The Rethuglican from Texas wants us all to appreciate the diversity of causes behind climate change. It might be natural, it might be human-caused, and it might just be magic.
I would point out that if you’re a believer in in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change and that certainly wasn’t because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy.
Don’t just blame Big Oil! It could also be God’s fault!
Dear Joe: That was then, this is now.
You don’t even have to give up your belief in “The Great Drowning of Every Kitten, Puppy, and Pregnant Woman In The World” in order to understand that.
That was then. This is now.
Let me stop you right there.
Did this clown even READ his bible? Don’t answer that. Over half of all TrueBelievers™ don’t read their book.
From the KJV:
Okay, so it “rained” and the “fountains of the great deep” were “broken up” (whatever the hell that means). That is called WEATHER.
Barton doesn’t understand the difference between weather and climate (gasp!), so how can he know what climate change is?
Oh right: facts. Knowledge. Got it.
I am now going to refer to the flood this way. Fucking hilarious.
This is such nonsense. Just because previous climate changes were not caused by humans means that the present climate change must not be caused by humans also. It is like saying forest fires have always happened naturally since they evolved on earth so the crime of arson is a myth. This kind of thinking is narrow minded and rigid even without the Bible gobbledygook which needless to say does not lend it any more weight.
3. Possibly a Bronze or Iron Age awareness that rain falls but the oceans don’t rise, so something has to happen to the water when it runs to the ocean, and that if you wanted a global flood, you would have to break that?
But really, I’m relying on modern knowledge of the hydrological cycle and the assumption that at least someone wondered about that enough to get a priest to write down something about how God keeps extra rainfall in ocean-bottom fountains or something, because, well, he had no idea but presumably something was happening.
Yes, it wasn’t because of hydrocarbons, it was because of a genocidal deity. Now all Christians can sleep easier knowing their blood thirsty god can control the weather to kill us all.
In the spirit of arguing about literal versus literary translations of Homer, if you read a better translation than the King James (re: written by translators that are not incapable of translating metaphors) Gen. 7:11 (lolwut?) says “on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.”
The new American Standard says something similar with “and the fountains of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened and it rained for forty days and forty nights.”
Thanks, Joey. Good to know that the Biblical flood was a natural phenomenon and didn’t have anything do with with misbehavior on the part of human beings.
Load off my mind, and all that.
If god existed, I believe he would argue that even the Great Flood was caused by man.
Random beat me to the punch. Well played, noodlemeister.
But didn’t God promise not to do it again? Would he break his promise? Wait, he’s the one who put Adam and Eve in a garden with a poison tree in it. Never mind.
I thought God promised never to do that again, which is why rainbows exist.
I would point out that if you’re a believer in science fiction, one would have to say all bets are now off on the possible causes of climate change. ‘Overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy’ is a negligible blip on the list.
Just sayin’.
If you believe in Leprechauns, one would have to say that rainbows are not caused by storms and light but by large pots of gold.
The UK gets this pretty much every year and we’re still afloat.
I would point out that if you’re a believer in science fiction, one would have to say all bets are now off on the possible causes of climate change.
If you’re a believer in science fiction, a Klingon Bird of Prey visited San Francisco about 30 years ago.
Right. And maybe leprechauns are behind it.
So leprechauns are behind a Klingon Bird of Prey visiting San Francisco 30 years ago because of science fiction? I’m sooo confuuused! I thought religion was complicated, but this is getting up there.
hate to say it but absofukinlutly not incredible but predictable
uncle frogy
This may be the first time I’ve heard a believer say that God was responsible for something *bad* happening in the world.
I mean seriously, we hear:
“Thank god I survived that car crash”
“I have to thank god for the 10 Grammy”
“I Tbowed just right and won the game. Thank you god”
…but when do you hear a believer actually blame god for misfortune? Oh sure, many of them attribute horrific acts to “god’s will”, but they use the defense of his “mysterious ways”, as if that somehow absolves him of responsibility (or that it means he has some ultimate good in mind). I suppose given how vindictive and petulant god is, believers wouldn’t want to curse his name when bad things happen. They might have to share hell-space with those heathen atheists.
Kevin @1:
Now now, don’t exaggerate.
Remember, the good lord did see fit to save Noah and his family, along with two of every kind (or was it two pair of every kind?).
That means he wasn’t *that* genocidal.
Only like 99.8%.
Huh. I guess that’s the divine version of benevolence.
Tony — I believe the alternative version is 7 of each clean beast, 5 of each unclean.
It’s just really dispiriting to realize that this person is a member of the United States Congress. It’s difficult to fathom how even Texas Republicans could vote for the level of ignorance he represents. If he truly believes this crap, then he lacks the mental capabilities necessary for his position. If he doesn’t, then he is simply a liar. Either way, he shouldn’t be where he is.
Man, its hard to believe anybody could be so thick.
He doesn’t even understand the difference between a weather event (however fictional) and climate. 40 days and nights of rain that causes flooding is not an example of climate change. Of course, the distinction could easily elude anyone already dense enough to believe in the bible. One must never underestimate the power of pride sponsored by abject stupidity.
oops, sorry, #3 Usernames are smart had already pointed that out.
Which god?
There are many gods that control the weather.
For the Aztecs, it was Tlaloc the god of rain and Huitzilopochtli the sun god.
I suppose it is safe to blame them for global warming. No one has been able to find them for centuries.
OK, so if carbon contributes to climate change that means we need a carbon tax. Therefore if god contributes to climate change… Hey, this guy is on to something!
Maybe I’m reading too much into this asshole’s quote, but since the Noachian Flood was the result of Yahweh’s displeasure with humanity for unspecified “wickedness,” the his implication here could be that climate change is yet another divine punishment for considering gay rights, legal abortion, teaching evolution, letting a black man become president, etc.. Therefore, if we dirty liberals really wanted to end global warming, we’d “get right with God” ad do what the Jeez-us creeps tells us to do.
That’s the way I’m reading it, at least.
Akira, perhaps — and perhaps the allusion is to Ecclesiastes 1:9.
Well, it’s not like anyone but Big Oil would data him.
I would think that the biblical passage may have been influenced by the Greek mythos where, in Ovid’s description of the flood (yes, I know Ovid is a Roman.):
Here we have the breaking open of the deeps to open the sources of the waters.
Surely two accounts of a global flood from two mythologies which were so close geographically and had a tremendous influence on each other culturally must count as independent evidence that the flood occurred!
John Morales @ 30
Looked that one up. LOL!
I’ve been reading Dispatches for too long today. I read the title as David Barton. At least this guy is (presumably) merely stupid instead of dishonest.
Do remember this is the same Joe Barton that is a plate techtonics denier:
A bunch of gods, sitting around a break room table:
Thoth: Okay, who called this meeting?
Tiamat: you should know!
Thoth: let’s not be bitter.
Marduk: Yeah!
Tlaloc: I called it. I’m a little worried about something Ullr told me the other day.
Inana: What was it?
Tlaloc: Um, you tell ’em.
Ullr: Okay, so I was talking to Brigga the other day, and she said she’s been paying attention to the scientists down there in midgard
Mazu: the Middle Kingdom.
Ullr: What do you think Mid…never mind. Anyway, you know when Phaeton tried to take out Helios’ chariot again and barely got 1000 feet over Portugal or Spain or something, and then totally lost control again – that shit always happens to him. Well, he crashed the darn thing into the ocean, and ever since then things have been heating up
Mazu: that’s not what happened. He hid the chariot for a few decades, but the last 40 or 50 years he’s been hiding it in some caves and sneaking short joy-rides. He’s trying not to get caught, so he does the short little excursions when no one’s looking, hoping he can get the horses under control eventually. Well, Helios finally caught him, but riding around in the sun chariot has been heating up the earth a bit. The thing is, now that the chariot is gone, that heat will boil off and things will be getting back to normal.
Marduk: We’re calling this meeting because Brigga’s scared of a problem that’s already fixed? Typical.
Mazu: No, you idiot. The problem isn’t the heat, the problem is that the heat came right when the people started burning everything flammable they could get their hands off. They’re using flammable things to blow the tops off mountains and then burn the rock underneath, they can’t stop!
Marduk: They what?
Ullr: They’re dynamiting capstone rocks and filling valleys and rivers with rubble to get at the shale.
Mazu: What did I just say?
Tiamat: Get used to it.
Thoth: Okay, okay, what’s the point?
Ullr: The humans think they’re doing it.
Thoth: What? Controlling the weather? How would they even do that?
Proserpine: With Gillian coils, don’t you know anything? Shut up and listen to Mazu.
Ullr: I called this meeting! So the point is that some clever scientists who like throwing variables together did like 20 experiments to see if anything was correlated with the heating, and one of them turned up something.
Tlaloc: They found the chariot?
Coyote: No, but I’ve been letting them find the ark & then moving it for like 200 years. It’s hysterical. Maybe we should let them find it.
Mazu: the point is not the chariot! Now that the chariot is gone, if the warming doesn’t keep up they’re going to think their science doesn’t work.
Maxwell’s Demon: Well, it doesn’t. :giggle:
Tiamat: Stop interrupting the women! The point is that they might start begging us to fix their problems. You and Coyote and Yahweh can keep your fingers on every single electron in the universe and make it do exactly what you want to keep up that gag, but some of us have been enjoying the time off lately.
Inana: So what we need is someone to take responsibility for heating up the planet to keep up this science-myth-thing.
Afrekeete: It’s not all a myth. They figured out evolution. It’s the modern stuff that you three have been stirring up ever since that tea leaf fell on Isaac Shen Nung and they all decided they had gravity figured out! That’s the problem.
Ullr: No. That’s not the problem. The problem is one of us either has to sit down there making things get hotter and hotter – and keeping an eye on carbon dioxide levels…
Thoth: What?
Ullr: …to keep the correlation going, or just pop into the air above Accra or Bodo or somewhere and announce you want their worship again, and you’ll let things cool if they bring you offerings of lutefisk.
Inana: Ugh. Lutefisk is disgusting.
Tiamat: Actually, I like it quite a bit myself.
Coyote: you would. :snicker:
Ullr: It doesn’t have to be lutefisk. It can be loaves of bread or whatever. We just need someone to go down there. Anyone? Anyone?
Entire room: …
Ullr: Come on, isn’t there anyone willing to go down for a thousand years or so to save the rest of us?
Entire room: …
Maxwell’s Demon: We need someone with a martyr complex.
Coyote: Jesus isn’t here…
Afrikeete: And he always says he’s going to go back someday…
Tiamat: Don’t believe that, he’s been saying that for years and he never actually does it.
Coyote: Oh, but we’ll just be acting as if his word was true. He can’t get mad about that!
[laughing]
Mazu: So, who do we get to tell him?
Iris: :sigh: