McBell
Admiral Obvious
Playing stupid does nothing for your credibility.
I already made my point:
You hide behind your faith.
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Why the Burden of Proof is a Bad Argument
- Thread starter Falvlun
- Start date
I already made my point:
Thief
Rogue Theologian
Reiterate.
McBell
Admiral Obvious
You hide behind your faith.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
And this helps the topic?...how?
McBell
Admiral Obvious
:biglaugh:
Thief
Rogue Theologian
Who's hiding now?
work in progress
Well-Known Member
Like I said - Christendom started adopting humanism, and its belief in linear, unending human progress a long time ago.
When it began, the humanism of the Enlightenment was developed by a couple of fringe, heretic intellectuals, that the Church authorities didn't trust: Sir Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes. And, it became the worldview of deists and later - atheists, but with the rapid improvements of technology in the 18th and 19th centuries, faith in progress and human ingenuity became almost completely universal...except for fringe players like some fundamentalist communities resisting change, while the secular movements suspicious of the hidden repercussions of applying new technologies were called "Luddites" and later "treehuggers" in our time.
And, whichever branch of Christendom you adhere to...looks like it adopted humanism and faith in technological progress lock, stock and barrel, since it became an unquestioned assumption! The simple rules of ecological limits, mean that a species which is able to exceed the limits of its available resources, and begin a rapid, cascading period of decline or population dieoff, which often leads to total extinction, if the dwindling number of survivors is too weak and too small in total population to have enough genetic diversity to rebuild population levels during a recovery period.
This happens in nature with isolated populations with no significant predators, living in small, isolated ecological niches, such as small islands. Today, we have to factor in the added negative effects of a rapidly warming climate and longterm pollution effects that are still largely unknown.
This reminds me...a couple of weeks ago, a couple of young Jehovah's Witnesses stopped by my door to offer their latest magazines and offer a bible study. The intro of the apparent leader, focused on how bad the situation of the world is today, and before he could get to the part about Jesus returning to fix everything, I was adding in a lot of recent findings from climate change studies, declining agriculture zones, water shortages, the still looming risks of nuclear annihiliation etc., to add to their list of signs the world is going to hell in a handbasket.
The difference between our worldviews is that I can see the Apocalypse, but I consider the 2nd Coming as an escape fantasy. The 2nd Coming of Christianity (other religious communities in troubled times have similar end time theologies) was supposed to happen in the time of Jesus of Nazareth, according to Old Testament chronology (the reason why there were a multitude of messiahs in Judea at the time), and a number of verses in the New Testament even call the first Christians the "last generation" and declared that some would still be alive when Jesus returned.
Every generation since then...living in troubled times of persecution or famine, form end time groups waiting for the 2nd Coming. But, the net result so far has been people waiting for his return....which doesn't happen....and the group splitting between an orthodox community reverting to personal interpretations of judgment and resurrection, and a fringe pushing the end of days further into the future.
What I asked these two Jehovah's Witnesses to do....and I ask all end time believers also to do, is to step outside their personal faith bubble and think about how it would appear to the outsider who doesn't share their beliefs. A useful example comes from an end time cult that arose among the Plains Indian tribes that were rapidly being driven to extinction a century ago, as their land and ways of living were rapidly encroached by large numbers of arriving European invaders.
A cult arose that was obviously inspired by Christian missionaries called The Ghost Dance. The cult had small, humble beginnings from a "prophet" named Wovoka who saw a vision during a solar eclipse. The Ghost Dance began as a pacifist movement, but by the time the rituals had been received by the Lakota (Sioux), they were teaching that ghost dance warriors were impervious to the bullets of the white man's guns...and were anxious to enact the promise of the ghost dance - the land being cleared of white settlers and armies, and restored to perfection with the return of the buffalo. The details of how the ghost dance led to the last uprising/or Indian war of the 19th century, and who was to blame is disputed between the recorded history of the federal government officials and the testimonials of the Lakota survivors of the uprising; but the end result was: the creation of an escape fantasy promising an unachievable goal, and a final result of faith demolished by reality when the U.S. Army unleashed gattling guns on Lakota village ending the wars.
Is the faith in a 2nd Coming of Jehovah's Witnesses or the nuanced different versions shared broadly by modern evangelicals any different than the believers in the Ghost Dance more than a century ago?
As I see it today, end time theologies create the same sense of detachment from reality and real dangers that the ghost dance did among the Lakota! More than a few Republican imbeciles in Congress...like James Inhofe...have cited biblical verses to justify their denial of climate change, let alone their denial that human overtaxing of natural resources can lead to destruction or even have negative causes. This is the kind of simpleminded faith that would be acceptable if it was held by a young child, but is dangerous delusion when it is held by adults...especially adults who have political and/or economic power!
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McBell
Admiral Obvious
You are.
Behind your faith.
Reiterating for you to continue to play stupid about it is not a high priority at the moment.
Though I freely admit I may well get bored enough later ...
AmbiguousGuy
Well-Known Member
Goodness. You have me pegged for a humanistic Christian, do you?
Maybe if you spoke less and listened more?
Anyway, you don't look like any atheist I ever met, and I've met a bunch.
work in progress
Well-Known Member
There are two versions of climate change denial:
1. denial that it is happening/or that it is caused by humans, with the implicit assumption that it is part of long, natural cycles.
2. recognition that our rapid carbonization of the atmosphere and oceans is a significant crisis; but denial that dealing with this manmade crisis can be achieved without major changes to our ways of life....consumer capitalism and constant increase in resource exploitation.
I don't find many atheists adhering to 1., but the vast multitude of atheist humanists it seems, sure adhere to that second version of denial. If someone believes that the increase in knowledge applied to development of new technologies unforeseen today, will get us out of near term future dilemma caused by rapid carbon increases, ocean acidification, overpopulation, overuse of renewable and non-renewable resources etc., then they have a faith in the unknown, and in these times of reaching resource limits, a faith that is the most dangerous delusion of them all.
AmbiguousGuy
Well-Known Member
Climate change always happens. There is no such thing as unchanging climate.
AmbiguousGuy
Well-Known Member
Yes... but climate change is also a particular term.
Climate changers should educate themselves about REAL climate change.
A ten-foot rise in sea levels? That's nothing.
work in progress
Well-Known Member
You need to educate yourself on the issue! The biosphere of Planet Earth is a living, self-regulating system that makes adjustments for optimal flourishing of life. For example: ever since the beginning of our Solar System, the Sun has been slowly and continuously growing in intensity. In the early times on Planet Earth, this meant that an atmosphere high in greenhouse gases was essential to keep the oceans from freezing over. It was actually approximately 2 billion years ago that the energy of the Sun was optimal for maintaining open, mostly ice-free oceans. And ever since then, heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels have been gradually reduced...until we came along!
Over time, as the Sun has grown stronger, the carbon sequestration effects of rock weathering and increased plant photosynthesis have kept the thermostat down by, first- removing methane as an atmospheric gas, and continually reducing the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere. So, the "changing climate" and resulting extinctions, are short term events that occur too fast for the biosphere to deal with, except by making gradual adjustments, and extinction and recovery takes millions of years to return to a diversity of life with many new creatures.
Aside from many smaller extinction periods...when species extinction exceed diversity and development of new species, there have been five mass extinctions in the past: one, primarily caused by an extraterrestrial event - comet/asteroid hit; one caused by rapid cooling - a period 440 million years ago referred to now as "Snowball Earth;" and three caused by sudden temperature increases due to large scale/long term volcanic events.
Of the past extinctions - "The Great Dying" known as the Permian-Triassic Extinction approximately 250 million years ago, is the closest match for what biologists are already calling our time - The Sixth Extinction. The difference between the P-T and the growing mass extinction of our era - The Anthropocene, is that this one is caused by deliberate action by a dominant creature that has released into the atmosphere approximately half of the carbon stored in the Earth as petroleum, along with a large percentage of carbon stored as coal. At the same time, this species's total population has grown to such large proportions that it has taken 40% of the Earth's arable land surface to grow its own food supplies.
About that gradually declining atmospheric CO2 level in the atmosphere...which has been maintained at below 300 ppm for almost one million years, this all came to an end when our population flourished and we started releasing so much carbon that it could no longer be absorbed. And now...during this past month of April...for the first time in between 3.5 and 15 million years, atmospheric carbon levels stayed above 400 and are rising at an accelerating rate of increase.
So, to put it all in a nutshell, our limited intelligence and limited time frames, have set us on a course for the greatest mass extinction of all time; and one that may do what the Permian-Triassic was unable to accomplish 250 million years ago - destroy all non-microbial life on Earth!
And yet, your lack of awareness and lack of concern are typical for most Christians and adherents of other religions with gods that exist separate and above their material creation. Some premillenialists...like the J.W.'s I mentioned previously, recognize the modern day crisis, but are expecting a divine intervention - cosmic mommy or daddy coming in to stop us and fix up our mess. Others just run with that Old Testament line that God turned us loose like a kid in a candy store - to subdue the earth and use whatever we like for our own purposes, good or bad.
Like I said previously, I see the humanists who set off in the enlightenment to create a world in our own image, as equally delusional about the issue of human limitations, and no better at dealing with a modern day crisis. The difference is that instead of having faith in God to save us/ it's having faith in the inventions of future geniuses to save us!
AmbiguousGuy
Well-Known Member
You Christians are just so much fun. I don't know what the world did for entertainment before you guys came up with your Sky-Is-Falling theology.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
Say that to the 70% of the Earth's population that live on coastal ground!
AmbiguousGuy
Well-Known Member
When they start whining, I'll tell them to go and study historical climate change and consider themselves lucky if they only got a 10-foot flood.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
Yeah well....
I'm willing to guess you live well away from the coast.
Guess who might come to squat in your front yard!
But I don't think we 'inlanders' will need to worry in our life time.
Our children though might have to rethink their life plans.
Sunny beaches might not be the norm.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
I'm pretty sure I just said exactly that. I also added that you shouldn't then argue for something when you find out you don't have evidence.
You say "actually" as if that counter what I said. I know a lot of people think they have seen God, but they haven't.
The point here is that the burden of proof is on someone claiming God exists. The other point is that believers lower their standard for evidence in the case of God. They accept evidence for God that they wouldn't accept for most other claims.
Again, this isn't new information. The point remains, though, that the burden of proof still falls on the person making the positive claim.
Aristophanes
Member
I am sure glad that in medical science it is considered good practice to demand proof before approving and using a new medical procedure. I guess however that our souls are not nearly as important as our physical bodies.