"1. Figure out how this science fits in with God -- so, IF you believe the earth is 6000 years old (and *I* never said I did, by the way!) and science says it is 6 billions or a trillion years old, then you figure out HOW the universe *measures* accurately as that old. The way this happens is God created the universe with age. *I* *NEVER* said I believe the universe is 6,000 years old, though. I gave an explanation as to how one might believe it."

-This is a good sample of the line of argumentation that I no longer have the patience for. :D

I presume everyone is familiar with the mind/brain identity line of philosophy and the functionalist viewpoint. We can similarly take a functionalist viewpoint of evolution/creation, and, if we can get the crazies to accept the compromise, then we can continue science in a profitable way. It's getting the crazies to say, "Okay, yes, that is how the world works, but god made it that way, okay?" That is difficult. As soon as they accept the world works the way science says, we can progress with them. So long as they refuse to accept how the world works, then we are dealing with, for lack of a better term, primitive people. I wish we could bring the whole world to an enlightened view of life, the universe, and everything, but until then, I'll settle for making them functionalists.

No, everyone is not.

:-)

Indeed we're not.

@Octavious, re: climate change in Britain.
I do believe "anthropogenic climate change" encompasses more than temperatures going up a few °C everywhere, but rather extremities in the weather. "Global warmer" doesn't necessarily imply that GB will be warmer and it doesn't imply it will be warmer all year long. But I'm not an expert in this field. :S

@Draugnar "But panicked Chicken Little "the sky is falling down" responses aren't the answer. This country, at least, seem to be run by two sets of nut jobs."

That's my point. The responses aren't panicked. They are justified and you are pretending they aren't. Something needs to change.

@Krellin

Oh hell no. You don't get to express an opinion on this. Ever again. See evidence from the last two times you tried to. You are an idiot. Don't MAKE me link to that shit again for the laughs of all.

@Dubm - I probably qualify as one of the "functionalists" as I see science as a means to discovering the supreme being's creation and how it works. I accept all that science proposes, including an earth that is billions of years old and a universe even older than that. I just see a higher power at work and as being the why to science's how.

But I do have to take exception to you declaring yourself (and all of atheism) enlightened. Perhaps you are the one not enlightened by not recognizing the possibility of a higher power. I don't ask you to believe in one, just to accept that it is possible for a being outside of space and time to have laid down the laws of physics ad created such a wondrous place. I don't necessarily view humans or even earth as special. I fully believe that in the vast universe there may well be other living creatures and some of them may even have developed intelligence, even to the point of being beyond us in understanding the universe. I've often thought Clarke and Kubrick's vision of 2001 and 2010 as being a possibility. Not just pure fiction like a fantasy novel (ala Lord of the Rings) but true science fiction and speculation as to our origins.

So perhaps the enlightenment is both ways. You have a certain enlightenment in looking inward to changing the world around you and I have it in realizing that we may not be alone and, in fact, life on this ball of rock and water may be from a higher intelligence.

"If mankind dies, how is this a bad thing?"

ROFL. I believe this is the guy who says that the answer to whether ID is true has 0 real effects? Well HERE is a real effect. Psychos like you who think our extermination is AOK because God will take care of us.

@YJ - Your opinion is that it is urgent and catastrophic. But while you have scientists that back your reactionary panicked and over-excited view, the other side has scientists who think like krellin and there are scientists who say we are having an impact but not the radical one you think. When it comes down to it, you panic while I stay rational and say "study it and come to a better consensus before we do something rash that could do more harm than good".

I disagree that people who believe that the earth was created 6000 years ago in a six day period are primitive. They are simply wrong on this issue, because we have scientific evidence to prove them wrong.

As for God, evolution does not necessarily exclude the possibility of a God. Evolution states that God isn't necessary to explain the mechanics of the existence of life, not that God doesn't exist at all.

'I'm not sure where you're getting this idea that all atheists are/should be nihilists. We have no god to make things better for us; if we want change, the responsibility solely rests on us.'

+1 to that. Not something I often feel the need to say. But well said.

Some people believe in God, and choose to value the word of God above all other things. Atheists are more flexible, they can choose to value things such as happiness of their family, or social cohesion, or a fairly selfish 'ease of living' - making ones own life as easy as possible.

Atheists probably have as much disagreement among themselves as theists do. Look at the major divisions of one of two of the major world religions. Judaism (in a variety of forms), Roman Catholicism, Protestantism (in it's many forms) Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Shia Islam, Sunni Islam - all minor variations of the same 'one allpowerful god, creator of the universe, makes everything happen'.

Equally, nihilistic atheists is just one variation on the 'naturalistic, no god, universe actually exists and is awesome all by itself!' - actually, i might assume that nihilistic atheists are those who have just rejected God and become lost in their moral values, they may even be more likely to turn back to God (or 'find their way') Most of the Atheists I know are far more stable and balanced.... They have built their own moral framework based on cultural value and personal expierence...

And the award for most pretentious start of a post in this thread goes to ......

Dumbell:
"I presume everyone is familiar with the mind/brain identity line of philosophy and the functionalist viewpoint."

Too funny, I hope you were joking, because the rest of your post seemed well thought out. But seriously dude, before "presuming" something like that, remind yourself where you learned it and at what point in your life and then really consider if it's reasonable to presume such a thing on this forum or this thread. Otherwise you come off sounding like a tool

'So long as they refuse to accept how the world works, then we are dealing with, for lack of a better term, primitive people. I wish we could bring the whole world to an enlightened view of life, the universe, and everything, but until then, I'll settle for making them functionalists.'

No idea how you define 'primitive' - we are all working with models of how things work. Simple models which are personal to ourselves, models which we express in a variety of ways, models which we use to teach concepts, models which we had in the past and still have historic value, models which we hold today which are at the cutting edge of our understanding - however these last ones are the most volatile and most detailed, the details are vulnerable to change specifically because they are new and have very little evidence to back them up - also they are only understood by a small number of individuals who are working on them...

We are all primitive in some sense of the word. And then you're just talking about shades of grey.

'"If mankind dies, how is this a bad thing?"

ROFL. I believe this is the guy who says that the answer to whether ID is true has 0 real effects? Well HERE is a real effect. Psychos like you who think our extermination is AOK because God will take care of us.'

be fair. Extermination and 'mankind dies' are two different things. There may be those who say that mankind being wiped out by an asteroid wouldn't be soo bad... or killed by their own stupid intelligence (maybe nuclear weapons) - while that would count as extermination, al biet by different causes, one natural and the other human... eh, humans are natural... but you can see the difference...

There are other alternatives, like if humans collectively decided to stop reproducing (not what we've evolved to do, but some humans choose this option) and then die quietly in their old age... what would you call that? certainly a psychotic extermination.

Honestly, I'm not even sure you all exist.

Any moment now I could wake up a cave man or space man and think what a weird dream until it quickly fades away and I can barely describe it to others.

But, I'll make the best of what I have hear and now regardless.

@Krellin,

"1. A species going extinct is *not* a huge detrimental effect, as 99.9% of all species have gone extinct over the course of global history"

Perhaps, then, we must define our terms, that global warming/climate change is not necessarily a detrimental effect for the earth, but is extremely detrimental to the life thereupon.

redhouse - 'I disagree that people who believe that the earth was created 6000 years ago in a six day period are primitive. They are simply wrong on this issue, because we have scientific evidence to prove them wrong.'

Your certainty is interesting. Assuming I had access, I could insert a game into webdip with all of the data to make it appear to have history. All of the orders and in-game communications and such. Anyone looking at it would think it had started as a normal game. Looking at the messages and order history would clearly indicate that the game had started normally at some point in the past. And yet in reality, *poof* it came into existence just so.

The universe could have been created 6000 years ago just so. And of course the scientific evidence would state otherwise.

Practically it makes sense to believe the evidence and work with what we've got. But to not allow even one iota's chance of something else is to curtail your own imagination and to eliminate possibilities you haven't even considered.

@ora .- A better .term than natural or man-made when referring to causes of events would be self-incurred or external. After all, if it exists, it is natural as we are creatures of nature therefore our creations are, by extension, natural.

@Alderian,
I categorically refuse to do business with a "God" who creates a Universe six thousand years ago and then "tricks" me into thinking it is really six billion years ago. It seems a very petty thing to do for a being that, if it exists, is omnipotent and omniscient.

@Alderian, I know we can't explain God's decision to do things. But, to me, it is idiotic to think that God would do what you claimed he could have done. I refuse to believe there is an omnipotent, omniscient being that would would resort to such tricks. What you suggested doing is a purely human desire to trick and fool people to feel superior because you pulled one over on those dopes who fell for it. God doesn't need to do such silly shit to convince himself he is better than us, he is just simply just better than us.

It is very interesting, and strange IMHO, how both of you (redhouse and smcbride) went to the word "trick" with heavy negative overtones.

Back when I played D&D and other such role playing games long ago, I wasn't mad at the DM for tricking me by having my character and the other characters all starting in a tavern in a pre-setup world whose history our characters were supposed to believe in. The DM didn't do it to pull one over on us or make him feel better than us. He did it to give us an interesting place to be.

Regardless, I don't believe the universe was created 6000 years ago. But I also don't believe it impossible. I do believe that it is sillier to insist that it was made 6000 years ago than billions of years ago. It does make more sense to trust the scientific data, but that doesn't mean I'm going to limit my thoughts.

There are so many different ways to make things interesting that wouldn't require God to goad us into basing out science in make believe and thus causing its legitimacy to be naught.

Redhouse: -"This is a good sample of the line of argumentation that I no longer have the patience for" That because it is logical and you can't refute it, so you get angry and dismiss it. No surprise there.

Abge: You need to understand that I am taking the argument to an extreme. OF COURSE atheists want a happy life. But aethiests always tend to take some ridiculous extreme when looking at Christians or other theists. You think that we all dismiss science, that we hate the earth and don't give a shit what happenes to it because we have an out with God, etc. That's all bullshit. *I* have children, and *I* want them to have a good life. MY problem with environmental extremists is this: You DON'T HAVE ANY FACTS to support outrageous claims over the destruction of the earth. You don't. Yellowjacket and others will link to nonsensical biased articles and tell me the earth is going to flood. Come on...get a grip. As a *rational* scientific person accept that there is and will be change as a starting point. OK...we can all agree on that. Then, accept that this change is either caused by man or not...in the worst case, it is caused by man. OK...what then. What will the impact of man's change on climate be? Well...step back...let's look at man's impact on the planet already: Vast areas of land mowed down and paved over, we dig out it's natural resources, we pollute...and yet, really, for the most part, life prevails. When man moves away from an area, nature takes over...and usually *quickly*. Pout concrete and weeds will be poking through the next spring. There are those of us in this world that look at the EVIDENCE of the power of the planet to maintain it's own environment and we think that yes, man can damage the earth, and we look for *reasonable* changes to prevent unnecessary damage...but we also see the loud whining hysteria of environmentalists as just that. We love green energy if and when it is economically viable...not before. You want a good life for you kids? Then let's use the cheap energy we have NOW while we develop better energy forms. but wind and solar...they are *stupid* right now. They are not ready for prime time, and I don't want my kids lviing in a an economy that was destroyed so that we can have windmills. And the claim of the environmentalists is that is we keep on the current path, WHAT will happen? Flooding, food shortages, blah blah blah. It's all bullshit, basically. NONE of the doom and gloom predictions from mathematical models have ever come true, or they would be all over the front pages. What happens is that environmentalist wackos make their predictions...they don't come true...so they revise their data (ie sort it and cherry-pick it differently), run it through their *faulty* models than can not and never will acurately model the earths climate,and come out with new revised doom and gloom predictions (while quietly saying the old one's were wrong...or more likely never acknowledging the old ones were wrong). Anyone that is reasonable will look at decades and decades of doom and gloom predictions that weren't only wrong, but were *grossly* wrong, and eventually come to the understanding that environmental science is more religion than fact, that the predictions are based more on the religion of anti-capitalism than they are based upon climate problems. But let's, for a moments, say there is some dramatic climate change....say an ice age rolls in (as the earth has previously done ALL BY ITSELF without man). IN that instance, man, the innovative smart guy that he is, ADAPTS like any good creature at the top of the evolutionary scale. He moves to warmer climates, he creates warmer housing (oh!! Job growth!) he finds different and better food sources, etc. He won't cease to exist; he will thrive in all circumstances. Will some suffer? Sure as heck some will. SO WHAT!! The greenies want a "stable" climate -- for some reason, whackjob environmentalists have decided that after the earth being around for millions of years, and ebbing and flowing through all sorts of climates, THIS climate...the one RIGHT NOW...is the one we shold keep forever. Well...GUESS WHAT? There are people suffering right now...and there have been people suffering every decade in recorded history becuase of some ecological event somewhere, a localized flood or draught...you see, that is the jyous chaos of nature. SO what the hell is so good about NOW? Answer? NOTHING. So...I prefer to not have my work taxed any further so that we can implement bogus ineffective technology to combat a problem that...evne if it does exist...isn't really a problem at all, because despite your worst fears, man isn't going to destroy the planet OR himself. And I think anyone that believes so is about the furthest thing from a scientist I can imagine, as there is NO evidence to support that notion that man can predict climate change, let alone choatic results of climate change. And...if you think things are bad now, ask someone that lived through the Dust Bowl....or read a book about potato famines, or any other disasters that have happened throughout human history that may or may not have a climatic influence. There is even a reasonable argument to be made that the Black Plague was in part related to climate change...not many factories back then....so stop with the whining and foolishness that *these* times are the worst times ever...because, frankly, it's beneath your intellect to believe so.

@hecks: If you wants to redefine the terms of climate change to being something that is a problem for life, then that is a different argument from "man is destroying the planet". And yet....even still....it an even more ridiculous notion to think that climate change will significantly impact life, either that of man or other species. It may change the current balance of various life....but the balance of life is in *constant* flux...so really, who the hell are the arrogant pricks that think the *current* balance is somehow better than the balance that will occur in a slightly warmer climate? I'm sure the fish that thrive, for example, will think it's just groovy! But the truth is, the wild, excessive doom and gloom predictions that I have listened to all my life from the left/environmental wackos have one thing in common: They consistently (and quietly...) NEVER come to fruition.

If they did, the earth wold be flooded, it would be much hotter, and we would have run out of food decades ago, for starters. It astounds me that seemingly intelligent people are too ignorant to examine the gross history of *abject failure* that can be attributed to the predictive abilities of the environmental "scientists". It really makes me pity you all...and laugh at you...

@krellin

Jesus, are you channeling obi?

lol Yeah....that was a little stream of conscious...sorry about that...

Wait...did you just invoke God? lol

@Draug:

"Your opinion is that it is urgent and catastrophic. But while you have scientists that back your reactionary panicked and over-excited view"

Nobody here said anything about urgent or radical. That's your projection of how I feel but it isn't reality. Catostrophic? Absolutely, given sufficient time. I'm not panicked - and I don't think anybody is panicked. There is no knee jerk reaction here, by me or anybody I've talked to. But it IS time to start doing something about it.


"the other side has scientists who think like krellin "

Name two. There is no controversy here. The overwhelming consensus among climatologists is that global warming is both real and man made. I've already thrashed this out with Krellin over a year ago (to his humiliation) and have no desire to do so again. I can link you to over 100,000 (literally) original peer reviewed research papers backing up what I'm saying. You won't find many.

I know. I tried.




@orthaic

I have no idea what you're trying to say, sorry. I don't see a distinction, and as far as the oven baked death of our world goes - it feels like splitting hairs to me if only HALF of us die or something.

@yellow jacket - we will all die of old age.

It is entirely possible for the species to be wiped out while no individual has their life cut short. That is a very different result. (the Voluntary Human Extinction MovemenT, VHEMT, would have humans become extinct without a single murder of suicide...)

@yellow - "Name two"

I named 3 earlier. They don't really think like krellen, he's a bit extreme, but he does make some well established points if you parse the tirade - granted it's a little hard to parse since he doesn't format for ease of reading.

Here's something to ponder regaqrding the inconsistency of the argument from the "warmists".

When the "coolists" say that we have had a cooling trend since 2000, they say "10 years compared to a billion is weather, not climate", but those same people point at the "hottest decade on record" from 1990 to 2000 and compare it, not to the 4 billion years the earth has been around, but only to the 150 years since the industrial revolution and claim that it's significant!

you can't say that temperatures are going to rise and when they dont, still claim that you're right! Science is supposed to be open and willing to be disproven. They consider their computer models propietary! Who does that other than people trying to make a profit!

It's far from non-controversial, especially since it continues year by year to be disproven. This nonsense that the warming of the planet doesn't really lead to higher temperatures but just faster winds is actually a redefinition of the fucking word "warming"!! The beauty of these kindfs of predictions, as opposed to those of the Large Hadron Collider, are that normal everyday people can test the data themselves. You can try to say that the global average is way too complicated to be measured locally, but the reality is all of the "locally"s add up to the "globally" and as we continue to experience the same cold-ass winters and the same hot-ass summers and the same mild-ass springs and autumns, more and more people will realize that the "consensus" was bullshit.

And btw if you're really looking for experts who don't agree with the "consensus" start here:
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/9035/SPECIAL-REPORT-More-Than-1000-International-Scientists-Dissent-Over-ManMade-Global-Warming-Claims--Challenge-UN-IPCC--Gore

Those aren't nut jobs, they're actual scientists. From places like NASA and MIT

"you see what happens is, the planet is getting hotter, that extra heat melts the ice which makes the seas colder, the colder seas makes the air colder which mixes with the original warmer air that I mentioned earlier and causes bigger storms. The bigger storms cool the planet, which causes the ice to grow back in the winter time ... or wait, I mean to grow larger in the south pole - no wait more tornadoes I meant to say. Well anyway, we're certainly doomed, but I have this company that will plant a tree to ease your guilt ... I mean to offset your carbon footprint ... of course it's legit, hell I even buy carbon credits from myself."