In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
On June 16 2014 02:29 GreenHorizons wrote: -video-
There is a distinction between fundamentalists and creationists. I'm a mainstream Protestant, so I think both are nonsense. Yes, creationism is bizarre, but the incidence of people who are "creationists" is dramatically higher than the camp of biblical literalists who would argue in such a way. Less than 30% of Americans are biblical literalists; the plurality think the Bible is inspired and unique, but not something where God dictated every word or which should be used for policy prescriptions. You'll notice that "creationists" outnumber biblical literalists by a fair margin. This means lots of people are classing themselves as "creationist" who aren't actually "every word in the Bible happened" people. A lot of religious people just call themselves "creationist" as a statement of their faith that God created humanity. This is really important to point out.
And the climate change thing in popular discourse is overwhelming dominated by scientific (and pseudo-scientific) debate.
When you explore the issue, you find the nuance. If you subscribe to GH's camp, most maladies in the world could be described with the History Channel guy and captioned, "Creationism." It has been an absurd explanation since day 1 for all the issues its theorized to affect. They're in every science field and it sometimes means no more than God was the originator of humanity, as Yoav points out. It isn't convenient for the academically lazy that retreat to one label to try to explain the actions of an incredibly diverse group of people. The common thread behind the argument is: Evangelicals are responsible for social ills (like intolerance) and you can't trust people that believe in God with modern science.
I try not to dignify the argument with a response when it isn't merited. It's as if you're passing by some guy on the street constantly muttering "creationist lunatic constituency," "ignorant and pervasive Creationists," "religious fanatics mostly just want to ban abortion and teach Creationism as science." You're left waiting for the rest of the basket of Bilderberg/Rothschild theories that similarly explain everything and nothing at once. In US Politics, give the creationist psychoanalysis a rest.
Well you did a good job of completely misunderstanding/distorting my position.
It appears you are the lazy one not bothering to comprehend my position... God as a 'creator' isn't what I am talking about unless they carry that into ~9,000 yo earth, god controls the climate, evolution is a 'lie straight from the pit of hell' etc...
These are not just regional hiccups but those same delusional people represent one party ON THE SCIENCE COMMITTEE and else where.
It's not that the Creationists make up all of the right or even that it's close to a majority. It's that without those crazy people they would barely be a national party.
That's why instead of saying "I wish people who think the earth is ~9,000 yo would leave the party or wisen up" you say "but there are rational people on the right too!"
I know there are rational people on the right with legitimate perspectives. What bothers me is how much the right allows/embraces outright reality denial and puts openly delusional people in positions of power (particularly science).
If the right wanted to shed the support of openly delusional people by just nationally recognizing the jury is in on the earth being >10,000 years old that would be enough to make me quit.
The fact that the right cant acknowledge an old earth makes me question how we could/should expect them as a national party to accept ANY FACT that doesn't jive with their worldview?
If someone can't say with confidence that they believe the earth is much older than 10,000 yo they shouldn't have a chance at being elected, regardless of party.
I'll tell you what, if every conservative (here) wants to say that Creationist ideas don't belong in politics/school any more than fairy tales and that politicians using them in policy discussions are an embarrassment to reasonable right leaning ideas I'll let it go. @Danglers + Show Spoiler +
I own several non-hunting guns with extended magazines and conceal carry very often...
I would support getting rid of all social programs for people of working age with provisions.
I disagree with blanket smoking bans and I don't even smoke...Typical lefty, right...?
I love how the right is constantly complaining about being lumped in with their crazies and then turn around and do the same stuff... It's not that the crazy is unique to the right just how far they will go to pander to/defend/ignore it.
the 'god told me to invade iraq' bush line isn't really that serious. even if it is, because there is no god, it's just him rationalizing his already entrenched decision. have you ever seen an emperor declaring that god isn't on his side?
bush's irrational stubbornness could have been produced by something other than reliance on a divine narrative. plenty of ideologies make people irrational as well. american religion isn't the problem, it's the martial culture of some and simple nationalism
On June 16 2014 09:35 oneofthem wrote: the 'god told me to invade iraq' bush line isn't really that serious. even if it is, because there is no god, it's just him rationalizing his already entrenched decision. have you ever seen an emperor declaring that god isn't on his side?
bush's irrational stubbornness could have been produced by something other than reliance on a divine narrative. plenty of ideologies make people irrational as well.
I think you nailed it. It's not that it's an irrational ideology it's how open and defiant that ignorance/irrationality is in politics that bothers me. Whether it's Creationism on the right or guns on the left.
Lawyers of force-fed Guantanamo detainee Abu Wa'el Dhiab have entered into evidence, as part of a lawsuit filed on the prisoner's behalf, three videos of their client undergoing enteral feeding in response to statements made by another detainee alleging that Dhiab was subjected to abusive treatment.
The three classified videos, filed Saturday, are presumed to corroborate statements made by Ahmed Rabbani, whose statements were submitted directly to the judge in an affidavit on Friday.
U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler had ordered the U.S. military to hand over 28 videos of the force-feedings in May and gave them until Friday to submit the footage.
The process of force-feeding, depicted in the videos, includes the deployment of what's called a “Forcible Cell Extraction” team to detainees who appear resistant.
Lawyers for Dhiab, who was officially cleared for release from Guantanamo in 2009, spent the weekend viewing 18 of the 28 classified videos in a special facility in Washington. The attorneys are looking for evidence of what Dhiab and other detainees have portrayed as inhumane cell extractions and force-feedings during the months that Dhiab participated in a hunger strike in protest of his detainment.
WASHINGTON, June 15 (Reuters) - The Obama administration is mulling possible discussions with Iran over the mounting security crisis in Iraq, a senior official said on Sunday, in what would mark a major step in U.S. engagement with its longtime adversary.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the United States was considering talking to Iran about Iraq, where the government of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is seeking to repel a stunning advance by Sunni militants who have seized several cities.
Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group have swept through towns in the Tigris valley north of Baghdad in recent days but appeared to have halted their advance outside the capital on Sunday as they tightened their grip on the north.
ISIL's advance may pose the worst security crisis to Iraq since the worst of the sectarian bloodshed that followed the U.S.-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein in 2003.
President Barack Obama said on Friday he needed several days to determine how the United States would help Iraq fend off ISIL, but he ruled out sending U.S. troops back into combat in Iraq. U.S. troops left Iraq in 2011 after a bloody, costly war that lasted more than eight years.
If the United States does decide to hold talks over Iraq with Iran, which it has routinely blamed for fueling violence in Iraq since 2003, it's not clear where or how those talks would take place.
What moon I don't see any moon. Plus the moon would just burn up anything that got close since it's also a star right........? The astronauts will just eat it if they get there, besides we have plenty of good cheese here....? /sarcasm
I’m not a global warming believer. I’m not a global warming denier. ... Climate-change proponents have made their cause a matter of fealty and faith. For folks who pretend to be brave carriers of the scientific ethic, there’s more than a tinge of religion in their jeremiads. If you whore after other gods, the Bible tells us, “the Lord’s wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit” (Deuteronomy 11).
Sounds like California. Except that today there’s a new god, the Earth Mother. And a new set of sins — burning coal and driving a fully equipped F-150.
But whoring is whoring, and the gods must be appeased. So if California burns, you send your high priest (in carbon-belching Air Force One, but never mind) to the bone-dry land to offer up, on behalf of the repentant congregation, a $1 billion burnt offering called a “climate resilience fund.”
Ah yes, an a̶s̶t̶u̶t̶e̶ asinine point brought up as a last resort by those unable to a present an effective argument using ethos or logos. Unfortunately, the "YOU COULD BE WRONG!!11" point is not especially informative to the discussion when you have comparatively no authority, credibility or evidence to back the claim that your opponent is actually wrong.
What is no longer in doubt, however, is that humans are warming the planet.
It is a fact that global temperatures have increased by about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the industrial age, largely as a result of our use of hydrocarbons to run our homes, cars, businesses and places of worship. This is what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says is fact. And NASA. And the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And the U.S. military, which has issued several dire warnings about the impact of climate change on national security.
Not only will Krauthammer not accept this consensus, however, but he also communicates misleading information on climate change that unnecessarily confuses the issue. This is why The Post’s leadership should step in.
In his Feb. 21 op-ed column, “The myth of ‘settled science,’ ” Krauthammer lent credence to the common fallacy that warming has stopped. In fact, studies have shown that while the rate of the increase of the average global surface temperatures has slowed, oceans continue to warm. The notion that the warming “pause” that Krauthammer mentions suggests that climate changes may not be occurring has been debunked by several of the world’s most respected scientists and institutions, including the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the British National Weather Service. The fiction continues to be passed on by only those who either do not understand the science or who willfully ignore it.
On June 17 2014 03:26 Roswell wrote: Its called a different opinion. Something that is looked down upon these days.
There's a difference between a "different opinion" and lying. I propose you figure out the difference between fact and opinion before you hit that post button again.
The new MO seems to be to not deny climate change outright(because even the most die hard Republicans now seem to have figured out that it just makes them look stupid) but to write a whole page of nonsense delving into stupid religious analogies just to arrive at the exact same conclusion they supposedly don't like.
I think to settle the issue we could just elect some kind of 100 man climate scientist committee and every time a political decision has to be made we just ask them. Then 97 of them will agree with each other while the other three super smart skeptics can talk about how the science isn't settled.
Its called a different opinion. Something that is looked down upon these days.
no, it's nonsense. If I'm convinced I saw Elvis in the supermarket yesterday that's not my opinion, that's me being a lunatic.
I used to have a lot of respect for Krauthammer, but he's devolved to a ultra-conservative caricature of his former self. He's still a good enough writer far as prose goes, but his logic is incredibly twisted.
Yeah he posts some misleading information and claims science on that front, ill give you that. We base everything around computer models with regards to CC and not actually measuring shit. If anything we have had more pollution worldwide in those 20 years than before, so where is the correlation between that and the earth hasnt warmed in 20 years.
David Brooks is the only conservative pundit I consider worth reading, and it goes without saying that he's considered by many to be as RINO-y as they come.
The American love/tolerance of at least the concept of opinion and debate in things like politics has annoyingly kind of permeated other facets of life. Nothing is off the table to question, even facts. Almost sounds like a good thing but usually is just retarded...
On June 17 2014 03:50 Roswell wrote: The fact that the earth hasnt warmed in 15 years. I should make an inconvenient truth sequel.
it was pretty cold in my garden yesterday, I think climate change is a lie. (pro tip: climate != weather, and the current development is still within the lower bounds of the predictions we had that topic before in this thread)
EPT
