Global warming and God’s will

The science is settled. Global warming is happening. Humans are very likely the cause. “Very likely” means with 90 percent certainty, according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That’s up from “likely” in the panel’s 2001 report.

You can bet that the next report will say “extremely likely.” Unfortunately, scientific near-certainties get muddied up when theological guesses are thrown in.

I like to listen to conservative talk radio. Hearing gibberish makes me appreciate truth more, just as a string of cloudy Oregon days produces an Ah! when the sun finally comes out.

This week I’ve heard both Michael Savage and Victoria Taft (a local Portland talk show host) say, either directly or indirectly, that global warming is God’s will. Humans shouldn’t have the gall to believe that they can change it. Got to go with the divine flow, even if this means embracing catastrophe.

Crazy. I’m pretty sure Savage and Taft would go to a doctor if they broke a bone. Isn’t that interfering with God’s will? Every self-initiated action should be heresy according to this nonsensical theology. Including hosting a talk show.

Ah, but the doctrine of theistic science says that it is possible to sort out what is God’s will and what isn’t, thereby adding in a healthy supplement of divine revelation to the degrading scientific stew of hypothesizing, observing, experimenting, and communicating naturalistically.

A Swedenborg inspired version of dualistic theistic science holds that God manages every detail of two domains, the natural and the spiritual world. You can’t discover how this happens, but the truth is “transmitted through scientific revelations that are extracted from the literal sentences of Sacred Scripture.”

Like, the Old and New Testaments. So just as George Orwell said in Animal Farm that “all animals are equal but some are more equal than others,” fundamentalists would have us believe that everyone is subject to God’s will, but some people know what this is and some don’t.

Because those special ones have faith in the literal words of the Bible. Or Koran. Or some other supposedly incontrovertible book of revelation. Of course, you have to pick the right revelation, since holy books don’t agree on what God’s plan for us is.

I guess you have to trust that God’s plan for you includes putting you on the right course to figuring out God’s plan, sort of like needing to trust that a GPS device is well-designed before having confidence in the route its telling you to take.

The problem, though, is that you get quick feedback from a GPS device. If it doesn’t get you to where you want to go, you know something is wrong with it. Revelation, on the other hand, isn’t open to being tested. You’ve got to take it on faith, trusting that after death all will be revealed.

Bullshit. That’s my one word assessment of theistic science, even though I’m entirely open to the possibility that reality includes more than the physical. What I can’t accept is confusing two distinct conceptions about the natural world. These are nicely described in a book I’m reading (and enjoying), “The Top 10 Myths About Evolution.”

This view, called philosophical naturalism, rejects the existence of anything that can’t be explained—at least in principle—by natural laws or by purely natural methods of investigation. Philosophical naturalists deny that there can be such things as immortal souls, angels, and even God, since none of these can be investigated scientifically.

Some ID [intelligent design] proponents claim that if we rely strictly on the natural methods of science, we’re forced to deny the existence of souls, angels, and God. But this is not the case. All that’s required of scientists is that they recognize that science is limited to using natural methods and natural explanations for what it studies.

This view is called methodological naturalism, and it has nothing at all to say about things that can’t be investigated using natural methods, such as souls, angels, or God.

Except, of course, when true believers claim that a divine being is intervening in natural processes. Then science does have a role to play in debunking religious dogma, as noted in my “Does God exist? Science says no” post.

How humans are causing global warming has been accurately modeled mathematically. No extra God factor required. Yet this doesn’t stop the religiously-minded from seeing global warming as part of God’s plan for the world. We’re told not to worry about climate change because “God’s still up there.”

The Rapture Index creeps me out. In large part it’s based on “the worse things get, the nearer prophecy is to being fulfilled.” Global weather change is part of the Rapture Index’s Prophetic Top 10. This helps explain why many fundamentalists are so opposed to taking steps to deal with human-caused global warming.

Bring on the catastrophes, they believe. Jesus will soon follow. (Fortunately, eco-evangelists are providing a countervailing balance to the fundies.)

The bottom line for me is that nature is natural. If there’s something transcending the material world, it figures that God would be godly. Why conflate the two? Global warming, like evolution, can be explained by purely physical processes. Theology has noting to do with climate change.

Heck, even Pat Robertson has come to accept the reality of global warming. It’s good to see a little light entering closed minds.

Comments

[Tucson Bob AL]

I wish I could remember where I saw this. Maybe on the Discovery channel about a year or two ago. Scientists were explaining that greenhouse gases from beneath the earth's crust were leaking from cracks in the ocean floor and percolating into the atmosphere in amounts that significantly exceeded the rate of human production of these gases. We don't hear much about this, maybe because it isn't politically interesting. Also, it is pretty well accepted that there have been numerous periods of rapid climate change in past ages long before man appeared on the scene. This seems to be something Earth does naturally without our help. Whatever is going on right now may well be more of the same, a natural, cyclical process...not to say that human pollution isn't exacerbating matters. My opinion is that climate change would happen anyway whether we were messing with petro-chemicals and dirtying up the place or not.

[Willy]

God is. But you have reason. We wouldn't have to cherish relying on God intervention. Neither fatalism nor negating science.
We can and must do something to save this planet. God works by us. God want we are responsible. She lead to right road but we have to cover it.

[Wadard]

There is a 90 percent certainty the cause is fossil fuel emisions. The scientists have finished their job. Only fool waits for 100 per cent certainty of an impending and irreversible disaster.

GlobalWarmingWatch.blogspot.com

[R Blog]

Here's a potentially bigger problem than global warming http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

[Brian]

Tucson Bob, it's not an either/or proposition. That's simplistic dualistic thinking. I mean, it isn't that either nature causes climate change or humans cause climate change.

Humans are part of nature. Obviously climate changes with or without humans. The ice ages are evidence of that.

The difference now is that humans are introducing new variables into the climate change equation. Chaos theory (and mathematical modeling in general) proves that small changes can have big effects via feedback loops.

So even though natural (meaning non-human) causes will always be more important than human causes in controlling the climate, human beings still can have a major effect on global climate change.

In my opinion, it's the failure to understand basic systems concepts such as "feedback" that leads to so much confusion about global warming. The whole butterfly flapping its wings can create a hurricane thing.

Again, a little change, such as less polar ice, can lead to much bigger changes quickly. Open water reflects less sunlight. Which causes more warming. Which causes more melting of ice. Which causes more warming.

Bottom line: people aren't separate from nature; we are part of nature. To ignore our effect on the climate is to ignore reality.

[Edward]

Just try turning off the audio and look at the video: we are the giant animal piling it's feces and tools into atmospheric middens.

Consider the lilies of the field: they wipe out local flora when the wind carries enough pollen-laden bees. It takes no thought, no emotion, no speechifying. All natural!

Either there's been a reason for this since the big bang, or it is all purposeless and not worth sweating -- can't be both.

But it can be neither.

[Tucson Bob]

Hey Brian. I agree. I don't think I said it was one or the other...nature or man causing climate change, although I can see how my post would be taken that way.

[Brian]

Tucson Bob, I'm also at fault for not paying more attention to your "not to say that human pollution isn't exacerbating matters" caveat.

We agree. And we're right. Along with the world's top climate scientists.

But not, unfortunately, Oregon's own state climatologist--who doesn't know much about climate change but still considers his understanding superior to the scientific consensus. See:
http://hinessight.blogs.com/hinessight/2007/02/oregons_state_c.html

[benandante]

Tucson Bob, I've heard of methane gases emerging from the ocen's floor, which certainly accelerate the warming process. Thing is, the continental ice shelves USED to keep those gases inert -- but reliance on fossil fuels accelerated the ice melts, which exposed more methane pockets, which ruptured and accelerated (with the help of our own human contributions) more melting ice, which exposes more methane, etc.

Two things about climate change: first, look to C.A. nations which produce petroleum and yet their own populaces rely on less polluting fuels. We could change the way we fuel our buses, vehicles, homkes, etc within a month if we wanted to -- but as a people we have not yet demanded it.

Secondly, I agree with Brian: climate change, like disease, is a natural process. As with disease, scientists can direct their energies toward greater understanding of the processes that result in climate change. However, even a cursory look at medical scientific history will provide ample proof that a belief in a Higher Power doesn't revent discovery. In fact,faith seemed to guarantee a greater probability of success than atheism, percentage-wise.

As for the idea that God's will is made manifest in climate change, well, those particular stripe of fatalists are sort of watery and thin in my opinion. If you want to see really robust, fervent belief in God's unerring attention to detail, try burying a child or receiving a cancer diagnosis... In my own experience their cheerful insistence that my personal pain was the result of a Divine settling of scores made me appreciate a faith that demands from me a bit less shadenfreude and more compassion.

Jeanine

[Tucson Bob]

I think it was Christian evangelist Pat Robertson who said, in effect, that New Orleans was hit so hard by Katrina because the people there party too much. This kind of vengeful god is a sort of primitive concept in my view, and I want nothing to do with that S.O.B. (Does that statement qualify me for a free DVD?)It could be that god itself is evolving and doesn't know what will happen next. I mean, if it all began with a big bang, god would be kind of hanging on for dear life just like the rest of us. Poor slob on a bus trying to find his way home. Don't take me too seriously. I'm just foolin' around.

[Edward]

Well, TB, perfectly reasonable supposition. God is evolving, because what we might personalize, or anthropomorphise, as god, is evolution. The supreme being is being, and is evolution of being.

If I am holding on for dear life, then the created universe is a system that holds on for dear life. If I am intolerant of the chemically hypnotized people around me, and I want them to really pay for their mistakes, then mine is a vengeful god.

There is no other creation from which to view this one, no time of creation outside of this one. Whenever we view the universe, as Einstein said about wherever, it is the same. My perspective is relative in the eternally created this and now.

Sometimes what seems like mysticism is really the simplest answer. The seeming purposefulness of the universe is really the immediate agreement of all consciousness. The viable choice of nihilism is a result of human intellect needing to perceive distinction, even just a shadow of a doubt.

"A poet once said "The whole universe is in a glass of wine." We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass closely enough we see the entire universe." -- Richard Feynman.

[Roger]

Global Warming is getting a bad rap. A "normal" amount of global warming is important. Without that normal amount, we would all freeze to death.

It's the "excessive" amount of global warming, that we all should be concerned with.

Tucson Bob's beginning comment, I found to be to the point. I share his thoughts.
There should be more Media focus on, "greenhouse gases from beneath the earth's crust were leaking naturally from cracks in the ocean floor and percolating into the atmosphere."

Man-made pollution is a fact of life too.
Any reduction in pollution that I produce, will be accomplished by using "common sense" thinking.

I'm a warm weather Texan, so people, go easy on that "normal" global warming.