s fucking high-time we (A) got off the oil and coal, and(B) cleaned up our messes!
It. Is. Not. Too. Much. To. Expect. Or. To. Want. Clean. Air. And. Water!!!
And safe food!
I never again want to read about Lake Erie dying, the Cuyahoga River on fire or that you can’t see the mountains surrounding Los Angeles for the smog.
Been there, done that. Keep the fucking “rewind button” for the VCR…
Naomi (sorry, Revenant–my anger is for Inhofe, not you)
19 November 2006, on 11:36 pm
Naomi wrote:
I understand, Naomi. I agree that we need to find clean renewable fuels, and to not give money to despotic theocracies (OPEC).
However, my anger is directed towards the “imminent danger” scenarios which have no basis in reality. When we’re told that glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates, or that it’s hotter now that it has been for half a million years, or that CO2 concentrations are higher now than ever before. These things are simply not true. Sea levels are not rising at alarming rates, the very small rises we’ve seen have been part of a continuous trend since the little ice age ended.
Suffice to say I don’t want to hijack these threads, but to me this is tied into critical thinking, as we all do with religion. The environmental groups have become like the Falwells, Robertsons, Haggards, Swaggerts, etc of the world, doing one thing and preaching another.
When Greenpeace wants to curb airline travel because airline exhausts supposedly warm the atmosphere (no proof to back that up), yet they fly all over the world, on vacation. You have to see through the hypocrisy. If they TRULY believed we were in sucha state of emergency, maybe they would actually practice what they preach.
The biggest problem here is that the public is spoon-fed ONLY pro-global warming stories and “proof” that humans are the cause. You have to dig for the real proof, which is that nothing out of the ordinary, as far as we understand global climate, is happening.
Case in point. None of the catastrophes predicted 20 years ago, that should have been happening now, have happened. No record droughts, no inundated coastal areas, no increase in intensity of tropical cyclones (hurricanes, remember, Katrina was a cat 3 when she hit New Orleans, which is middle of the road.)
And think about this: More people die due to cold in the winter than during heat waves in the summer.
20 November 2006, on 4:38 am
Uh, Revenant, most parts of Australia have been in record drought for several years. Just a small quibble.
20 November 2006, on 8:25 am
Tina wrote:
Actually not. Australia has suffered at least two worst drought events in the 20th century. And much of the current problem is “largely a result of State governments failing to keep infrastructure in line with population and development.” And regional rainfall trends have increased slightly, except for the southwest which has remained totally flat. (Australian Bureau of Meterology Rainfall Trends http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/rerain.shtml)
Not to mention, a regional drought does not global warming make.
20 November 2006, on 11:11 am
Hmm. In AZ, the weather’s been getting increasingly cockeyed for the last decade. They’re forecasting a high of 70+ degrees today, and that’s uncommonly warm for this altitude in this part of the state. We should be topping out at 55 or so right now.
In 2000 there was snow; last year was unsually cold early in the season.
Also, IIRC, Glacier National Park is going to have to be renamed Muddy Brown Mountains National Park pretty soon.
A healthy dose of skepticism is one thing, but the current situation requires a better response than something like “There’s nothing to see here”. Even if it’s not a human-caused event, the environment is undergoing change, and it’s happening fast enough that many people witnessing it now can remember when things were different.
BTW, thanks all for the nice comments.
20 November 2006, on 12:14 pm
Warren wrote:
But that’s just it, Warren. The global climate is ALWAYS changing. The quaint notion that we can somehow “control” something that hasn’t been proven to be out of control is incredibly dangerous.
After ice ages, glaciers recede, it’s what they do. Would you prefer a mile-thick glacier on top of your house?
Sorry for being sarcastic, but there really isn’t any proof that there is anything to see here. There IS a fantastic amount of scare-mongering, however.
Any time we become more aware of something, we’re going to see trends we simply weren’t aware of before. That doesn’t mean those trends didn’t already exist.
When the Climate STOPS changing, then we’re in for a world of hurt.
20 November 2006, on 1:11 pm
Just one last comment, Revenant:
None of the proposed changes are evil. Every suggestion is something we should have doing all along but in our “grasshopper” mindset, we’ve postponed changing our lifestyles.
If new industries crop up to provide innovative solutions to issues that can only grow worse as our population increases, the economy benefits. Our status-quo supports a stagnant infrastructure.
Coal and oil, in finite supplies, are so 19th century!
Better air-, water- and food-quality are things we should be able to depend upon. They are, after all, things we need for Life.
I see much more good than evil in addressing this. And if the planet is better for what we do about it, why the resistance?
Naomi
20 November 2006, on 1:56 pm
Naomi wrote:
20 November 2006, on 1:57 pm
oops, my response ended up as a quote!
20 November 2006, on 11:09 pm
Okay, Revenant–two absolutely final quotes (unless you start me up again)…
1) I think it’s important to remember that we don’t always get what we want. And that includes head-in-the-clouds green-ideologues. And as for Fiji (and elsewhere), the airlines need passengers. I believe it highly unlikely that that will stop. Hopefully, a better fuel can be found. (I know I’m addressing only one point; I expect that you’re getting bored with it…)
2) I view this whole debate this way: Our “cardiologist” has just told us the tests came back, and we’re in pretty good shape. However, we have decided on our own that it would be a great idea to lose the 70 extra pounds we’ve been carrying for the last thirty years. We know it will take drastic changes but, in the end and if we’re successful, we’ll feel so much better.
(This one doesn’t count: If I was able to relocate, the Pacific Northwest would be my first choice…)
Naomi
21 November 2006, on 10:27 am
Naomi wrote:
Lol, I would never intentionally start you up.
I won’t reply to the points here, but again invite you to my blog (click my name above) to debate further if you wish.
I do respect your opinion, and I don’t disagree with you, just so we’re clear.
21 November 2006, on 2:44 pm
Not trying to untin some nightcrawlers — but while I’m aware of the plasticity of the environment in general, a lot of what I hear from the “it’s not global warming!” contingent seems to resemble what used to be said about the AIDS - HIV link.
For a while there was a small but vocal group which actively denied the link between AIDS and HIV infection, saying that the apparent syndrome could be explined by more conventional means — mostly associating drug use and such with depressed immune systems, leading to immunodefieciency.
(This also tends to smack of the “yeah but” which seems to surface, again and again, in ID debates. Anyone wanting to find a hole in something will be able to; that is, there’s more than a hint of cultish thinking in the anti-global-warming contingent as well.)
That this planet’s climate is changing is undeniable; the question seems to be cause — or perhaps, just how much our behavior has contributed to change.
But to look at vanishing glaciers, crashing species diversity, and rampant depletion of natural resources and suggest we’re not having some effect on the world is the height of ostrichism.
21 November 2006, on 4:09 pm
Warren wrote:
When you say “plasticity”, is that a typo for “elasticty”? The climate is always changing, there’s no such thing, on a geologic time scale, as stable climate.
Of course none of these statements address the actual science, that’s the real problem. Do you know WHY glaciers advance and retreat? It’s largely to do with precipitation and less to do with temperature.
Glaciers have advanced and retreated constantly over millions of years.
Not sure what what “crashing species diversity” means (fewer species? fewer diverse species?), but again such things have always happened, and much MUCH faster than we can see now.
The notion that there is some sort of equilibrium in which “all is well” is a myth. the world has been warmer than it is now, and it has been colder. I for one, would vote for warmer rather than colder.
And yes the question is one of cause. Our best evidence does NOT indicate CO2 as being a major cause of anything except plant growth. It’s certainly not a driver of global temperature (please show me some evidence to the contrary.)
I am NOT against doing good things for the planet. But we have to do the RIGHT things. Setting up carbon trading schemes run by bureaucrats will net us nothing at all except more fat cats who will quickly become more powerful than the oil companies, because, of course, without them the world will come to a catastrophic end.
If you really believe that reducing a trace atmospheric gas by miniscule amounts will actually do anything then I really do feel sorry for you.
We need to understand BEFORE we act. Right now our understanding of the global climate is not something I want to bet our future on. If it can be absolutely proven that CO2 is evil and the bane of life on the planet, then by all means go for it. Right now, that’s not what the science says.
21 November 2006, on 5:18 pm
No, I meant plasticity. I’m not sure about the “rebound” implied in a word like elasticity.
Wow, you can’t seriously be in denial of, say, overfishing, overhunting, etc., now can you? You can’t seriously be suggesting that human-caused endangerments to, say, pandas, chimpanzees and gorillas are on par with, say, the Permian die-off … can you?
We’re more than a force of nature; unlike the average bolide we’re capable of acting wth volition. We aren’t spectators, living in a glass booth isolated from the rest of the planet; we are passengers, participants and drivers, all at once.
Denial of even a shred of human involvement in climate change simply doesn’t seem rationally defensible to me.
21 November 2006, on 5:57 pm
Warren wrote:
I have to say wow, too. You inferred an awful lot to my short reply on species. I wasn’t even sure what you were referring to, just asking for clarification is all.
As for “what we’ve done” to animals, I can’t really speak to it, since we value human life so greatly over all else, it’s simply going to happen. We simply can’t feed everyone on the planet without overfishing, encroaching on habitats, genetically modified foods, etc. Personally I think the human animal needs a good culling.
You also inferred more than I said in the rest of my statement. Did I say we can have no influence on climate? No I didn’t. I AM saying that in spite of all the hype there is no evidence of anything catastrophic occurring. I am NOT convinced, by any stretch of the imagination, that CO2, human-generated or otherwise, is driving global temperature. Or that a runaway greenhouse effect will occur as a result. If it were possible, it would have happened ANY time CO2 started to spike, would it not? And this happens quite often.
Please don’t put words in my mouth.
22 November 2006, on 5:05 pm
I wasn’t trying to put any words in anyone’s mouth; you appeared to be in total denial regarding some fundamental realities (such as human influence on the world we inhabit), and are apparently unconcerned about your unawareness of others (our behavior as an invasive species pretty much everywhere).
Comments such as
make it difficult to discern your intention; when you follow up with references to both overfishing and GMOs (one of which is a good thing), it makes it even harder to know both what you might be referring to and what your position might be.
As for culling … can’t disagree there. I’m moderately in favor of a Soylent Green alternative.
Huh. I wonder if I can register as a member of the Soylent Green Party.
22 November 2006, on 5:30 pm
[...] I’ve just read a post called Dear Christians at The Indigestible (seen first at God is for Suckers). While the post is itself interesting, in my opinion, the best part is a long comment by Abacquer in response to a typical fundamentalist trollish comment, which is perhaps the best refutation of the “god of the gaps” fallacy I’ve ever seen. [...]
22 November 2006, on 5:51 pm
Warren wrote:
As with god, I’m in denial of that which hasn’t been proven to my satisfaction. Perhaps there is enough evidence for you that we’re causing extreme global warming due to increased CO2, but I’m not at all convinced. When I hear proclamations of melting ice caps (they’re not), dramatically rising sea levels (they’re not) as fact, when they aren’t facts, what am I to think of those making such proclamations?
I made references to overfishing and GM foods because most green groups are against both.
I don’t always have a position on everything, lol, my brain hurts enough as it is. If this helps, I’m for GM foods, provided adequate testing is performed. After all, we’ve been genetically modifying food plants since we started agricuture howerver many thousands of years ago, through hybridization. I’m against overfishing, but I’m not sure what the solution might be. Farmed fish seem to have their own hazards.
Lol, now I have images of riot control trucks dumping people into the hopper like yesterday’s garbage.
22 November 2006, on 5:51 pm
Crapola! My response got “quoted”!
22 November 2006, on 6:17 pm
Joo gotta close the blockquote tag!
Evidence seems to be that the Antarctic glacier is in fact receding, as are the polar packs in the boreal reagion. This is one reason polar bears are in trouble.
Attribution of the problem to strictly human causes might be over the top, but we have been contributors.
I’m heavily in favor of GMOs given (as you say) the provision of testing — it’s silly to turn away from a science that will save lives. It’s very easy, if you’re a well-fed citizen of a rich nation, to bleat about organic this and non-GM that; but when you’re in sub-saharan Africa and your children are starving to death, the view is a little different.
As to fish — there are some advances in aquaculture that might allow farmed fish to be harvested right out of the middle of major urban areas … and then there’s the possibility of cloning fillets and growing them in a nutrient suspension of some kind. (Which would really put some vegetarians into a strange, strange space.)
22 November 2006, on 6:24 pm
Revenant…block quote fixed.
26 November 2006, on 4:21 pm
thank god i’m an athiest oh wait a sec that doesn’t work