Does anyone else see the correlation between Global Warming and Religion?

Question

It seems to me that Global Warming has gone past a novel scientific theory by rational people looking to address a potential problem to an all out religion. I'm not saying that is does not exist, or that people aren't effecting climate, moreover that we just don't know what the heck is going on and we had better learn a little bit more before making drastic, invasive changes in governmental and personal policy. Having said that, here are the similarities to Religion as I see them:
1. Blind faith - if you don't accept Al Gore's version of the truth, you are a denyer.
2. Sin and Redemption - We are all sinners, we drive cars run on fossil fuels, have light bulbs that aren't CFL, etc. But, if one will "tithe" to the government (in the form of higher taxes and more gov control), one will be saved and born again.

The whole thing works by guilt. At the end of it all, you are so implanted by guilt, you are willing to give up liberty, agree to higher taxes and more gov control to be saved

Bob-
you made my point for me, you said there is a "consensus" of scientists who "believe" this. Real science doesn't use consesus. It is proved or it isn't. The theory of global warming has never been proved.

Dana, you are missing the major point I am drawaing here, as are most of the "believers". The similarity to religion is drawn to exemplify that global warming needs to be accepted on faith alone because the science isn't there.

Global Warming as a theory is at best fundamentally flawed. It does not stand up to the scientific method and therefore has not been proved. It is a theory; it's an unproved theory with major problems. All of the articles I've read from the IPCC are based on a very common fallacy of logic known as "Post Hoc ergo Propter Hoc" (after it, therefore caused by it). The climate has supposedly started warming roughly along the same time as the dawning of the industrial age, therefore, humans MUST be causing it. Do you see the leap of faith required there without any other supporting evidence?

For Global Warming to be incontrovertible as fact, it must be proved through the 3 step scientific method; it has not been. All articles stop at step 2. Step 3 is the proof.

Answer 1

Gee, I must be the only person not to see "An Inconvient Truth". However, I see your point.

I, personally, am glad I haven't heard "The Gospel of Al Gore" because I believe people have placed way too much stock into it. Has anyone noticed that the trend of environmentalism comes in waves. Early 90's- We got Captain Planet cartoons shoved down our throats. Early 00's- The War On Terror seemed to bring about a new wave of environmentalism as the government began to talk about renewable energy sources. Maybe in the Early 10's or the Early 20' it'll happen again?

Personally, I'm one of those people who have the CFL bulbs and I got them to save money, not for environmental reasons because my bill is down.

Answer 2

In my opinion you would be ignorant to say "I'm not saying that is does not exist, or that people aren't effecting climate, moreover that we just don't know what the heck is going on and we had better learn a little bit more before making drastic, invasive changes in governmental and personal policy."

In case you don't know, Global Climate Change ( or warming) is not a new theory. It actually has been studied significantly as early as 1950. There is more research attaining to GW then there was research done prior to the war in Iraq.

So thinking we shouldn't make "drastic" decisions based on not knowing is invalid. We do know and we have know since 1979. If we stay on the same wave length that we are on now the greenhouse effect will have warmed the temperature 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit between 1990 and 2010. What is not to understand? And even more aside from that, how do you feel about paying over $3 for gas? Our need for oil is our biggest sin.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says "most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations,"

If you want to believe there is some connection between religion and GW, than fine, but i don't really see the basis. The point is, GW is something that is undeniably the most pressing issue.

I don't agree that Liberty is at stake, i do think that higher taxes are a GOOD idea. Especially for the rich. It would only make sense considering the $120 BILLION DOLLAR funding Congress just awarded Bush. How can you believe tax increase in a bad thing. Do you even know how much debt this country as acquired since President Clinton?

As for less government, i agree it would be great. So many we should stop focusing on gay marriage, the war on "terror" and focus on the things that matter, like GW, like the Deficit, like health care, like education.

Answer 3

Bob is correct, and you've totally missed his point, Fishguy.

Scientists don't simply come to a consensus because they're told to. That's the difference between global warming science and religion, not the similarity. Scientists review the evidence and judge its merit on their own, then drawn their own conclusions from it. The fact that over 90% of global warming experts agree that the vast majority of the recent global warming has been caused by humans simply tells you that the evidence to that effect is overwhelming.

Also it's not "Al Gore's version of the truth". Al Gore was simply presenting some of the information provided by the scientific community in his film.

Really the only correlation between global warming and religion is that the more religious you are, the more likely you are to deny that global warming either exists or is caused by humans, because religion and science are not very compatible.

The scientific evidence paints a very clear picture. Bob provided links with evidence, and I suggest you examine them.

Answer 4

Hmmmm, very intriguing. Well, while I have always believed that the christian religion is evil to say the least, I also believe that (1) Every human being both individually and collectively has an impact on mother earth by his or her actions AND (2) We humans are ultimatly responsible for how we manage our earthly resources. Having said that, I would be more likely to attribute my desire to repair the damage to mother earth to my own personal beliefs and have had that desire long before I heard anything at all about global warming. As for any sense of guilt I may have, I suppose I should feel guilty if Ive contributed to the problem and did nothing to make amends for it though Im dead set against higher taxes and loss of freedom. Besides, if all humans were to put the welfare of both mother earth and the inhabitants above profit and convenience then higher taxes and loss of personal freedom would be totaly uneccessary.

Answer 5

I don't believe global warming and religion have anything to do with each other. There is no religion that tells you to pollute of not to pollute. Now some earth based religions support you to take care of mother earth and not to harm her but they don't tell you that your going to hell for pollution. The main thing it teaches you is to give back to the earth. If you drive a car plant some trees something like that. I have also heard that the same weather patterns have happened before there was even the idea of global warming. So going by that all we have done is invented acid rain and a dirty atmosphere. Plus i look at it like this everything that is pollution has been on this earth since the beginning of time we have just moved it and used it so according to the life cycle which everything is based on in some sort of perspective the earth is like a human body and will heal itself after a period of time. Now i am not supporting pollution i am just saying i don't think that it will effect the earth itself like some suggest i believe it has more in pact on animals including ourselves more than any thing. The earth is like a filter it will dispose of the toxins over a period of time. By this time there is nothing we can do different to make it better so just go on living your own life and be as healthy as you can.

Answer 6

I am a Christian fundamentalist and I do believe in global warming. There is a question as to how much man is contributing to it. However, I do believe we should take care of the this world God has given us, by closing everything on Sunday (except hospitals, police, etc). It is common sense that with less businesses open, we had less pollution and far less gas was being consumed. In theory, if the United States takes one day off per week, they would reduce their demand by 20 million barrels of oil per day (1 billion per year), which would be up to a 14% reduction in oil consumption. It is time we get serious about the gas prices and return to the wisdom of keeping our Sundays as a day of rest for us, our families and even the creation.

Answer 7

What you are describing is the nature of humankind, my friend.

Consider our model of the universe. Science, for nearly two thousand years, upheld a model of the universe (the Ptolemaic geocentric model) as the consensus model of the universe. Challenges to that model were discouraged and repressed - so much so that Copernicus, a Christian monk and scholar, did not allow his work on heliocentrism to be published until after his death. Galileo, who more openly challenged the Ptolemaic model, was placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life.

Some in the scientific community - and many observers and amateurs of science - regard the enterprise as a quest for incontrovertible truth. But that is not how science works. Contrary to your assertion, science IS all about building consensus: a number of incomplete theories arise to explain a given natural phenomenon, one of those theories rises to prominence because of an important technological advance or revolutionary study, and that theory becomes the subject of "normal science" - experimentation and the attempt to explain away anomalies - until the next revolutionary discovery causes a new, more complete set of theories to arise.

Many scientists, it seems to me, are loath to publish work that challenges the consensus view, because doing so questions the usefulness and meaningfulness of the life's work of hundreds, even thousands, of their colleagues. And so, rather than challenge the status quo, they consciously deny the possibility of an alternative explanation of the mysteries they observe. Entire branches of science therefore get stuck in the rut of "blind faith" of believing one theory to be true, even if data suggests problems with said theory.

Answer 8

It's the few skeptics who are basing their beliefs on faith, not science and data.

Forget Al Gore. 99+% of scientists around the world believe global warming is real and mostly caused by us, BECAUSE OF A MOUNTAIN OF PEER REVIEWED DATA. And any number of very distinguished people, too. They are backed by every major scientific organization, BECAUSE OF THE DATA.

"I wasn’t convinced by a person or any interest group—it was the data that got me. I was utterly convinced of this connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change. And I was convinced that if we didn’t do something about this, we would be in deep trouble.”

Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, USN (Ret.)
Former NASA Administrator, Shuttle Astronaut and the first Commander of the Naval Space Command

Here are two summaries of the mountain of peer reviewed data that convinced Admiral Truly, short and long.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know - except maybe Newton's second law of dynamics. Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point,You really can't find intelligent, quantitative arguments to make it go away."

Jerry Mahlman, NOAA

It's the skeptics who are going on faith. Denying global warming is like believing the Earth is 6000 years old, you have to ignore the data.

Good websites for more info:

http://profend.com/global-warming/

http://www.realclimate.org

"climate science from climate scientists"

Answer 9

As I have said somewhere else in my answers, the statement "humans are causing global warming" is similar to "smoking causes cancer".

Nobody can prove a link between which cigar caused which cancer cell. You can still find a 90 year old person who smoked all his/her life. But the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of smoking leading to higher chances of cancer. In case of global warming, the arctic and antarctic ice layer, sea water temperatures, average recorded temperatures worldwide, computer simulation models, small scale real models, green house gase level readings, all combined point to one thing. Global warming is here.

Now even the most ardent opponents of global warming acknowledge that we are in a warming trend. The real debate now is whether humans are causing it.

Beyond a certain point we cannot guarantee "credibility" of any spoken or written word. You just have to study who is saying and why they are saying it and then go with your gut feeling.

Answer 10

personally i do not ,
but religious people turn to what they believe in and hope that God is in control so relate everything that happens ,either good or bad to acts of god

Maybe as punishment or as something that was written and inevitable and God will fix it somehow or at least he will be there to save the people ,

This is too easy and shifts the blame or the solutions away from humanity.

Even If we are partly responsible ,
Even if we are not ,
it still pays us ,
to keep the place in a good condition.
Because the planet and its environment has made our existance possible and continues to so.

To keep the environment operational ,
in as good as a condition as possible ,
only benefits us,

Religions can be dangerous assuring people that a wonderfull heaven awaits ,so they do not have to be overly concerned about their predicament in life.Their focus is on the Heavens,and beyond Earth.

Pagan philosiphies tend to regard the Earth already as a paradise ,that can be enjoyed with out HAVING TO DIE FIRST
And so these people are more sympathetic to Nature ,there vision is aimed at the ground and around.