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New CatMap Chart Compares The Existence of God Vs. The Existence of Global Warming
By My Wild Irish Prose | April 28, 2009
Consider two controversial phenomena: God* and Global Warming (AKA Climate Change**). Are they real or imaginary?
Let’s consider Global Warming first. This topic has quickly degenerated into a political, cultural and quasi-religious debate, although the process itself is at its core unrelated to any of these. It is either a scientific fact or it isn’t. In the history of mankind, this is a relatively new argument, rising to a boil only in the past decade or so.
On the other hand, the existence of God has been debated for centuries, a dialog much improved with the suspension of the Inquisition and practices such as witch burning. Removing the fear of death as a consequence of heresy has been shown to encourage more skeptical and honest debate. As a consequence, people are all over the map on this question, but most surveys show that majorities of Americans continue to believe that they believe in God – and by extension, Jesus.
At the same time, recent surveys show that a majority of Americans remain unconvinced about the reality of climate change (they have had plenty of help from Exxon Mobil and Fox News in developing this attitude).
The hard nexus of this disconnect is the sub nation of the Christian Right, which by and large dismisses Global Warming as a conspiracy on the part of liberals and environmentalists (= the Devil), while simultaneously clinging vigorously to belief in a hybrid God re-purposed from a moody bronze age deity with a nasty disposition.
In order to address this situation, the combined Editorial Boards of Fun Bible Stories and Catastrophe Map, in an unprecedented joint research effort, have assembled all the available evidence regarding the existence of both entities: The Christian God and Global Warming. The charts below show the findings of this exhaustive study.
Summary: millions of members of the Christian Right*** believe in the existence of an invisible God for which there is no evidence, while refusing to believe in the existence of a phenomenon for which there is overwhelming evidence, and which threatened the well-being, if not the survival, of the human species.
Because the Editorial Board is staffed with personnel who have been around the block a few times, we have been able to anticipate some of the possible objections to these findings. Please note that as a ground rule principle, we have established a condition that is probably the opposite of what most people practice, but which is imminently logical nevertheless: The baseline for the God question is zero, which is to say, we begin with the assumption that there is no God in the absence of evidence thereof. This is standard practice for any other discussion. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim, just as guilt needs to be proven, not innocence. It is therefore up to God proponents to provide proof that God exists. Thus far, no proof has been provided.
Objections to research findings:
The Bible is all the proof I need because it was written by God.
This sort of solipsistic ignorance is impossible to combat. Suffice to say that the Bible is a sloppily edited real estate tract and marketing brochure, which on even cursory examination is less credible than a marketing brochure for a low rent time share.
I have faith.
Of course you do. But you don’t have evidence.
!!Something must have created all this !! (sweeping gesture toward natural phenomenon such the night sky, spectacularly eroded Western landscape or Sarah Palin – see illustration above).
That’s possible (see ** below). Nevertheless, that creator “something” wasn’t the somewhat localized God of the Old Testament. There is no connection.
I saw the image of the Virgin Mary on my sandwich / God made an image of his hand on a rock slide in my back yard.
That’s actually Sarah Palin on the sandwich. You may be right about the rock slide, though.
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Notes:
* In this case, God is defined as the composite Judeo/Christian deity and not as the more nebulous First Principle or Creative Force which or whom made the universe. Twenty-seven of the thirty-five members of the Editorial Board acknowledge this possibility. However, this doesn’t open the door to the possibility that the First Principle matches up with Jahweh or imply that dinosaur poop on the Ark was a problem.
No sane person expects computer models to reflect exactly what will take place in the future, and scientists don’t pretend to know what shape this impending disaster will take. However, virtually all climate change models predict extremes of weather as the overall temperature trend continues upward. Weather extremes such as those occurring with more and more frequency everywhere on the planet.
*** There is a tendency among Christian nation citizens to also reject evolution, primarily because they just don’t like the idea of it.
Topics: Christian Right, God, global warming | No Comments »