Off Topic Posts aka Rabbit Trail Thread - Mostly YEC Geology

Faith, you in fact do claim to know more than anyone else in pretty much all of your discussions. When you can't be bothered to first learn all you can about whatever science you are discounting and then be able to provide well reasoned and logical explanations for why mainstream science is wrong, then you don't respect that science. Or it's scientists. That attitude screams contempt. And you haven't the right. You haven't earned it. Until you know what you are talking about, you should not be accusing those not following your beliefs of being liars, frauds, anti-Bible conspirators, incompetent boobs, and basically, idiots.That's why you are "abused." Not because of your beliefs, but because of your unmitigated contempt for anything and everyone who doesn't follow your beliefs.Any geologist will tell you that, yes, there is an enormous amount of speculation and conjecturing and theorizing and hypothesizing in geology. That's what makes my job so frustrating and intellectually fulfilling at the same time. The nature of the science demands that, as you well know. We weren't there when 99.99999% of the geological record was formed. So we are left with attempting to read a book written in a language that we've only started to translate. But don't think that allows you or anyone else the opportunity to bullshit and hand wave your way through the arguments.We know our shit. We know it because we've seen the details that you haven't, and the details you can't even imagine exist. You arguments, Faith, are nothing more than vacuous declarations drawn from pure willful ignorance of the very worst kind. And if you can't defend them here on EvC by providing a clear and cogent defense of your assertions, they are indefensible and not worthy of being on anyone's blog.

First let me comment on the Global Warming issue. The issue of whether it is man caused or natural is really nothing but an attempt to keep from having to address the issue. It just plain doesn't matter if it is man caused and the BEST possible scenario is if it is man caused. Regardless of who or what caused it, we will still need to address the effects and the easiest things we can do is to address those things man does contribute. Addressing non-man made contributions will be far harder and far more expensive.At the same time, we need to be discussing how we plan to deal with the effects of Global warming. In the US how do we relocate several million people, add additional water management facilities and build the needed infrastructure, assure adequate water supplies for agriculture and modify what is being grown to match changes in climate?Next, on Genesis 1. Go back and reread it but from yet another perspective. See the creation story under a new point of view, one where the creation story is simply a plot device to support the Hebrew week and Sabbath. Genesis 1 is a much younger story than Genesis 2&3 and is most likely a product of the period when the greatest threat was being assimilated into the Persian culture; it is a product meant to help establish and reinforce a particular characteristic of "Jewishness", the six day week followed by the Sabbath. Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner.

An excellent observation. I would also add that Faith appears to be poorly positioned to be able to understand the evidence for an old universe or for evolution. She is exactly the audience that CMI and AIG intend to target with Creation Science. That stuff isn't suppose to actually convince geologists, paleontologists, or astronomers; Creation Science is for those who don't have any personal stake in the scientific method. She has nothing to gain from accepting reality. We should not expect under those circumstances that a Bible hyper-literalist would moderate their interpretation of the Bible.In Faith's defense, I'll also note that after a fit of tossing out jeers, Faith has apparently gone back and retracted at least the majority if not all of the jeers she applied in her fit of frustration.Not going to comment on AGW. That discussion would be a trip down a rabbit hole even further off of the rabbit trail we're already on.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Playing upon the obvious stupidity of the general public and people right here, the Governments everywhere are really focused on raising Tax hidden in our energy bills forevermore, simply by using this matter as a crisis worthy of exploitation.You are correct that we need focus of adjusting to the problem which we see coming.
We do need collect money to mediate the conditions which will befall certain geographic areas.We do NOT need to let the government forevermore tax us insidiously in the bills sent by the Electric Company and Gas Companies.We need maintain the Constitutional process of the House recommending overtly what Taxes they will raise.We prohibit the Generalization of Taxes raised for this purpose so the government does not spend the money forother things like they did with Soc Sec Funds.We need investigate the correlation with the almost total deforestation of the World and this rise in CO2 which those absentee trees no longer breathe in and contain.We need review that Sun's observable effect of ice caps on Mars, the Moon, and other planets/moons in our Solar System to realize the Sun is a powerful contributor to this matter.We need realize that energy is the ONLY thing w have to fight back against an environment that is changing, so we need love energy and be careful not to restrict its production. Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner.

German co-workers once tried to explain "Operation Barbarosa" to me, in particular why Hitler would launch an invasion of the Soviet Union with military forces that were woefully unprepared and under-equipped. They concluded that is was the fault of Nazi propaganda which kept proclaiming how superior the German military was to everybody else and their either Hitler had started to believe his own propaganda, or else the lies had forced him into a corner where he could not afford to not launch that ill-fated invasion.I see a similar answer to your question. The reason why creationists insist on trying to use "scientific" arguments for creation is because of the deception they had engineered for the courts, the fundamental lie of "creation science" that their objections to evolution are purely scientific and absolutely not based on religion. But then they started marketing that same deception to their followers, both to "support" their faith and to use in proselytizing. And now they're trapped in that losing strategy of having to lie about science and to carefully guard their ignorance of science, all because they had made the classic mistake of believing the lies of their own propaganda.

As I have offered more than once, analogous to the teaching of "spiritual milk" vs "spiritual meat", there is also "scientific milk" vs "scientific meat." Basically, you try to present the truth in a way and at a level where it can be understood by your audience, even if you have to use means that are not absolutely accurate. Where we see that last part back-fire on us often is when creationists "research" their arguments from the writings of science popularizers. What bothers me about that situation is that I have frequently seen them taught and they have argued vehemently with me that if their literal interpretations of Genesis are not true, then they are required to abandon the Bible and their faith and become atheists. So of course they are not going to feel any motivation to stop and think critically about it; their very faith is at stake.Now, in the question of teaching a falsehood, there are two situations: either you know that it is a falsehood, or you do not know and believe it to be true. In the first case you would be lying and in the second case you would not be technically lying. However, that is a purely moral judgement. Pragmatically, the consequences of that falsehood being taught is the same regardless of the moral question of whether that person was knowingly lying. The consequences of teaching falsehoods are the same regardless.

I'm all for taking steps to lessen the hardship that global warming will bring, but drastically reducing carbon dioxide emissions only serves to bring hardship itself to the world. Carbon dioxide is directly linked with energy production, and if you limit carbon dioxide emissions, you necessarily limit energy production. When you limit energy production in a world with increasing population, all you do is raise the cost of living and ultimately lower the standard living for people who can least afford to do so.Global warming has come before and Global cooling has come before as well. Sea levels have risen and they have fallen. The thing is, no one has proven to my satisfaction that we are on a long term trend of global warming. I have seen a warming trend since the end of the little Ice Age. If after say the year 2100, we are another degree farenheit warmer than we were at the peak of global warming 16 years ago, I would be more inclined to believe we are on a long term trend. What we need to do is measure low level cloud cover more precisely. If low level cloud cover is ,say, 4% higher in 2100 than in was in 2000, and we are still 1 degree Farenheit warmer than we were 16 years ago, I would not only say global warming is a significant trend,but carbon dioxide might actually be the culprit.As it stands now, it seems to be that the reason we are 1 degree farenheit warmer than we were in 1850 is because the century since then has had around 4% lower in low level clouds than the century prior to 1850. Even NASA has admitted such a difference in cloud cover over a significant period of time could bring about significant changes in global temperature. Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner.

Do more research.But you don't have to lower the standard of living for those who can least afford it. You simply lower the high end far more.Yes, we need to totally rebuild the US. But at best it will take a half century. The one FACT is that the bill will get paid. Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner.

Fortunately, there are alternatives to simply burning fossil fuels.Plenty of people will go on and on about solar and wind and hydro...they have their place, but they cannot provide the power production capacity and reliability needed to form the backbone for generation going forward.Nuclear power is by far the safest method of power generation (yes, nuclear power is statistically safer per megawatt generated than wind, solar, hydro, or any other method of generating power), and happens to have an ample, easy source of fuel. Most of the "problems" of nuclear power are either outdated designs (see Fukushima) or are simply self-imposed by fearmongers (fuel rod reprocessing).A modern, standardized reactor design could be implemented en mass to replace coal, oil, and gas plants with more safety and greater scalability. A breeder reactor chain could virtually eliminate nuclear waste and squeeze even more power out of the fuel. We could even use the Thorium cycle instead of Uranium and have an extremely plentiful fuel source with a relatively miniscule amount of waste material.Combined with increased sales in electric cars, we can do an awful lot towards ridding ourselves of dependance on fossil fuels almost in their entirety.For developing nations...there are designs for cargo-container sized nuclear power plants. These can be used to provide power generation for small areas (and could even decentralize the power grid for larger nations like the US, where we are very vulnerable to mass power outages - I'm sure most of us remember the East Coast blackout a few years back) as a nation develops. The fuel is kept sealed, and the container is easily shipped back to the manufacturer for refueling after a decade or so of operation.It's entirely possible to achieve the goal of massively reducing CO2 production within a decade. Ironically, the very Earth-conscious idiots who want that reduction are almost exclusively the ones who vehemently resist the real solution, because they've bought into anti-nuclear hysteria and outright lies. Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner.

In addition, small sealed recyclable nuclear power sources could be used to distribute power generation.AbE: Also switching to long distance DC transmission would show a 25% to 50% reduction in transmission power losses. Edited by jar, : see AbE:Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner.

Its the same with the Welfare crisis where the idiots who most want to help children resist the reform of a system that multiplies children being abused by fatherlessness.It us the same idiots who want to stop killings that focus on banning guns instead of the young killers who get illegal guns.It us the same idiots who want to stop wars by making rich America vulnerable to attack.It us the same idiots who want to stop the economic depression by taxing successful business operations.It us the same idiots who want to stop to the 3 million annual illegitimate pregnancies is to do away with the babies.It us the same idiots who want to stop for the Drug problem is to do away with the Drug Laws.It us the same idiots who want to stop poverty is to give them other people’s money.It us the same idiots who want to stop fat kids is to investigate Fast Food restaurantsIt us the same idiots who want to stop the school bully is to arrest teachers for grabbing them.It is the same idiotic actions taken in regard to the church people trying to defend the Bible with interpretations that contradict common sense and science. Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner.

It's funny... I only know one geologist who is not skeptical of AGW. lol I think it has to do with our ingrained understanding of earth's great age and it's very complex history. Having people think they know what's happening today based on a few hundred years of real data and a few thousand years of proxy data when the earth is 4.5 billion years old is just hard for us to swallow.I'm an AGW skeptic, too, but that doesn't make me a denier (I detest that anti-science term) and it doesn't mean we shouldn't make an effort to clean up our planet. I just think we need more data and more time before we conclude "AGW." Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner.

I'm the same way based on decades of study of the past via archaeology.Also, until we can begin to quantify our data to a higher degree (no pun intended--or not much) than we have today, any findings must still be regarded as tentative. Until we are sure, this is not something I'd want to throw several trillion dollars at when we are not just broke, but way deep in the hole.This whole situation is not helped by the likes of a leftie/statist professor who recently suggested making skepticism of AGW a capitol crime and executing influential "deniers." What a joke! I sure wouldn't want the likes of this jerk in charge of anything more critical than a rural outhouse, and even that may be too much.

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Prof. Richard Parncutt: Death Penalty for Global Warming Deniers? | Tallbloke's Talkshop

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This is the kind of nonsense one finds with religions dealing with heretics, not science dealing with those who are seeking to clarify the data before committing several trillion dollars on a fix that nobody knows where it will end up.Here is a good blog by Jerry Pournelle on the subject:

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Global Warming again; Crisis of Self Government; more dragons to slay? – Chaos Manor – Jerry Pournelle

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(By the way, Pournelle may have had the first blog out there, long before the term was even invented.) Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner.

...and I hate seeing a good discussion get buried in a topic it doesn't belong in.I put "off-topic" banners on some real good messages. Please find a better home for that information.Adminnemooseus

Then it is not God's fault that the Bible is confusing.This does not, however, do anything to remove the confusion... or the threats. And therefore the Bible becomes a "waste of time" as a lone source for knowledge about this world.As I said in Message 288:

quote:

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Maybe the Bible's just wrong.
Maybe there's even no such thing as a good, powerful, wise God.

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Perhaps there's a good, powerful, wise being... but not a God that is all-good, and all-powerful and all-wise and sent an inerrent Bible to guide us to His will.In that case, we are left with the Bible being a decent book to learn some things from... but not some sort of master-craft to learn all things from.We should then use all the information available to us in order to make the best decisions possible. This includes things not from the Bible. This may even include things that contradict the Bible entirely... but we should back all our information with knowledge gained from reality. Not from a Bible that is confusing and threatening.