religulous

If religion wants to get out of the way; fine with me. As long as it is not used instead of rational discourse to achieve a goal.

By the way, AGW is THE scientific consensus. Amuse me..do you believe in evolution?

 

'Religion' (a pretty broad category, here) is not in the way of science. A good case can be made that one religious tradition, the Judeo-Christian, has done more to foster the advancement of science than anything else.

You have already amused me with your assertion that AGW is THE scientific concensus. Science is not concensus. Science is about examining things in a manner that removes need for concensus. An experiment that leads to a conclusion must be capable of being reproduced by others to be accepted as factual. Unproven THEORIES are just that, precisely - theories.

AGW is the consensus of a certain set of scientists with a vested interest in its continuation. More and more climate scientists are questioning this 'consensus' on AGW, and it will collapse - as did the 'consensus' of scientists a few decades ago that we were on the verge of another ice age. Our proximity to the sun and what happens there are, by far, the greatest influences on our planet's climate. Now, of course, a nuclear holocaust or the collision with a huge meteorite, etc., is another matter.

The computer models that are used by the scientists contributing to the United Nations' overblown project do not even work when historical data are entered, much less when introducing hypotheticals. I believe this is a great hoax.

There are certainly more data supporting the theory of Darwinian evolution (to which I assume you refer ) than AGW. In addition, whether Darwin's ideas are true or false has nothing to do with whether 'God' exists for me. My experience of the Absolute is personal and personally convincing. You may characterize me and my experience as delusional, but you've never had my experience. In fact, what YOU now believe cannot shake MY belief.

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." ~ Charles Darwin "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life," 1859, p. 155

 

So, climate change is all a conspiracy, and Darwin himself didn't believe in evolution? Maybe you should have read the rest of the book.

 

If you are going to be delusional at least don't quote mine. The entire Darwin quote reads:

"....Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real."

The eye grades Darwin spoke of have been shown to exist or to have existed morphologically and with molecular biology.

Regarding climate change I think this is a bit more than computer models. These are measurements.

 

Alric, you have dredged up the famous and thoroughly discredited 'hockey stick' graph to show the 'reality' of Global Warming. Even if it were accurate (which it isn't - World Climate Report Hockey Stick, 1998-2005, R.I.P. ) it in no way relates to man's activities and the role of CO2 as a greenhouse gas. It is bogus 'scientific' information like this that is causing mass hysteria. Hysteria fueled by the likes of Al Gore who is petrified of having to defend his outlandish claims in a fair debate.

 

Except that the hockey stick I show was published this year...


Mann et al. (2008). Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia. PNAS September 9, 2008
vol. 105 no. 36.

No comment on your quote mining?

 

Galileo Galilei might disagree with that assertion

Thanks for proving you have no idea what you are talking about. If thats your level of understanding regarding science, you might want to go back to Community College and take a few classes.

By its very nature science rejects absolutes. Its entirely based on consensus. I do an experiment, observe the results, and formulate a theory to explain what happened. Another scientist repeats the experiment, gets the same results, and formulates his own theory on why this result occurred. If our theories agree, we have started to build consensus. Once sufficient consensus has been built, something can become accepted as "truth" and further work built upon it. However, at every stage along the way we always have to consider that our fundamental assumptions could be wrong.

Newtonian Physics is a perfect example. It was an excellent theory, that matched the results of every experiment and observation conducted for hundreds of years. Of course we now know that its completely wrong However, we still teach Newtonian physics today, because its an excellent way to comprehend more or less how the universe and world around us works. The majority of the scientific and technological progress made by man is based in Newtonian physics. You can design a spacecraft and orbital plan using Newtonian physics, and put it on the moon, right where you planned. The fact that you can prove at a subatomic level that Newtonian physics is wrong is almost irrelevant unless you are a particle physicist trying advance our understanding of how things really work. The existing theory, regardless of its flaws, continues to provide an adequate description of how things work for the time being. Someday, we will have a better theory that more perfectly explains how things really work. Thats how science evolves and progresses.

Like physics, evolution comes down to observation, and possible explanation. When you drop a ball on earth, barring external influence, it falls. That is observed to be more or less fact, as it can be reproduced by anyone, anywhere on the planet at anytime. That kind of consensus is as close as you can get to an absolute truth in science. Why it falls is still the subject of great debate. Newtonian physics does an excellent job of predicting how it falls, and gives a rational explanation for why. We now know that things are significantly more complicated than Newton ever could have imagined, but that doesn't change the fact that it does fall.

Similarly, a nearly irrefutable consensus exists on the fossil record. It is clear that there are many creatures who have inhabited the earth that are no longer here. It is also clear that there are creatures here now that were not here in the past. Furthermore, the observational evidence is equally clear that these creatures have followed patterns and sequences to their evolution. There is virtually zero disagreement on that subject. What scientists do love to debate, is how that change occurred, why one path was taken and not another, the exact sequence these events occured in etc. Darwin proposed an excellent theory on how this came about, adaptation and natural selection. From what we can observe in the world around us, and in the fossil record his theory matches up extremely well with those observations. So well, that the vast majority of scientific minds accept that he more or less has it right. Like Newton, the reality of the situation is probably far more complex and nuanced than Darwin ever could have imagined. But also like Newtonian physics, Darwin's theory of natural selection and adaptation does a really good job of explaining how we got here. Whether its exactly correct is more or less irrelevant. It provides an adequate description to allow much more advanced works to be built on its shoulders.

This brings us to "Intelligent Design". Is it possible that "god" is the driving influence behind natural selection. Sure. Is it possible that "god" created the world 6000 years ago and just created a whole bunch of fake evidence to make us think its much older. Sure. Is there any real evidence or scientific consensus to back up either idea? Not really. IMHO, the Intelligent Design proponents are intentionally exploiting the fact that science is open minded and avoids absolute truths to try and inject their close minded dogma into the scientific discussion. I do not believe that effort is being made in good faith, or with an open mind. At first many scientists said, ok we have to admit its possible, but here are the reasons why all your specific observations don't make sense. The ID folks don't really make any effort to further the discussion on these topics, they just go dig up a bunch of other little nuggets to try and prove their already predetermined idea of what the final answer should be. Thats not science, and consequently most scientists have given up trying to talk to these clowns.

Unfortunately the general publics understanding of science, as a product of our fairly miserable education system, is so poor that many cannot see through this non-sense.

Rob

 

Religious fundamentalists not only insist on believing things for which there is no evidence, but as a necessary corollary, they deny, and must deny the truth of things for which the evidence is overwhelming. And to make this a bit easier, they maintain an impenetrable ignorance of what science actually is. All the above can be seen in ufourya's posts above.

By the way, Tomas Aquinas had an interesting proof of the existence of god. (Bear with me here. What follows makes no sense at all. But it shows that the most intelligent Christian since Agustin could come up with nothing but nonsense.) According to Aquinas, Man can never be happy, because there's always the possibility that something could go wrong, and therefore the Christian god must exist. No, that does not make any sense, but it's the best that Christianity has been able to offer in proof of god in two thousand years.

 

Answer me a question daniel. Are the stars and galaxies accelerating away from the "big bang" point or are they slowing?

Wildkow

 

I saw Religulous on Saturday and thought it was great. I already had major issues with the Bible, and now after seeing this movie can't imagine ever stepping inside any church again, well except to vote because that's where my polling place will be on November 4th.

I also will be more confident when challenging others who put so much importance on a book that in reality calls for much harm to be done to others. :nono:

One thing I do find fascinating is how "Christians" can go to this movie and not come out questioning their "faith."

 

Has anyone else wondered if the movie title 'Religulous' is a word mash of 'religion' and 'ridiculous'?

 

One thing that has certainly been proven through simple observation from these threads is my point that mankind will utterly reject God out of hand without the evidence that satisfies them. Outside of this, God is simply foolishness to the natural man. God is Spirit, and there is no way to prove His existence with physical evidence. Since God cannot be perceived in this manner, it is concluded that He does not exist and those who believe in Him are just crazy fanatics. But the reality is that, at best, you simply cannot know whether He exists or not if He is beyond your ability to perceive His existence and chooses to leave most of mankind in the state of unbelief. All you can really do is insist that He must not exist if there is no physical evidence to prove it, and agree that any God who would purpose it to be this way isn't worthy of rational thought.

We all must admit there are things we don't know because we don't have all of the information from which to base a proper conclusion. Since God is outside the realm of man's natural intellect and physical evidence, man does not have that information. So what men do instead, in reliance upon their own understanding and insistence upon physical evidence of some kind, is to reject even the possibility that God exists. Men by nature (naturally) refuse God for not making Himself discernible to the senses. However, this is God's very intention -- to hide Himself from most, and to reveal Himself to some albeit through spiritual means. This dichotomy was specifically planned by God for His glory and shall remain so until the end of all things. Those who do not believe in God will simply laugh at this (or get angry) as a mythical fairy tale.

Everyone is, of course, entitled to their views and I certainly cannot change them (nor do I desire to force mine upon you). Likewise, I realize you will always shake your head at me for believing the testimony of the Bible concerning God (which Bible also requires spiritual insight in order to gain proper understanding). Belief in God will always be a matter of blind faith or circular reasoning to those who reject God based on humanistic thinking. The two are *wholly* incompatible, completely at odds, when it comes to understanding and believing in God.

As Walter Cronkite used to say, And that's the way it is. : )

This is not to reject the need for physical evidence that concerns many things in this world. We do live in a physical world and countless advances have been made through scientific discovery and so on. But it doesn't mean that every theory propounded by the scientific community is fact. I'm sure we can all agree to that.

 

Sorry for the long paragraph -- I tried several times to separate my paragraphs but the editor kept removing them.

Edit: Never mind -- had to use HTML tags for some reason.

 

(emphasis mine)

Talk about believing something for which there is no evidence.

What you have concrete evidence of in my posts is that I misspelled consensus. I appreciate you were kind enough not to mention it.

You will find no assertion on my part that I interpret the Bible in a literal sense or that I quarrel with Darwin's theory in the main - especially common descent. You might want to brush up on your understanding of fundamentalism. You're the one who wants to parse words, fearing that I might play semantic games with the word 'truth'.

In deference to your request concerning 'truth', what I have done is mischievously conflate multiple meanings of the word 'theory'. I apologize.

If you truly believe that Christians (or adherents of any other religion) are obligated to scientifically prove the existence of God, you should further explore the meaning of the word metaphysics.

 

The graphs are so small (I did not download the pdf and blow it up) and my aging eyes are deteriorating, so I did not notice they were the new Mann 'proxy-based reconstructions'. However, they have not escaped the attention of Steve McIntyre at ClimateAudit.org and others.

It was he and a colleague who first directed the world's attention to the mistakes in Mann's original 'hockey stick'. While there a great many data to digest, the folks at Climate Audit are already taking issue with Mann's new presentation and Mann et. al. continue to make changes as more problems are pointed out. They do so grudgingly and find others pointing out errors to be a nuisance - rigorous science and accuracy are so annoying when you're trying to sell the AGW snake oil.

http://www.climateaudit.org/

 

I saw Bill Maher interviewed (I think on the Daily Show but I'm not positive) and he confirmed your hypothesis; Its a combination of religion and ridiculous.

 

Well, it had a effect on me; and it just so happened to coincide with my thought process, as it was going on as of late.

But the movie did not change my mind; just was a confirmation to me that I was moving the way I should be...maybe it was sign from God!

 

It is.

 

But this is the problem. The fact that you can not prove something does not make it probable.

If I tell you "invisible faeries live in my fridge" the fact that we can't see them does not make it probable they exist.