Quick! Come up with a way to pit creationists against climate change deniers!
(Also on Sb)
Brilliant! I wish I’d thought of that!
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Quick! Come up with a way to pit creationists against climate change deniers!
(Also on Sb)
Obviously humans can affect the climate. Who’s to blame for the flood.
I have actually argued with a bartender about climate change and he took it a absolute fact that humans are too small to affect the planet.
#2 Did you make a mention of termites and the fact that they can produce a reasonable quantity of greenhouses gases purely by biological means?
Naturally he doesn’t believe large amounts of GHG are going to affect the climate.
The alt text reads:
The “controlled demoliton” theory was concocted by the government to distract us. “9/11 was an inside job” was an inside job!
“Quick! Come up with a way to pit creationists against climate change deniers!”
Aren’t they usually the same people?
OBVIOUSLY gawd is making the climate change because… he… ummm…
Gawd did it!
Case closed.
#3 Niall
I actually have a ID commenter on my blog who believes that termites are intelligent. How else can you (well, the pro-ID crowd) explain the intelligent design of termite mounds?
Maybe the intelligent termites are driving tiny fossil-fueled cars to get to their farms?
#6 Ramases: In MY family they certainly are the same people.
This could be very amusing indeed…
The problem is that the creationists are the climate change deniers… and they see those positions as being perfectly consistent with one another.
Basically, “Climate change isn’t happening. And even if it is, God is gonna Hoover us all out of here before it gets too bad anyway. In fact, we’re kind of keen on seeing Him, so maybe we ought to get on with destroying the planet as soon as possible so that we can get whisked away before things get really bad even faster.”
I know. I was there. (It takes a lot of practice to convince yourself that this lack of empathy for your fellow man is, in fact, godly behavior that you wish everyone would emulate.)
Of course they’re the same people – that’s why you pit the conspiracy theories against each other – not the people
The world is warming because Satan is preparing for the Tribulation – Hell and the Lake of Fire are coming closer to the surface
Some climate-change deniers can be pitted against some creationists. I’m thinking of the Koch brother-types, who say that humans evolved by adapting to climate change. Clearly they’re evilutionists.
Also, the argument that hey, climate change has always happened doesn’t carry much weight if the earth is only 6000 years old.
So have at it. Loco a loco.
I think MattF you are living in a world of black & white straw men in assuming the two viewpoints go hand in hand.
In the UK climate change skeptics now outnumber those who believe, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8249668.stm
while at the same time the UK has one of the highest atheism rates in the world and a correspondingly low belief in creationism. By simple arithmetic there will be a sizable proportion who fully accept Darwinian evolution, and reject woo of all descriptions, and yet are dubious about climate change. Whatever the merits of the arguments you can not automatically assume a particular viewpoint is associated with another, totally unrelated.
Hey give us a break Bellerophon, it’s really hard for Americans to consider the opinions of the rest of the world.
Also that statistic you cited is quite depressing. I guess truth doesn’t always win out in a battle against money.
Hmm, lets see…
Obviously, all those people denying climate change by talking about “natural cycles” are crazy; they’re referencing temperatures that existed millions of years ago, and obviously the Earth isn’t that old! Earth hasn’t existed long enough to have long-term cycles like that!
How’s that?
@8 ogremk5
Nah, you’re thinking of these guys:
http://www.mamapop.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/doozers.jpg
I think yours is better than mine MJtheProphet. And it’s also very good, just to be clear.
@13 Bellerophon
But you too are oversimplifying the issue.
Most people in a secular society accept evolution because it is the only actual theory taught (obviously) not because they are critical thinkers who came to the conclusion it must be true by investigation of data and scientific research. What the average Jane and Joe believes when it comes to stuff they don’t know much about is to a large degree dictated by popular opinion. Many people are skeptical of climate change because it is inconvenient. Many people are atheists because religion is rubbish or they dislike people telling them what to do. Many people believe in evolution because creationism is what fundamentalist cooks believe in. And so on. These believes are in no way dependant on critical thinking. Just look at the huge marked for alternative medicine in the UK!
IF you want to have a little fun, join in on fun with the reverend laughing at Harold Camping. The cartoon seems to apply here.
It’s funny, I don’t even have to make this up. My family is mostly christian, and I think all pro-environment. I remember from when I was still going to church with my parents (must’ve been 10 years old or so, 22 years ago) hearing a sermon. The minister told the parable of the bags of gold, Matthew 25:14 onwards. The man gave his servants bags of gold to use wisely, and when he came back he rewarded them according to their actions. The sermon made the point that God gave us the earth to use wisely in a similar manner, and if he comes back (soon, it is always understood) and he finds out we’ve been polluting, ravaging and destroying it, he won’t be happy. That is one of the things that baffles me about this american christian worldview. It’s the polar opposite of the christian worldview I was presented here.
Bellerophon: Whatever the merits of the arguments you can not automatically assume a particular viewpoint is associated with another, totally unrelated.
Fair enough. I did state it more absolutely than the actual case; I only meant to emphasize that pitting one against the other will do nothing to convert the legions who accept both and will continue to do so because they do not care about objective reality, and because they see them as reinforcing one another. No matter what you point out to demonstrate the falseness of either position, all they have to do is get offended and attempt to divert the conversation (often, in my experience, into how oppressed they and their teachers/pundits/overlords are for holding these beliefs).
Species8472. I have not tried to explain the phenomenon. I have simply pointed out that it is illogical and erroneous to associate two totally unrelated viewpoints in any individual. Also your comment “Just look at the huge marked for alternative medicine in the UK!” is ill informed. The NHS is free to use and it supplies negligable CAM. the tiny number of homeopathic hospitals are closing one by one, homeopathic prescribing is declining to almost zero and what CAM persists does so only in the private sector, and then by the skin of it’s teeth. Campaigns such as that by the nightingale foundation are clipping their wings further and courses for the study of CAM are closing. CAM will probably never disappear here, but the market is most certainly not “huge”
As more of the residual water from the Flood evaporates into space the earth gets dryer and so heats up. Notice that deserts are hotter than swamps. Coincidence?
Burning more coal and oil helps to SLOW DOWN this evaporation since the smoke blocks the suns heat. But try telling that to the godless environmentalists.
That and friction from homosexuals. Don’t ask me to spell it out. Just imagining it has kept me in a sweat and up all night praying to be relieved of demons.
@22 Bellerophon
Well, “huge” is a matter of definition. Alternative medicine is way too prominent in much of Europe. By the amount of money made on for instance homoeopathic products, the industry is certainly not small.
It is in any case irrelevant to my point. My point was that a large part of the population doesn’t make up their mind based on critical thinking.
In 2009 Mintel put the value of the UK’s Alt Med market at £213 million, although Mintel prefer the term complimentary medicine.
£213 million is small compared to spending on the NHS, but it is still a sizeable sum.
[1] Mintel Report: http://oxygen.mintel.com/sinatra/oxygen/display/id=394670
It’s hard making up something so stupid, though.
£213 million works out at less than £4 for each member of the UK population. Peanuts, and a small bag of peanuts at that compared to the £100 billion per year which is the NHS budget and even compared to the private medical spending which approaches £10 billion per year.
“My point was that a large part of the population doesn’t make up their mind based on critical thinking.”
That could of course cut both ways.
@28
“That could of course cut both ways.”
I’m sure you had a point there, but what is it?
The point I am making is that when people within a population make up their minds on an issue, those who do not employ critical thinking will probably end up evenly distributed between the two camps.
@25
I don’t know how they gather their data, but I have seen significantly larger numbers than that based on surveys. In comparison Americans spent $34Bn out of pocket on alt meds in 2007.
Aliens made it look like a government conspiracy masked as a terrorist attack.
Don’t you people know anything?
Glen Davidson
Ok, I think I’ve got one:
The climate change denier claims that the world is not heating up, however, the creationist maintains that G-dawg is punishing us with catastrophic weather for our sins, and that includes global warming. Therefore, either the globe is NOT warming up and therefore G-ditty is NOT punishing humanity, or the globe IS warming up and Big Cheese IS punishing humanity.
… maybe?
Khantron
I never, ever argue with the bartender.
or my hairdresser.
or the pilot.
Also, I heard that the people flying the planes into WTC did it via remote control and were not actually people at all. They were reptilians (operating out of a secret FEMA camp under Denver airport)!
We have been lied to before folks, I’m just being skeptical here.
I am coming up empty. But one thing I heard from global warming deniers that scientists are making a big deal of global warming to win grants from the (dare I say it) government. That’s right, one big conspiracy. This would be like fighting fire with fire. Also, too – its the liberal press…
Khantron, the alien who only loves says: “I have actually argued with a bartender about climate change and he took it a absolute fact that humans are too small to affect the planet.”
When I hear this, I tell the speaker that this must be why germs can’t make people sick. It never convinces them they’re being silly, of course, but it usually shuts them up or makes them go away.
See, that is the last thing you want the bartender to do!
The chemtrail conspiracy theory has to be one of the stupider ones. We’re supposed to believe the evil overlords or whoever are secretly spraying us with evil stuff. And by “secretly” I mean by flying aircraft back and forth in the daytime, in often obvious patterns, spewing obvious trails of stuff. They don’t do the smart thing like pump it out only at night, or use a less visible method like dumping stuff into water treatment systems.
Of course the fact that it is easy to find images of high altitude aircraft generating contrails from WW2 and earlier never dissuades them.
The 911 conspiracy crowd are like many other conspiracy groups in that they never consider their own views as supsect. If you can imagine a giant conspiracy to fake such a terrorist attack you should also consider the idea that your beliefs are being manipulated as part of some other conspiracy, such as delegitimising dissent by associating real dissent on real issues with conspiracy nonsense. But they don’t.
Exactly. Its a case of selective skepticism. Be overly-skeptical about every view that contradicts your own.
I remember reading one of those “Chemtrails Reports” in which the author announced breathlessly that they swabbed samples of a substance that landed on their home’s siding, sent it to a lab for analysis, and that came back as having “microscopic aluminum particles” in it. The report, on a web page, included a picture of the home, which …(wait for it) had aluminum siding. Other ingredients included things commonly found in bird droppings.
Save me Jesus! they are spraying us with mind-control gas AND bird shit. Damn you New World Order and your plot to take over a feces-covered world!
I suspect you’ll find a lot of crossover between the two groups.
Ooh, ooh, ooh: saw this last night and it make me totally ROFL:
http://youtu.be/w833cAs9EN0
Lord Monckton IS NOT REAL! It’s a joke, like Borat! Sacha Baron Cohen does it again!
I think the moon landings were faked – on Mars.
He’s the bartender at my mom’s restaurant, where I work as a cook during “vacations.” I wouldn’t argue with him if I were a customer.
The Reptilian alien overlords who secretly control the world come from a much hotter planet and are deliberately causing Human Induced Rapid Global Overheating (HIRGO) by running the major corporations, governments and the whole Climate Contrarian pack in order to create a more comfortable – for them – desert planet when they do take over?
Yeah, I know its not the Creationists but the best I can think of for now.
Oh wait! The Devil likes things hot and conditions hellish and torturous for people and the wonderful living things of Gawds Creatshun!
It’s demons who are behind it NOT aliens! Of course! ;-)
Christians & other theists – God wants us to keep the planet how S/(T)He(y) made it! Stop this excessive carbon dioxide and GHGs pollution NOW! Its sinful y’know! Monckton and his ilk are of teh Debbil .. Or was that Ali G?
Lord Monckton IS NOT REAL! It’s a joke, like Borat! Sacha Baron Cohen does it again!
LOL
classic Hamster.
Please make sure Walton sees it.
don’t be ridiculous – the chemtrail chemicals are a weather weapon, not a mind control agent. see, the government CAN control the weather, although humans cannot change the climate.