Widespread rejection of human-induced climate change by evangelical Christians, of the sort we have seen recently from Rick Perry and others, is a bit of a puzzler. There is no obvious reason why evangelical faith commitments should motivate the faithful to reject climate science. The Bible does not claim that humans cannot affect the climate. God did not promise that the atmosphere will forever be healthy and life-sustaining. No end-time scenarios suggest that Jesus will come back before humans trash the planet.
So why have evangelicals been so ready to reject the generally accepted conclusions of the scientific community on global warming?
I want to suggest that the reason has nothing to do with climate science per se, but derives from the generally dim view that many evangelicals have of science and scientists -- views that make it hard to distinguish credible science from fake challengers.
One of the strategies employed most effectively by evangelicals in their crusade against evolution, which does pose real, although soluble, biblical and theological problems, has been to undermine the entire scientific enterprise. If science is a deeply flawed, ideologically driven, philosophically suspect enterprise, then why should anyone care if almost every scientist supports the theory of evolution? If the scientific community is just a bunch of self-serving ideologues with Ivy League appointments, then we can ignore anything it says that we don't like.
This widespread anti-science attitude was on display in all its glory in a recent polemic from the Discovery Institute, the Seattle-based think tank that promotes intelligent design. In a piece titled "Peer Review and the Corruption of Science" the author reports on a column in the Guardian by a respected British scientist titled "Publish-or-perish: Peer review and the corruption of science." The Guardian piece makes the legitimate point that too much weight is placed on the number of publications produced by research scientists rather than their quality. This legitimate concern should generate some thoughtful discussion in the scientific community.
But why would the Discovery Institute feel the need to bring this in-house discussion of the publishing culture of the scientific community to the attention of their largely evangelical readership, a readership that, for the most part, probably couldn't even give the name of a peer-reviewed journal? The goal, clearly, is to take the luster off the phrase "peer-reviewed" -- to undermine claims like "There are no articles in peer-reviewed journals suggesting that Intelligent Design is a viable alternative to evolution."
The rhetorical strategy employed by the Discovery Institute does a great disservice to American evangelicals who, understandably, are drawn to faith-friendly discussions of science. In their eagerness to dismantle scientific objections to intelligent design the Discovery Institute drives yet another wedge between evangelicals and the scientific community, making it harder for religious believers to distinguish science from pseudoscience, in particular, and real knowledge claims from fake ones in general.
The relentless assaults on the integrity of science by groups like the Discovery Institute have made it impossible for many people to understand the significance of a "scientific consensus." If the members of the National Academy of Sciences are just another political group with their own agenda -- left-wing Tea Partiers with Ph.Ds -- we are under no obligation to take them seriously. We can even compare ourselves to Galileo for opposing them, as Rick Perry did in explaining why he rejected the scientific consensus on climate change.
In our new book, "The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age," historian Randall Stephens and I look at the widespread and disturbing inability of American evangelicals to distinguish between real knowledge claims, rooted in serious research and endorsed by credible knowledge communities, and pseudo-claims made by unqualified groups and leaders that offer "faith-friendly" alternatives. Across the board we find evangelical Christians attracted to indefensible views in many areas: American history (the Founding Fathers intended America to be a Christian nation), sexual orientation (you can "pray away the gay"), climate change (not happening), evolution (never happened), cosmology (Big Bang is a big joke) and even biblical studies (the bible tells us what is about to happen in the Middle East).
The tragedy is that nothing within the faith commitments of evangelicals requires the adoption of these various knowledge-denying views. There are authentic and contributing evangelical Christians within every knowledge community. Francis Collins, for example, is a committed evangelical Christian and an important leader in the scientific community. He is also an outspoken critic of Intelligent Design and has written widely on the reconciliation of his faith and his science.
American evangelicals desperately need credible leaders to wean them off their preference for discredited and indefensible knowledge claims. At the moment, however, it is hard to imagine where these leaders might come from.
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People who respond to religion have no patience for the continuing skepticism of science, and are often frightened by it.
The people who oppose science (eg theories of evolution) feel emotionally threatened by the questioning process of science. As far as they are truly religious (and not just functional atheists who go to church to keep their wife quiet and maintain social position) they subscribe to religious rationalizations for their lives - and to suggest a question to their rationalization for their life has the same emotional impact as threatening their children.
Consider too that Conservative religious think-tanks are all pro-big-business (as seen by their donors and their agenda), anti-environment, and pro-self-reliance. Self-reliance is great, but charity is a virtue -- one they don't support, since there is no financial profit for them. Cutting hard-option education, working to make dissent the equivalent of heresy, and discouraging stewardship of the land helps cultivate a devout serf class that knows its place, can't better itself, and prays to God for relief, instead of revolting against the wealth-hoarding overlords wrecking their lives. The rich use religion, and social issues derived from religion, to distract the masses from the real agenda. No one questions edicts marked with God's seal of approval.
poor assumptions such as:
"differing human moral values.. suggest that a values standard.. exists via which the relative “rightness” of those human moral values might be determined."
[if the same statement is made replacing "moral" with "aesthetic" the absurdity of the claim should be clear]
are followed by completely illogical leaps such as:
"This.. suggest(s) that an entity - God - is knowledgeable enough to know that standard."
[there is no reason to accept that morality, even your flawed concept of a universal one, proves any god or gods]
what is left is a rehash the argument that if god can not be disproven, god may be real.
since the same can be said of big foot, unicorns, any of the thousands of other proposed gods or an unlimited number of other imaginary creatures there is no reason to prefer the mythological creator god over any of the others.
and since none of them have any logical support, there is no reason to assume any.
those who make claims like:
"the basis for assertion that a premise is false is the extent to which that premise can be irrefutably proven to be false."
need also to realize that the truth of a premise should be held to a similar standard.
then again, intellectual integrity and religious logic rarely meet.
I welcome your thoughts.
The recently revised “Support Overview” section of http://blogspotthinker.blogspot.com/2011/09/logic-and-reason-supporting-creator-god.html appears to be intended to suggest this. I humbly submit the ideas for your review and welcome your thoughts.
This is not a case of "inability", I don't believe. I have personally witnessed far too many evangelicals who are very, very clearly extraordinarily intelligent human beings but who are either intentionally lying or unwilling to admit aloud the factual nature of scientific evidence simply because it means utter detriment to their Wholly Drivel. They are able to to distinguish the truth but doing so would cost too much...literally & figuratively.
And let's face it "faith-friendly" discussions of science is an oxymoron.
Lastly, "The relentless assaults on the integrity of science by groups like the Discovery Institute have made it impossible for many people to understand the significance of a "scientific consensus" is absolute nonsense. If your mind is open to facts & reality you will be receptive to them. If you can separate yourself from your beliefs you are able to change your mind. If not, you will seek out claims which substantiate your version of "truth". It's not a matter of "possible" it's a matter of "willingness".
“Extraordinary claims” might reasonably be considered to be in the eye of the “claimee”. In other words, given the apparent cultural assumption that reality offers corresponding evidence, a “claimee” might reasonably be considered to warrant requesting corresponding evidence regarding an assertion that stretches understanding of reality. A reasonable theory appears to be that this cultural assumption is limited to humanity’s observational and intellectual capacity. The extent to which said capacity does not accommodate the evidence, the claimee is faced with abandoning the evidentiary requirement or rejecting the reality.
Regarding belief in God, the Bible appears to suggest that evidence exists but is intended not to eliminate the need for faith. http://blogspotthinker.blogspot.com/2011/09/accusations-against-god.html appears to be intended to address this especially in the currently last paragraph “Accusation Summary”.
If clicking the links does not launch the blog, copying and pasting the URLs into the browser address bar might. However, Huffington Post comment post display appears to include extra hyphens in the text. These hyphens, if inserted into the URLs, might alter the URL and cause “Page Not Found” errors. Comparing the pasted URL with the original might reveal such occurrences. If the blog still does not launch, trying at a later point might achieve better results.
However, regarding God’s culpability in Adam and Eve’s apparently suggested disobedience, I humbly and respectfully submit a recent update to http://blogspotthinker.blogspot.com/2011/09/accusations-against-god.html and welcome your thoughts. The paragraph is currently entitled “Accusation Summary”.
However, an apparently reasonable theory appears to be that any reality can be retrospectively suggested to be inappropriate. To wit:
If God had created an excellent environment without the possibility of disobedience, God might be accused of not allowing choice.
If God created an excellent environment with the possibility of disobedience, God might be accused of maliciously and/or negligently not preventing bad choice. Any violation would then be an initial violation, and unfair to punish because the violators had no prior experience with violation-conducive circumstance.
If Adam and Eve disobeyed God, God might be accused of maliciously plotting their failure.
If Adam and Eve obeyed God, God might be accused of unfairly protecting them and the accusation might be levied at Adam and Eve that they wouldn’t have obeyed if they were put under experiential pressure (Old Testament book of Job).
I welcome your thoughts.
In light of history’s report of the adverse outcome of humanity’s “better plan” despite humanity’s apparently Biblically-suggested increasing mortality, God’s apparently Biblically-suggested response to restrict humanity’s access to immortality appears generally considered reasonable, in retrospect. I welcome your thoughts.
HuffPostThinker 09/26/2011 02:02 PM, which responds to c-tom 09/26/2011 01:26 PM suggests that there seems to be a big difference between (a) what Adam and Eve did wrong and (b) all the wrong that they might do afterward if they continued being immortal. The Bible seems to suggest that their continued eating from the tree of life kept them and would keep them alive.
The second HuffPostThinker 09/26/2011 02:02 PM paragraph says that if you look at the undesirable things that humans have done throughout history with their tree-of-good-and-evil-acquired knowledge within limited lifetimes, keeping humanity from also doing that much harm forever seems like a good decision on God’s part.
HuffPostThinker 09/26/2011 02:02 PM, which responds to c-tom 09/26/2011 01:26 PM was submitted as a new thread-leading post due to lack of an available reply button on c-tom 09/26/2011 01:26 PM”.
If clicking the links does not launch the blog, copying and pasting the URLs into the browser address bar might. However, Huffington Post comment post display appears to include extra hyphens in the text. These hyphens, if inserted into the URLs, might alter the URL and cause “Page Not Found” errors. Comparing the pasted URL with the original might reveal such occurrences. If the blog still does not launch, trying at a later point might achieve better results.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8786565/War-of-words-over-global-warming-as-Nobel-laureate-resigns-in-protest.html
Here's the facts from politifact
The trustees’ summary listed total Medicare expenditures of $522.8 billion for 2010, of which $7 billion was characterized as "administrative expenses." That works out to 1.3 percent
For the private insurance market, we turned to a 2008 study by the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan number-crunching arm of Congress. CBO cited data, compiled by the McKinsey Global Institute, that estimated administrative costs for private insurers at 12 percent.
Thus medicare overhead is a FRACTION of the best private pooling mechanism
source: www.politifact.com/truth-o-mete
The answer is quite simple: Persons who have accepted as true the nonsense found in christian beliefs are quite embarrassed when anyone points it out. They become defensive, which then bolsters their own self-deceit that they are correct. People of islamic faith are the same way --- they claim to be offended by certain things that violate their religious convictions, but the root cause of that feeling is that they're too embarrassed to openly say that they were duped.
The Christians I am talking about may believe in creation rather than evolution, but there are more differences than similarities, especially involvement in politics. I am pointing this out because many articles make it seem that EVERYTHING is about Democrats vs. Repulicans and Republicans vs. Democrats and there are millions of Christians who are neutral to politics
There are two problems in our nation: Politics and religion
There are two problems we're not supposed to discuss in social circles: Politics and religion.
There are two problems that will be the demise of the human species: You guessed 'em --- politics and religion.