For Celebrity Christians (authors & the like) inflammatory language isn’t meant to persuade, it’s meant to appeal to their target audience, the already persuaded. Like the preacher who does no actual outreach himself but teaches others how to do it… “Preaching to the choir.” What did Jesus call them? Oh, yeah: “blind guides” … pretty inflammatory, I don’t imagine many would encourage such language. Good thing He was Jesus or else He might have been criticized by religious leaders for His lack of “respect” … oh, what … he was… ???
Why do so many cower as though the world’s hatred is what displeases God? As though the world’s love represents “fruit” ??? That is a blatant contradiction of Jesus’ teachings.
Social media is propagating a lie. That truth can be determined by the number of likes a post receives. That time that 2 Timothy 4:3 refers to, it has come.
The AGW debate is about agnosticism/atheism, which means several things:
1. The “science” of it is not science at all. It’s philosophy disguised as science. Therefore facts really are meaningless, and that for both sides of the debate. They are merely a formality that must be discussed as a precursor to getting to the heart issues. The issues of fear & control.
2. The emotions are primal. “Fight or flight.” In one way or another all participants will ultimately choose one of those two options. There will be differing degrees of dignity involved, but ultimately everyone chooses one or the other. I know one lady that drops the F-bomb as punctuation in her “I’m saving you from yourself” tirades. You’d think nobody could take her seriously, but they do, so long as they are on the alarmist side of the debate.
3. Probably most importantly, some percentage of this population of “cultists” are lost. They not only doubt God, but they outright reject Him. Just saying so isn’t enough, but I find that taking significant offense at the use of the term “faith” in the context of what they call “science” is a very good indicator that these are people that actively revel in their rejection of God. Discussions with such people are only for the sake of others. It’s amazing how many PMs can be generated by one volatile thread.
4. Finally, but not only, sometimes our worst enemies will be well-meaning believers. They will do a “drive-by” and will often derail any progress that was made. Bible literalists are terribly frustrating in such conversations. Conservatives found in more liberal forums tend to be very independent and not quick to back each other up. It’s a really interesting dynamic.
The message that it really boils down to is WHO we put our trust in. I personally make a point to always admit that with more information, with better science, we may find that there are practical “stewardship” steps we could take. However, the debate as it stands today has almost nothing to do with “science” and everything to do with fear. There are good scientists that may not even be believers that recognize such, but they are ostracized quickly and efficiently. This is a war for souls, nothing less.
June 8, 2014June 8, 2014
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What is Truth?–Climate Change
November 27, 2007
It is recorded in John 18:38 that Pontius Pilate asked this rhetorical question of Jesus just before he acquiesced to the will of the Jewish mob that wanted the Christ crucified. Let’s consider why he would ask this.
It seems clear to me that Pilate was a man of the world, that he had been around the block a few times. His question implies that he thinks absolutes are hard to find and that people make up their own truths. Could he be more correct, then or now? Even though he concluded that he found no fault in Him, Pilate, the politician, was basically forced by the greedy mob to condemn Jesus to death and release Barabbas, a violent criminal, instead. All of this happened in Jerusalem at the time of the Jewish feast of Passover, and tradition was that the Roman governor would release one Jewish prisoner at that time. Pilate gave the Jews what they wanted.
I believe that truth actually does exist, and we should be able to demonstrate it and accept it, especially in things that we can actually measure. I am not talking about right versus wrong, which is a whole other matter; this is about true versus false.
So, is the global climate changing? This should not be that hard to figure out. I understand we have reasonably accurate temperature records for the past 150 years or so that we can use in addressing this question, at least for this brief moment in history. Surely everyone recognizes that this short span of time accounts for vast majority mankind’s destructive influence on the planet. We don’t need the United Nations (UN), or the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) or even the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at the big picture level. In fact, let’s make sure they are not involved so they don’t tamper with the data. Let’s use an independent source of temperature data, like the World Almanac and Book of Facts, which I think gives temperature data and has been in print since the 1880s.
If this simple analysis shows an upward or downward trend in temperatures, then let’s dig deeper to understand what this means. Maybe then we need to consult some UN, NAS, or NOAA weenies for more data or “expert” opinions. Whatever we do, we should not let these political organizations perform the evaluation, even if it gets more complicated. Would you hire the fox to count the chickens in the hen house?
I am quite confident that I could design and conduct a credible evaluation of temperatures over time[1]. It’s not rocket science. Was this ever done, or did these Chicken Little organizations of the world just launch into unnecessarily complicated, multi-million dollar analysis programs with results already determined? I don’t know the answer to this.
If temperatures are changing, is this being caused by human activity? We might want to contract one or two honest scientists here to help think through this. It is clear that we are wreaking havoc on the environment on local and regional scales, and this must translate into some world impact. As a race, we have reached a level of destructive capability that allows us to incinerate cities in milliseconds with nuclear weapons, but I still don’t know that our day-to-day activities are causing dire planetary consequences of the magnitude preached in the global warming religion. That is what I would like to find out.
After we have come to some reasonable, objective conclusion about temperature changes over the past 150 years, we need to look further back in time to put these changes into context. For this we would use the proxies of temperature records, like ice cores and tree rings. Of course, this will require more insightful analysis and our conjecture will be subject to greater uncertainty than for the past century and a half. One event we will need to explain is the little ice age that happened about 400 years ago. Still, this is not brain surgery.
Going back thousands and millions of years is a much bigger deal. Fortunately, we have already done this for different purposes. The generally-accepted results indicate regular climate changes from variations in our planet’s orbit and cataclysmic events like asteroid impacts that wiped out thousands of species of living things. I have no good reason to doubt these conclusions.
What is truth? That is not too hard to answer in a narrowly-defined project, like the study of temperature data. Are average temperatures changing or not, and can these changes be to attributed to human activities? We should be able to find the real truth. Unfortunately though, we are faced with the same problem as Pontius Pilate. There is a mob of fools that has already made up its mind about its truth. Hopefully we can find a leader with the common sense to test it and the courage to do something about it rather than just giving the mob what it wants.
[1] I started to do this before writing this article. I ran into significant problems right away. For example, NOAA charges for its temperature data. I would have thought I paid for the collection and documentation of this data already through my income taxes.
The information age has thoroughly sabotaged science. It’s ironic really, and represents the same fatal conceit that socialism is. Prior to 1844 and the information age, we didn’t put all of our eggs in the same basket. Even different universities would be exploring near-opposite theories. However, with the 24 hour news cycle, peer-pressure (peer-reviewed) journals, and billions of humans all lining up to leverage their influence in whatever form or fashion. The sum total of all of that corruption, all of those agendas, and all of that money is the big basket we have today. A big basket that keeps getting dropped and keeps breaking eggs.
This will only get worse. We’re stuck in a gigantic group-think fallacy on a global scale. We dole out accolades for non-discoveries and in the process we focus nearly everyone on the exact same prevailing points of view. We had more potential when the population was sparse and our languages confused. Now that we’ve globalized there’s little potential left for great discoveries.
Don’t get me wrong, just as Genesis 11:6 says: “nothing will be impossible for them.” We can and will build big things, we’ll just miss out on knowledge in the process. The foolish things of the universe will confound the smartest of us, but we’re intoxicated with pride that we build neat things; we just don’t know how to use them for anything but self-destruction.