Balance of nature: human and theological implications (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, February 02, 2025, 13:20 (1 day, 6 hours, 29 min. ago) @ David Turell

Balance of Nature: Theology

God and evolution

DAVID: He can express a human attribute by mimicry!

dhw: And it came to pass that the all-knowing creator of all things knew nothing of love, enjoyment, interest, relationships, recognition, worship, but when he did see human love, enjoyment, interest, relationships, recognition and worship he did imitate them in a non-human way. Please stop all this nonsense! Either he does or he doesn’t have attributes which he has passed on to us.

DAVID: Per Adler God is not human in any way. He gave us the brains to create all the above attributes on our own.

I wish you would stop drawing Adler into the discussion. It is totally absurd for you to list some of your God’s possible human attributes and then tell us God is not human in any way. And your “mimicry” idea is absurd. Once more, either the Creator passed some of his own attributes onto his creations, or he didn’t.

Balance of Nature: human

In view of your misrepresentation of my arguments (see below), I’ll cut most of yesterday’s exchanges.

dhw: You have just agreed that India and China should switch, and Brazil should emulate your NA loggers by replanting. Are they or are they not causing damage to the environment?

DAVID: I'll go far to agree they are altering their climate.

In this context, does it not occur to you that climate changes over such massive expanses might influence climate elsewhere?

dhw: Yesterday you accepted the need for a balanced approach, as above. Today you pretend that “as quickly as pragmatically possible” = panic mode. Since when did a balanced approach mean panic? It’s you who are “into word games”!

DAVID: "as quickly as pragmatically possible" equals panic mode. It is the word 'quickly'. I would agree to pragmatically advance at no specified speed.

More silly word games. There is no specified speed in “as pragmatically possible”!

dhw: I would suggest that you now write to President Trump, urging him to rejoin the Paris Agreement and devote his mighty powers of persuasion to getting all countries to cooperate in following America’s example in finding the best and quickest ways to prevent environmental, social and economic disasters.

DAVID: Unfortunately I agree with Trump.

dhw: Unfortunate indeed. You approve of replanting, you agree that Brazil should follow suit, you agree that India and China should stop digging, you know as well as I do that current practices are polluting the air, earth and water, you agree that these practices should end as quickly as pragmatically possible, but you don’t agree that for this to happen, there has to be international cooperation, and you are happy to have your country lead the way in preventing such cooperation and in encouraging other countries to do the same. Drill, baby, drill. Dig, baby, dig. Poison us, baby, poison us.

DAVID: I must stay pragmatic with my country and reject all the UN foisted panic.

Rejecting the panic should not mean ignoring the current realities listed above, and your country is actively encouraging continuation of these practices by wrecking all hope of international cooperation.

Climate discussion at a psychological level

Quote: Eowyn was a run of the mill storm, the sort which has happened many times in the past.
"But it certainly proves the point of what I have been saying for years now – that the Met Office’s naming of storms and the use of recently introduced clifftop and hilltop sites to produce scary headlines has now created an atmosphere of hysteria, upon which the corrupt media feed.
There is no evidence, none whatsoever, that climate change is disrupting the food supply or causing hunger or malnutrition in Latin America."

DAVID: no wonder dhw is so panicky.

DAVID: Again the truth is distorted to insist upon urgency. Proceeding at a pragmatic pace is reasonable.

I wish you would read what I write instead of picking on examples I have never mentioned (storms, food supply, hunger), repeating my proposal as if it was yours, and covering your head-in-the-sand approach by pretending mine is “panicky”. I have dismissed prophecies about the future, which nobody can know, and have scrupulously listed my causes of concern: present use of fossil fuels, deforestation, methods of transportation and agriculture which are all poisoning the air, earth and water on which we depend. You agree that these are dangerous, accepted my list, praised your NA loggers for reforestation, and wished the Indians and Chinese would end their dependence on coal. I have called for “a balance between the need to avoid environmental disaster and the need to avoid social and economic disaster” with countries “switching as quickly as pragmatically possible rather than as slowly as they like”. Again you agree, except that you want “a slow reasonable economic response”, and are happy to wreck the Paris Agreement, which offers the only possible route to international cooperation and instead encourages nations to do what they like – as trumpeted by your President. Please stop pretending that concern over current practices, which you share with me, are signs of panic on my part, and that “as quickly as pragmatically possible” = panic-stricken urgency.