Atheism Explained

[WIP]

Entirely the possibility. All that doesn't fit the narrative is screened out.

But your premise of bending to the environment is anti-thetical to the human species who always works the environment to bend to him.

Which is exactly why we are paving the way for the extinction of the human race today! The technologies that have allowed us to over-exploit available resources have given us the illusion that nature bends to our will and supplies whatever we demand of it. In prehistoric times hunter/gatherers could only take what nature provided; even after agriculture began, farmers up till the middle of the 20th century had to be cognizant of maintaining topsoil, but mined phosphates combined with oil-based fertilizers created the illusion that farmers could do high yield monocropping year after year...even twice per season; and city folk...are pretty much a lost cause! City dwellers in general, have no awareness or concept of how much land and resources their cities require to sustain their developments.

You could say it is his whole challenge. Animals adapt to the environment which makes mankind an exception in the evolutionary process. Did we evolve adapting to our environment and rise out of it? If so how and why? When did we eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge?

We didn't evolve out of it! All we have done over the last 150 odd years is learn how to use up non-renewable resources and overtax renewable resources - most crucially topsoil and water, beyond their carrying capacities. A study published for one of the UN agencies last year revealed that worldwide water use is doubling every 20 years! Much faster than population growth -- even combined with economic growth. This is happening largely because present agricultural systems were already unsustainable, and (especially as drought regions have expanded and droughts become more frequent and severe) irrigation for farming is growing at exponential levels. Another major factor rarely noticed is that mining and oil extraction is requiring more and more water as the years pass...simply because of the low hanging fruit principle with resource extraction -- the purest and closest to surface resources are exploited first, and as time goes on, the mining and oil companies have to keep digging and drilling deeper and deeper and using more and more water.

So, just looking at renewables, what we are doing now is already exceeding the carrying capacity of what can be made available. Non-renewables will just gradually dwindle away over time, which is why it is always astonishing to me that there is no thought or consideration for leaving something for future generations that will inherit a world where NNR's are either used up, or what's available is too costly to make exploitation worthwhile. The constant...even exponential annual increases in atmospheric CO2 levels are telling us that we have broken natures' carbon cycle, that had been preventing CO2 levels from rising above 300 ppm for several hundreds of thousands of years. We hare almost at 400 today -- a level that will melt the world's sea ice, the Greenland icesheet, and leave the East Antarctic as the only major ice fields. Once Co2 levels rise above 450....which is already expected based on what we are pumping into the atmosphere along with positive feedback effects of melting permafrost and methane clathrates under the Arctic Ocean....then we will have plunged Planet Earth into one of those hot spikes that have previously been associated with mass extinctions like the Permian-Triassic. So much for "bending the environment!" In a few decades it will start bending back on us.

Humanist writers and lecturers are not that rational and perhaps are in fear but simply being brave and facing the reality of their self-created mortality having lost the great chess game with themselves. No longer can they emote and create those things that make life worth while. They are subject to the external and have basically become the Darwinist/Pavlovian stimulus-response animal of scientific electro-chemical processes continuing to deny or as you say "screen out" their very existence and responsibility in any part of life other than what they are told.

Not all humanists act like evangelists-in-reverse like Richard Dawkins for example, but those like Dawkins, who feel such a strong need to create a world without religion have to present a naturalistic worldview as being able to replace everything that many people presently get from religion and various spiritual traditions.

So, Dawkins has to create his own spirituality that he describes as being in awe of the universe - Aweism is actually what some followers are calling it. But, the added problem for naturalism is that to replace religion, it has to offer its own message of hope for the future; and what happens if the future looks dark and perilous? That's why I contend that the majority of active atheist writers, bloggers and secular humanist club organizers, are not rationalists when it comes to dealing with the future. They are hoping that somehow everything will work out fine, and what really grinds me is that very few are actually looking at the scale and scope of environmental and related resource problems that are already beginning to make their effects felt in many parts of the world today.

You have read many things WIP but you have never looked to yourself for any answers and what you read is mostly from those who would deny you any original thought. It isn't science that promotes atheism. They don't make any claims regarding the origin of the universe as truth. It is the secular humanist and the skeptic that promotes it as absolute truth, which they deny being a possibility, since they don't believe in absolutes. But then claim all else but their view is absolutely a lie.

I'm not sure what you mean by look to yourself! I might be able to keep myself and my family safe, but I can't save the world. This is a collective problem that requires a collective solution by getting people to shift their priorities away from rampant, wasteful consumption and save something for those who come after us. It's hard to get people to defer short term comforts for even their own long term needs, let alone the needs of people who haven't been born yet; but that is what will be needed to ensure survival of our species, along with many others that are already on the road to extinction.

Edited February 15, 2013 by WIP

[Bonam]

They are hoping that somehow everything will work out fine, and what really grinds me is that very few are actually looking at the scale and scope of environmental and related resource problems that are already beginning to make their effects felt in many parts of the world today.

Or maybe you are focusing too exclusively on these specific problems, while failing to look at realistic and viable solutions, that many people spend their time actually pursuing, instead of spending their time prophesying the end of the world.

[Peanutbutter]

I've mentioned previously that most churches - starting in America - made an abrupt shift in the Christian approach to economic theory when the gospel that comes from Matthew in particular - with Jesus frequently condemning the rich and the accumulation of wealth, and promising relief for the poor, is turned upside down in the 20th century in the prosperity gospel version, where the rich are wealthy because God is blessing them, while the poor are doing something wrong.....otherwise they wouldn't still be poor!

A lot of that is true. Their is no reason for anyone to be poor in today's world. All one must do is graduate high school then go to college or university or alternatively get an apprenticeship or get a job with one of the public union sectors. People who are poor in today's world are so by choice, they would have to be with so many choices in today's world.

[WIP]

A lot of that is true. Their is no reason for anyone to be poor in today's world. All one must do is graduate high school then go to college or university or alternatively get an apprenticeship or get a job with one of the public union sectors. People who are poor in today's world are so by choice, they would have to be with so many choices in today's world.

And I guess the secret to your success is hocking Peter Pan peanut butter everywhere possible. I should mention that I only bought the natural peanut butter, not those kinds loaded up with salt, sugar and who knows what else!

[WIP]

Or maybe you are focusing too exclusively on these specific problems, while failing to look at realistic and viable solutions, that many people spend their time actually pursuing, instead of spending their time prophesying the end of the world.

And I'm glad those solutions are working so well right now!

[Canuckistani]

Boy, there sure seem to be a lot of people making those poor choices. Wonder what's up with that?

Actuall I believe it started with Calvin, where being rich was seen as favor from God - but you couldn't spend it just had to accumulate it. The Protestan work ethic. What the US seems to have added to the mix is conspcious display and consumption.

[Bonam]

And I'm glad those solutions are working so well right now!

Me too. That's why the world is a better place now than it ever has been in the past.

[Pliny]

Which is exactly why we are paving the way for the extinction of the human race today! The technologies that have allowed us to over-exploit available resources have given us the illusion that nature bends to our will and supplies whatever we demand of it. In prehistoric times hunter/gatherers could only take what nature provided; even after agriculture began, farmers up till the middle of the 20th century had to be cognizant of maintaining topsoil, but mined phosphates combined with oil-based fertilizers created the illusion that farmers could do high yield monocropping year after year...even twice per season; and city folk...are pretty much a lost cause! City dwellers in general, have no awareness or concept of how much land and resources their cities require to sustain their developments.

We never did run out of whale oil for our lamps. We found something else now we can save the whales.

Your perspective is from an end of cycle. The cycle of life. Birth-life-death. You are viewing mankind as being at the point of death or near death. All things thus point to and align with the end of mankind. It is no less an illusion than the beginning of the life cycle. It is from our position on the life cycle that we create our view of life. You see mankind destroying himself. That is your view. Seeing we must adapt to our environment is an attempt to continue the life cycle but it is a wrong approach. It is approaching it from being effect. There has to be more people approaching it from being cause, the start of the cycle, if we wish to continue. Approaching it from your perspective of being effect will indeed bring the end of mankind. If enough people view mankind as being effect we most certainly succumb.

Bonam views mankind from the cause point and correctly indicates your focus is on solutions to our challenges leading to effect rather than solutions leading to cause. It is your illusion and a very solid one based in scientific fact. But Bonam too has a position very solidly based in scientific fact. These are both subjective realities but you consider them objective realities, as you can objectively prove it to be so. You are proving it to yourself and those not in agreement are living in denial. I have never read anything by Kant but from what I have heard of his works I think you would like his philosophy.

We didn't evolve out of it! All we have done over the last 150 odd years is learn how to use up non-renewable resources and overtax renewable resources - most crucially topsoil and water, beyond their carrying capacities. A study published for one of the UN agencies last year revealed that worldwide water use is doubling every 20 years! Much faster than population growth -- even combined with economic growth. This is happening largely because present agricultural systems were already unsustainable, and (especially as drought regions have expanded and droughts become more frequent and severe) irrigation for farming is growing at exponential levels. Another major factor rarely noticed is that mining and oil extraction is requiring more and more water as the years pass...simply because of the low hanging fruit principle with resource extraction -- the purest and closest to surface resources are exploited first, and as time goes on, the mining and oil companies have to keep digging and drilling deeper and deeper and using more and more water.

Actual real proof that we must constrain and limit ourselves. I'm certain there is a ton of information that leads to finding a global leader who will limit us, our development, our population and make these our solutions to the challenges we face. We're here now so we can close the gate. We don't need any more people. Enough already or we will destroy ourselves.

So, just looking at renewables, what we are doing now is already exceeding the carrying capacity of what can be made available. Non-renewables will just gradually dwindle away over time, which is why it is always astonishing to me that there is no thought or consideration for leaving something for future generations that will inherit a world where NNR's are either used up, or what's available is too costly to make exploitation worthwhile. The constant...even exponential annual increases in atmospheric CO2 levels are telling us that we have broken natures' carbon cycle, that had been preventing CO2 levels from rising above 300 ppm for several hundreds of thousands of years. We hare almost at 400 today -- a level that will melt the world's sea ice, the Greenland icesheet, and leave the East Antarctic as the only major ice fields. Once Co2 levels rise above 450....which is already expected based on what we are pumping into the atmosphere along with positive feedback effects of melting permafrost and methane clathrates under the Arctic Ocean....then we will have plunged Planet Earth into one of those hot spikes that have previously been associated with mass extinctions like the Permian-Triassic. So much for "bending the environment!" In a few decades it will start bending back on us.

So true. The ultimate proof. How can this be denied? What are we going to do? I know find a global leader who will close the gate and make us live in a "sustainable" manner.

Not all humanists act like evangelists-in-reverse like Richard Dawkins for example, but those like Dawkins, who feel such a strong need to create a world without religion have to present a naturalistic worldview as being able to replace everything that many people presently get from religion and various spiritual traditions.

Nothing can replace what people get from religion - they get to face their demons.

So, Dawkins has to create his own spirituality that he describes as being in awe of the universe - Aweism is actually what some followers are calling it. But, the added problem for naturalism is that to replace religion, it has to offer its own message of hope for the future; and what happens if the future looks dark and perilous? That's why I contend that the majority of active atheist writers, bloggers and secular humanist club organizers, are not rationalists when it comes to dealing with the future. They are hoping that somehow everything will work out fine, and what really grinds me is that very few are actually looking at the scale and scope of environmental and related resource problems that are already beginning to make their effects felt in many parts of the world today.

The world will always look dark and perilous. If it doesn't we will make it so. The approach is what is key. We must meet the challenges or die. It is all we can do. You are convinced we are not meeting the challenges and will die and you have actual proof.

I'm not sure what you mean by look to yourself! I might be able to keep myself and my family safe, but I can't save the world. This is a collective problem that requires a collective solution by getting people to shift their priorities away from rampant, wasteful consumption and save something for those who come after us. It's hard to get people to defer short term comforts for even their own long term needs, let alone the needs of people who haven't been born yet; but that is what will be needed to ensure survival of our species, along with many others that are already on the road to extinction.

Maybe now you know what I mean by look to yourself. You can view our problems as a challenge or you can view them as chains - chains that we can never remove.

Edited February 15, 2013 by Pliny