Why do fundamentalist Christians object to the science behind climate change?

Rationalist

Rationalist

Hail Voltaire
Fundamentalist Christians object to the theory of evolution because it conflicts with their interpretation of the Bible. Although this is pathetic, it is understandable to a certain extent. When one's worldview is threatened, the default response is to defend it (unfortunately, Christians defend their worldview in spite of overwhelming, undeniable evidence, but that's another topic altogether). The one thing that puzzles me is the almost unanimous objection amongst fundamentalist and conservative Christians to the science behind climate change. What's their angle, exactly?
 
Voltaire said:
Fundamentalist Christians object to the theory of evolution because it conflicts with their interpretation of the Bible. Although this is pathetic, it is understandable to a certain extent. When one's worldview is threatened, the default response is to defend it (unfortunately, Christians defend their worldview in spite of overwhelming, undeniable evidence, but that's another topic altogether). The one thing that puzzles me is the almost unanimous objection amongst fundamentalist and conservative Christians to the science behind climate change. What's their angle, exactly?
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For someone who claims to be committed to science, you sure come to the table with a whole assortment of biases. But, I would love to tackle your straw man arguments because this is fun for me.

I don't know many that reject the theory of evolution outright or deny that evolution happens. What is the subject of contention is whether or not evolution by itself can account for man in his present day glory. I think there are lots of questions regarding evolution and its capacity to result in mans present existence. As a man of math, it is statistically impossible for random mutations to result in all of our glory. But, by all means, lets start here. How did the human eye evolve?

As for climate change, nobody denies that the climate changes. We witness it four times a year. Nobody denies that the earth gets warmer and gets cooler. What is denied because it has not been proven is whether or not man and his use of fossil fuels has caused a 1 degree increase in temperature over the last 100 years.

You snidely deride people who disagree with you as "fundamentalist Christians" and you do so in an attempt to marginalize their argument rather than trying to bolster yours.

Instead of trying to effectively argue why a 1 degree change in 100 years is relevant compared to the 100 million lifespan of mother earth, you shout out "DENIER".

So the question is why you try to pass of as science your political ideology. Unless of course you can point me to a randomized, controlled trial showing global warming is real and man is causing it. Ready? GO!
 
Voltaire, the answer is knee jerk reaction and an over reliance on ad hominem for decision making. It is not just a product of Christians or the right. If it is perceived as coming from the wrong source then they take the opposite positon and are biased towards any information that challenges their beliefs.

Take the response on global warming/climate change or whatever. They don't care about the science they care about controlling the response. Many on the left do the same and demand we should not look for a genetic marker on homosexuality because that might lead to abortions of homosexuals.

Don't look, don't question, just stfu and do what WE say. Knee jerk reactionaries are control freaks that are afraid their children will do better than them. I don't know why. Future shock maybe? Fear that they may have been wrong or might have to reevaluate and retrain?


Sorry, for being a dick.
 
I think you should look at Tom's thread on this. It is the AGW religious nuts that are ignoring Science. That is plain to see.
 
But I would be happy to look at what you think is relevant if you will point it out with greater precision.
 
Voltaire said:
Fundamentalist Christians object to the theory of evolution because it conflicts with their interpretation of the Bible. Although this is pathetic, it is understandable to a certain extent. When one's worldview is threatened, the default response is to defend it (unfortunately, Christians defend their worldview in spite of overwhelming, undeniable evidence, but that's another topic altogether). The one thing that puzzles me is the almost unanimous objection amongst fundamentalist and conservative Christians to the science behind climate change. What's their angle, exactly?
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First of all, you are believing a falsehood. Most Christians believe evolution is one of God's many tools, they simply don't object to it. The scientist who mapped the human genome is a Christian, and he doesn't dispute the theory of evolution. The most important thing for you to remember here is, evolution doesn't explain or even attempt to explain the origins of life itself. You are the simple-minded neophyte who thinks evolution displaces creationism. There is not even a basis in the theory of evolution, by which it can explain origin. Even if it is absolutely 100% established fact and law of the universe, it only makes the question of "ORIGIN" more perplexing. It does NOT refute or contradict a theory that our universe and existence may ultimately be the result of an 'intelligent' design. As a matter of fact, the very aspect of evolution would indicate an even stronger possibility that some intelligent force is in play. Remember, "Science" does not say "Just Because!" Therefore, it is an insufficient argument to have in a scientific perspective. Evolution didn't happen "just because" so the things that made evolution a possibility, also didn't happen "just because," and we've not answered those questions.

In science, there is really no such thing as "undeniable evidence" because everything can be questioned unless it is proven, and science doesn't prove, it suggests probability. Certain universal principles have been established as laws, but evolution is not really one of those. Some things have evolved rapidly, while other things show no sign of apparent evolution over hundreds of thousands of years. We can observe signs of evolution within a 'genus' but we have little or no evidence of cross-genus evolution. While the theory of evolution can explain how certain animals evolved over time to adapt to circumstance, it can't explain the rather wide array of life forms which have absolutely nothing to do with each other in how their particular systems of life operate, and in many cases, are interdependent on other life forms to even exist. Evolution has no explanation for this.

There is a theory called "Abiogenesis" which posits that all life ultimately emerged from a single cell. Okay... still... let's ASSUME this is true... where/why/how/who was responsible for that single cell? If it was some magical mystical result of chemicals and reactions of heat and water... it sounds a LOT like a specifically controlled science project of an intelligent entity, doesn't it? How would even THIS disprove the existence of an intelligent force we can't comprehend? It doesn't, it can't, and you can bang your head against a brick wall trying, it won't ever.

You can't use science to defeat faith any more than you can use faith to defeat science. You can cling to your "undeniable evidence" but be aware, Christians believe in their own "undeniable evidence" as well. So it's best we put spiritual faith and scientific faith in separate boxes, and not try to fight them against each other. It's pointless, because Science is totally inadequate to deal with matters of spirituality.
 
FactsRStubborn said:
I don't know many that reject the theory of evolution outright or deny that evolution happens.
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According to a recent Gallup survey, 46% of Americans reject the theory of evolution. They believe a deity created man in his present form less than 10,000 years ago.

As a man of math, it is statistically impossible for random mutations to result in all of our glory.
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Do you have any evidence to support your assertion?

But, by all means, lets start here. How did the human eye evolve?
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If you are suggesting that the human eye couldn't have evolved from a much simpler structure, you're mistaken. The human eye is not "irreducibly complex" as many creationist/ID proponents claim.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB921_1.html

As for climate change, nobody denies that the climate changes. We witness it four times a year. Nobody denies that the earth gets warmer and gets cooler. What is denied because it has not been proven is whether or not man and his use of fossil fuels has caused a 1 degree increase in temperature over the last 100 years.

You snidely deride people who disagree with you as "fundamentalist Christians" and you do so in an attempt to marginalize their argument rather than trying to bolster yours.

Instead of trying to effectively argue why a 1 degree change in 100 years is relevant compared to the 100 million lifespan of mother earth, you shout out "DENIER".

So the question is why you try to pass of as science your political ideology. Unless of course you can point me to a randomized, controlled trial showing global warming is real and man is causing it. Ready? GO!
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There have been numerous studies on the subject. Nobody claims that the increase in temperature can be attributed solely to human activity, but a significant percentage of it can be. Here's a good one:

http://www.nature.com/news/at-least-three-quarters-of-climate-change-is-man-made-1.9538

Perhaps you could point to an article submitted to a well-respected, peer-reviewed scientific journal that contradicts the theory that climate change can be attributed to human activity?
 
Dixie, he said FUNDAMENTALIST Christians. That is a qualification. No where does he say that he believes that evolution disproves any chance of creation. Why not ask if that is what he believes and gather more context? No that would waste time when you can make an ass of yourself much more quickly by jumping to conclusions.
 
Dixie said:
First of all, you are believing a falsehood. Most Christians believe evolution is one of God's many tools, they simply don't object to it.
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Wrong, a significant portion of Christians (presumably the fundamentalists and conservatives) reject evolution:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/01/gallup-poll-americans-creationism-evolution_n_1563800.html

The most important thing for you to remember here is, evolution doesn't explain or even attempt to explain the origins of life itself. You are the simple-minded neophyte who thinks evolution displaces creationism. There is not even a basis in the theory of evolution, by which it can explain origin.
Click to expand...

Irrelevant. Nobody claims that evolution explains the origin of life. That would be the theory of abiogenesis.

Even if it is absolutely 100% established fact and law of the universe, it only makes the question of "ORIGIN" more perplexing.
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So you think that just because we can't explain something, god must have done it? You believe that is a logical conclusion?

It does NOT refute or contradict a theory that our universe and existence may ultimately be the result of an 'intelligent' design.
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ID is a topic worthy of discussion, but is outside the realm of science because it cannot be tested.

Sure, there could be a god that used natural processes to create everything, but without evidence to support its existence, I have no reason to believe in it.
 
Voltaire said:
ID is a topic worthy of discussion, but is outside the realm of science because it cannot be tested.
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This last statement invalidates any argument you can make for man made global warming as you cannot test it therefore it is not science. The science as you call it is nothing more than mathematical models based on selective data from a very small time frame relative to the supposed age of Mother Earth.

Same goes for evolution. You can't test it. All you can do is observe.

And anyone who knows anything about statistical methodology in science knows that observational studies are by far the weakest.

Was it your intention to invalidate your own arguments or was it an accident.

I will give you time to absorb what just happened to you. Good day.
 
But the credibility of these computer model predictions took a significant hit in June 2007 when Dr. Jim Renwick, a top UN IPCC scientist, admitted that climate models do not account for half the variability in nature and thus are not reliable. "Half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don’t expect to do terrifically well," Renwick conceded. (LINK)
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Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,” he added.
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Award-winning NASA Astronaut and Physicist Walter Cunningham of NASA’s Apollo 7 also recently chastised Hansen. “Hansen is a political activist who spreads fear even when NASA’s own data contradict him,” Cunningham wrote in an essay in the July/August 2008 issue of Launch Magazine. “NASA should be at the forefront in the collection of scientific evidence and debunking the current hysteria over human-caused, or Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). Unfortunately, it is becoming just another agency caught up in the politics of global warming, or worse, politicized science,” Cunningham wrote.
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IPCC reviewer and climate researcher Dr Vincent Gray, of New Zealand, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports going back to 1990 and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of "Climate Change 2001," declared “The claims of the IPCC are dangerous unscientific nonsense” in an April 10, 2007 article. (LINK)

“All [UN IPCC does] is make ‘projections’ and ‘estimates’. No climate model has ever been properly tested, which is what ‘validation’ means, and their ‘projections’ are nothing more than the opinions of ‘experts’ with a conflict of interest, because they are paid to produce the models. There is no actual scientific evidence for all these ‘projections’ and ‘estimates,'” Gray noted.
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Many prominent scientists have spoken out in 2007 to debunk many fears relating to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball recently explained that one of the reasons climate models are failing is because they overestimate the warming effect of CO2 in the atmosphere. Ball described how CO2’s warming impact diminishes. “Even if CO2 concentration doubles or triples, the effect on temperature would be minimal. The relationship between temperature and CO2 is like painting a window black to block sunlight. The first coat blocks most of the light. Second and third coats reduce very little more. Current CO2 levels are like the first coat of black paint,” Ball explained in a June 6, 2007 article in Canada Free Press. (LINK)

Boston College paleoclimatologist Dr. Amy Frappier recently explained how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can cease to have a warming impact. Frappier noted in a February 1, 2007 article in Boston College’s newspaper The Heights, that greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere do not consistently continue to have a warming effect on Earth, but the impact of the gases instead stabilize and cease having a warming effect.

"At some point the heat-trapping capacity of [CO2] and its effect gets saturated," said Frappier, "and you don't have increased heating." (LINK) "The geologic record shows that many millions of years ago, CO2 levels were indeed higher - in some cases many times higher - than today," Frappier, who believes mankind is having an impact on the climate, explained. According the article, Frappier criticizes Gore because “the movie (An Inconvenient Truth) fails to mention any ancient incongruity between carbon dioxide and temperature.
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Do explain how you think the above are all agreeing that Man is the primary cause of the warming?
 
Superfreak said:
Do explain how you think the above are all agreeing that Man is the primary cause of the warming?
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SF has NOTHING. He is saying, "look over here... these quotes don't say that man is the primary cause of warming." But they don't refute or challenge that either. They are talking about other issues. But here is something that indicates they think it is happening and impacted by man.


Frappier, who believes mankind is having an impact on the climate, explained.
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TheSuperstringTheory said:
SF has NOTHING. He is saying, "look over here... these quotes don't say that man is the primary cause of warming." But they don't refute or challenge that either. They are talking about other issues. But here is something that indicates they think it is happening and impacted by man.
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Can you counter Voltaires argument that man made global warming cannot be tested therefore does not qualify as science?
Thank you in advance for what I am sure will be a well thought out and well reasoned response
 
Voltaire said:
Fundamentalist Christians object to the theory of evolution because it conflicts with their interpretation of the Bible. Although this is pathetic, it is understandable to a certain extent. When one's worldview is threatened, the default response is to defend it (unfortunately, Christians defend their worldview in spite of overwhelming, undeniable evidence, but that's another topic altogether). The one thing that puzzles me is the almost unanimous objection amongst fundamentalist and conservative Christians to the science behind climate change. What's their angle, exactly?
Click to expand...

fox+news+sheep.jpg
 
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