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A master's degree in physics is still pretty impressive, and even though he doesn't have the Ph.D(which he should try to get in the future, but he is probably extremely busy in other courses currently) he still has alot of the same knowledge someone with a Ph.D would have because of the courses he took. Again, it all comes down to who is the more qualified to make a conclusion about this issue, Paul Beckwith is obviously more qualified then anyone on the deniers side.
There is usually a time limit by which you are required to complete your doctoral dissertation. If you go beyond that time limit you will usually not be permitted to complete the degree except in the case of extraordinary circumstances. The dissertation is the heavy lifting part of the program. By the time you are in graduate school you have the studying equation solved and the course work is not that difficult. Few fail out because of the course work. In the sciences, and in the social sciences the masters degree is usually something you get on the way to a doctorate.
A master's degree and a buck and a half will buy you a small cup of coffee in most coffee shops. Your claim that it gives him some special qualification is amusing. By your criteria Paul should not be commenting on economic aspects of global warming since he is totally unqualified.
What we have here is a philosophy that says, only those with certain scientific credentials are entitled to proclaim what is going on in our world, and thus, to direct political policy. Everyone else just shut up and pay up.
Yet:
> people with similar exalted scientific credentials are putting prescription drugs on the market that eventually have to be recalled because they have side effects that kill people.
> people with similar exalted scientific credentials are incapable of improving automobile gas mileage by more than about 5 to 10 mpg within a 10 year time frame, nor can they invent a new fuel that can outperform gasoline and still be affordable, nor can they invent a new propulsion system that improves on the anemic efficiency of internal combustion engines, nor can they figure out how to run automobiles on hydrogen affordably and safely.... and on and on and on....
> people with similar exalted scientific credentials can't predict when the next big earthquake is going to happen
> people with similar exalted scientific credentials don't know how life began
> people with similar exalted scientific credentials, people who DO have PhD's in Physics, tell us that our material world, when you get down to the sub-sub-atomic level, is made of.... NOTHING!
It's amusing to see Adam Cormier talking up scientific facts, while simultaneously dismissing supernatural faith. Adam, how do you feel about the fact that a hard, solid metal ball bearing you can hold in your hand is made of NOTHING? Yet it reflects light so that you can see it, it resists your efforts to squeeze it flat, and if you swallow it, it will come out looking the same as it went in. You must accept it's existence on faith, because your scientists will tell you that according to their science, it's not really there! Sure, it will break a window if you throw it hard enough, but the window isn't really there either!
Based on all the above, I don't think we should turn everything over to scientists. Scientific facts don't come close to common sense. How much common sense does Paul Beckwith have? Based on things like his Vlad = Russian pronouncement, or his carbon nanotubes blowing us farther away from the sun, his faith in recent weather patterns that support a theory that is barely a microsecond old in geological time, and many other miscues and logical fallacies, I don't think much.
But that doesn't mean I deny AGW. Even scientists can get lucky.
I neither confirm nor deny GW. AGW adds whole new level of complexity to the equation. Lets just look at the track record one of the brilliant scientists who is at the forefront of AGW as reported by Stephen Dinan:
"Paul Ehrlich is the quintessential “Intellectual Moron” (as author Daniel Flynn calls it.) Since he came onto the national scene in 1968 with the book The Population Bomb, he has been wrong on virtually everything has predicted about the future state of the world. " http://vocalminority.typepad.com/blo...-skeptics.html
In this book and/or its second edition in 1971, Ehlrich purported:
“The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”
“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
“[A] minimum of ten million people, most of them children, will starve to death during each year of the 1970s. But this is a mere handful compared to the numbers that will be starving before the end of the century.”
“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
[By 1984], “the United States will quite literally be dying of thirst.”
“I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.”
And in 1970, Ehrlich co-founded Earth Day on April 22 (coincidentally—wink wink—Vladimir Lenin’s birthday). At that inaugural event, he stated:
Four billion people—including 65 million Americans—would perish from famine in the 1980s.
“In ten years [i.e., 1980] all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.”
Then Erhlich was about to lose money. In 1976 he claimed:
“Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity … in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion.”
Bzzzt. Wrong. In fact, this preceded a $1,000 bet Ehrlich made in 1980 with economist Julian Simon along the same lines—and lost:
In 1980 Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford scientist and environmental Cassandra who predicted calamitous food shortages by 1990, accepted a bet with economist Julian Simon. When Ehrlich predicted the imminent exhaustion of many nonrenewable natural resources, Simon challenged him: Pick a “basket” of any five such commodities, and I will wager that in a decade the price of the basket will decline, indicating decreased scarcity. I appears Ehrlich has no shame. Ehrlich picked five metals—chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten—that he predicted would become more expensive. Not only did the price of the basket decline, the price of all five declined.
When that boneheaded prediction didn’t pan out, Ehrlich evidently went over to the other extreme: our friend global warming. He was on this bandwagon as early as 1989 and as welcomed by a fawning mainstream liberal media. Brent Bozell recalls:
Go back to 1989 and 1990. Instead of NBC’s Katie Couric handing the microphone over to Al Gore to lament how Manhattan’s about to go underwater, the same NBC network handed its microphone and camera crew directly to left-wing “Population Bomb” author Paul Ehrlich, awarding him large chunks of air time to imagine America losing the nation’s capital and the entire state of Florida. [Sound familiar?]
In May of 1989, Ehrlich claimed, global warming was going to melt the polar ice caps, causing a flood in which “we could expect to lose all of Florida, Washington D.C., and the Los Angeles basin...we’ll be in rising waters with no ark in sight.” Ehrlich didn’t give a time frame, but his panicked report clearly suggested doom around the corner. [Sound familiar?]
The panic was necessary to sell an extremely harsh “solution” of “enormous, rapid change.” Ehrlich commanded that to forestall doom, the world needed to cut its energy use in half over 20 years. Industrialization needed to be dragged to a screeching halt, not only in America, but especially in the Third World. Ehrlich felt the next generation of Americans should be denied the Earth-strangling prosperity of their parents, saying the world’s ecosystems “cannot support the spread of the American lifestyle to the Third World or even to the next generation of Americans.” [Sound familiar?]
Ehrlich was back on NBC in January 1990 to sell his “inconvenient truth” line again. This time, he gave a more concrete timeline. Antarctica’s ice sheets were slipping, and then “we’ll be facing a sea-level rise not of one to three feet in a century, but of 10 or 20 feet in a much shorter time. The Supreme Court would be flooded. You could tie your boat to the Washington Monument. Storm surges would make the Capitol unusable.” [Sound familiar?]
Twenty years later the same crap gets sold to the same incurious and gullible mainstream media. (But remember, it’s the skeptics of climate alarmism who are the unintelligent ones.)
I read the "Population Bomb" long ago and thought it was ridiculous then. I get a feeling of deja vu when hearing Paul Beckwith's dire predictions for the future.
The devil kills 10 people in the bible, God kills millions...(in reality neither killed any, but the followers of God sure did).
Perhaps you should actually read the Bible from cover to cover a number of times and not trust Dawkins Cliff Notes version. I don't recall God killing millions in any translation that I have read. Further that would still put Him well behind the death toll of the atheists in the 20th century. I know some anti-God writers try to use some sleight of hand and claim that the communists and fascists were not atheists but no educated person would actually swallow that malarkey.
Perhaps you should actually read the Bible from cover to cover a number of times and not trust Dawkins Cliff Notes version. I don't recall God killing millions in any translation that I have read.
So you never read the story of Noah's ark, eh? Who sent the fire down upon Sodom, the amazing Randi?
Apparently you don't have such a good memory. Now I have read it from cover to cover at least twice, and God is involved in many many deaths. In fact if you believe the plain words of the New testament he stood by and allowed the death of his Son under torture.
Perhaps you should actually read the Bible from cover to cover a number of times and not trust Dawkins Cliff Notes version. I don't recall God killing millions in any translation that I have read. Further that would still put Him well behind the death toll of the atheists in the 20th century. I know some anti-God writers try to use some sleight of hand and claim that the communists and fascists were not atheists but no educated person would actually swallow that malarkey.
oh you picked a rather popular argument(if it can even be called that), about how many people non-believers have killed, while even if you can prove some of the mass murderers in history were atheists, it would still be a fraction of the number committed by the faithful in religious wars, and religious genocides)
Well I believe the best way to battle scripture is too quote it so,
I will make Mount Seir utterly desolate, killing off all who try to escape and any who return. I will fill your mountains with the dead. Your hills, your valleys, and your streams will be filled with people slaughtered by the sword. I will make you desolate forever. Your cities will never be rebuilt. Then you will know that I am the LORD. (Ezekiel 35:7-9 NLT)
another good quote,
"Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, "Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all – old and young, girls and women and little children. But do not touch anyone with the mark. Begin your task right here at the Temple." So they began by killing the seventy leaders. "Defile the Temple!" the LORD commanded. "Fill its courtyards with the bodies of those you kill! Go!" So they went throughout the city and did as they were told." (Ezekiel 9:5-7 NLT)
Nice guy, eh?
but evilbible.com has all the quotes you could want from the bible showing a different side of God then the one that is preached in churches. It has pages and pages of quotes from the so-called inerrant word of God.
and before I was an atheist I was a devout Roman Catholic and I have read the bible several times and I don't think i'd want to get my morals from such a book.
Please tell me of these atheists? Pol Pot, he was a buddhist(didn't believe in God but believed in Heaven), Hitler was a roman catholic("... I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. from mein Kampf), Stalin positions is controversial I've heard him both be called atheist, deist and also just a communist(which apparently is a form of a state religion, Bill Maher talks about that). Mao Zedong was influenced by Taoism and has plenty of quotes that go along with a Taoist line of thought.
But even if there were some horrible people who were atheists that wouldn't really prove anything, I don't believe all religious people are evil, because of what their ancestors did (Catholicism for example has been a part of, the Spanish inquisition, crusades, genocide of rival sects, etc...), slightly deluded but not evil. Plus there is no dogma in atheism, the only thing that is similar between them is their lack of belief in God. Saying all atheists are bad because of example X, would be like saying everyone with a mustache is evil because of Hitler and Stalin.
Last edited by Adam Cormier; Monday, 23rd August, 2010, 10:13 PM.
So you never read the story of Noah's ark, eh? Who sent the fire down upon Sodom, the amazing Randi?
Apparently you don't have such a good memory. Now I have read it from cover to cover at least twice, and God is involved in many many deaths. In fact if you believe the plain words of the New testament he stood by and allowed the death of his Son under torture.
But he looooooooves us all...
I'm not sure if you are familiar(I'm going to guess you are he is the greatest comedian of all time) with George Carlin but he has some hilarious jokes about God
So you never read the story of Noah's ark, eh? Who sent the fire down upon Sodom, the amazing Randi?
Apparently you don't have such a good memory. Now I have read it from cover to cover at least twice, and God is involved in many many deaths. In fact if you believe the plain words of the New testament he stood by and allowed the death of his Son under torture.
But he looooooooves us all...
Noah's ark and Sodom still do not add up to millions. Both were relatively early in history.
Hitler killed six million. Stalin may have killed 20 million. Pol Pot killed about a million. Mao may be up in Stalin's territory and perhaps well beyond. Estimates of 60 million killed by communists alone in the 20th century are offered by some analysts.
The atheists have God and most religions beat by a wide margin on the mayhem meter.
I cannot pretend to understand everything in the Bible. That's why I keep reading it. I know that you can't judge God's actions or inactions by human standards. We don't see the big picture. He does. He loves us all. I don't understand how he can love you but he does. I have had two of the four religious studies courses which largely dealt with theodicy on an undergrad and graduate level so I have been through all the arguments.
Stalin is quoted as saying "You know, they are fooling us, there is no God...all this talk about God is sheer nonsense" in E. Yaroslavsky, Landmarks in the Life of Stalin, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow 1940 http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki..._an_atheist%3F
Christian writer Dinesh D'Souza writes that "The crimes of atheism have generally been perpetrated through a hubristic ideology that sees man, not God, as the creator of values. Using the latest techniques of science and technology, man seeks to displace God and create a secular utopia here on earth." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_atheism
"And if the cowherd who lives on a star asks about the GOD of plagues, tell him, happy or sad, the GOD is gone, washed away in the waters." - Mao
Our GOD is none other than the masses of the Chinese people. - Mao
"To whom should propaganda be addressed? … It must be addressed always and exclusively to the masses… The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision. The whole art consists in doing this so skilfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct, etc. But since propaganda is not and cannot be the necessity in itself … its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect… it's soundness is to be measured exclusively by its effective result". (Main Kampf, Vol 1, Ch 6 and Ch 12)
"Amongst the accusations which are directed against Germany in the so called democracies is the charge that the National Socialist State is hostile to religion. In answer to that charge I should like to make before the German people the following solemn declaration:
1. No one in Germany has in the past been persecuted because of his religious views, nor will anyone in the future be so persecuted..." - Hitler
Hitler may in public have claimed to be doing the will of God, but records of his private conversations show otherwise. Many of these were recorded by his secretary and published in a book called Hitler's Table Talk (Adolf Hitler, London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1953). I have lifted the text of these from the soc.religion.christian newsgroup's Hitler FAQ.
Night of 11th-12th July, 1941
"National Socialism and religion cannot exist together....
"The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity....
"Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things." (p 6 & 7)
10th October, 1941, midday
"Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure." (p 43)
14th October, 1941, midday
"The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity....
"Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse....
"...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little....
"Christianity <is> the liar....
"We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State." (p 49-52)
19th October, 1941, night
"The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity."
13th December, 1941, midnight
"Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery.... <here insults people who believe transubstantiation>....
"When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease." (p 118-119)
27th February, 1942, midday
"It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie."
"Our epoch in the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn't... behold <its demise>." (p 278)
Given that most of the quotes regarding Hitler being a Christian coming from speeches where he was trying to garner support from the German masses and quotes regarding Hitler being an atheist come from his private writings I would have to go with Hitler the atheist.
By your definition of what makes these people theists then I suppose that you yourself are still a theist because you were once a catholic. :p
More than 60 million people have been murdered on the altar of atheism. AGW is just another fraud to advance this same agenda.
Noah's ark and Sodom still do not add up to millions. Both were relatively early in history.
As so often Vlad tries to change history. Now, when Adam and Eve were in the garden, so the bible tells us, they were immortal. And when Eve "sinned" by eating a certain fruit, god pronounced a death sentence not only on Adam and Eve, but each and every one of their descendants. Each and every one of the billions of people who have lived since that time are under the sentence of death from Yahweh. That makes Yahweh the greatest mass murder in history for he is directly responsible, according to the bible, for the death of everyone else ever after. Because, also according to the bible, Yahweh could have kept every human being totally free from death just as Adam and Eve were, according to the bible.
But, even if he didn't kill millions (and according to geology there actually were many millions of people living on earth about the time these events were supposed to have happened), that means only that Hitler and Stalin were more efficient mass murderers than Yahweh. That doesn't mean he isn't a mass murderer, it means he is a less efficient one.
Boy, that's some defence, eh? Please don't judge me guilty your honor, I only killed five thousand, wheras Stalin, Hitler, and Mao killed many more. So you should let me off.
Vlad's defence to the biblical evidence that God is depicted there as a mass murderer is "yeah, but not the worst one". How do you think that would go over in a court of law?
Last edited by Ed Seedhouse; Monday, 23rd August, 2010, 11:26 PM.
As so often Vlad tries to change history. Now, when Adam and Eve were in the garden, so the bible tells us, they were immortal. And when Eve "sinned" by eating a certain fruit, god pronounced a death sentence not only on Adam and Eve, but each and every one of their descendants.
Poor Ed,
Adam and Eve were not born immortal. Death is part of the circle of life. Didn't you watch the Lion King?
As I recall, they were warned ahead of time what the consequences would be of eating the fruit of the tree and the consequences were not what you think they were.
The sacred writings of the Bible should be read on a number of different levels, not only literal but also on the level of metaphor and myth. (Myth in the sense of what Joseph Campbell means when we talk about myth and not in the sense of made up stories.) In there are explanations of the world that we find ourselves in.
This world is very much an illusion where our job is to comprehend and experience Ultimate Reality to the best of our ability. The path of the mystic is probably the easiest path to directly experience that Truth but there are many other paths.
We are making progress. Ed admits that his godless atheists are the most efficient killers in history.
Now tell us again why we should turn over the reigns to the godless climate scientists who are lying to us so that they can build their flawed scientific utopia???
If you don't believe in the Bible and the writings of Jung and Campbell why don't we take a look at the message of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as a psychological study of science gone amok.
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