Awhile back I announced I was disassociating myself from the Catholic Church because of their growing acceptance of the wacky man-made global warming theory. How can it be that the Church, symbol of truth and morality, would accept a science that is built on outright lies, flakey theories, deception and fortunetelling? That’s no Church for me.
Some readers thought that I may have acted to hastily, and advised me to at least wait until the Pope releases his upcoming encyclical on the topic. Maybe the Vatican is not really quite going in that direction.
Unfortunately that hardly seems to be the case. All signs are pointing to a Vatican that is ready to accept the bogus science. One can only speculate about what earthly benefit they may be getting in return. Even the Vatican’s soul can be bought.
For example the Vatican writes in a December 11 press release concerning the Lima Conference that climate protection is “a grave ethical and moral responsibility” and that “the consequences of environmental change […] remind us of the grave consequences of mismanagement and inaction.” and that “The time for seeking global solutions is running out” claiming there exists “a clear, definitive and unpostponable ethical imperative to act”.
I’d say the Vatican’s position is quite clear. The press release continues:
Pope Francis thus emphasised that an ‘effective battle against global warming will be possible only through a responsible collective response that sets aside particular interests and behaviours and develops free from political and economic pressures’.”
Other Vatican press releases on the subject use the same language.
Today the catholicphilly.com reports on the Pope’s upcoming visit to the Phillipines. It writes: “A worldwide campaign is emerging among Catholic individuals and organizations concerned about climate change and protecting the environment. The Global Catholic Climate Movement went public Jan. 14, coinciding with the visit of Pope Francis to the Philippines.”
Also new today is that Catholics in Australia are joining global movement to curb climate change. Great, these Catholics now believe in rain-dancing and indulgences.
They write:
We accept the findings of scientific leaders, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to widespread and mostly harmful changes to planetary systems. We are certain that anthropogenic [human-made] climate change endangers God’s creation and us all, particularly the poor, whose voices have already spoken of the impacts of an altered climate.”
It’s one thing when the members leave the Church, but it’s quite another when the Church leaves its members – and joins up with a flakey movement that is based on phony data, deception, slimy politics and fortunetelling. I have no desire to follow the Vatican in this folly. The Church has to come back to the truth, and not the other way around.
The Vatican would be very wise make an immediate course correction and to take a neutral position on the issue.
PS: My “Pope’s “to-do list” is meant to be satirical.
I do not have a problem with trying to help poor people. This could be accomplished more easily by getting rid of dictators and other totalitarian regimes.
The problem with the Pope and his flock boarding the “climate wagon” is that as the wheels fall off, as I believe is happening, there will be a need to recover the authority to lead. That is a difficult task.
Under the heading “Moral authority” Wikipedia claims “. . . moral authority necessitates the existence of and adherence to truth.”
So, the Church is about to confirm that it does not know truth.
Bad move.
John F. Hultquist 15. January 2015 at 19:44 | Permalink | Reply
“I do not have a problem with trying to help poor people. This could be accomplished more easily by getting rid of dictators and other totalitarian regimes.”
Uh, like Libya? Great suggestion, look what a paradise of freedom and democracy the humanitarian bombing has brought. PNAC Yay! Also called “The State Of Nature”.
I’m afraid the Pope has lost the plot…
“If my good friend Dr Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch.” Francis said while pretending to throw a punch in his direction. He added: “It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.”
From here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/charlie-hebdo-pope-francis-says-those-who-ridicule-others-religions-should-expect-a-punch-9980192.html
What was that about turning the other cheek?
Nobody can insult my faith nor offend it. I do not wear faith on my sleeve nor parade it as a virtue or a target. If you put your faith in the market place expect to be hassled.
Pierre – you get a definition of truth from Wiki!
You say the church must come back to the truth? What truth? How would you know what is true and what is not true?
The truth according to “science” is that everything that exists does so through chance processes, and there is no purpose in anything. The Pope agrees that this is how it looks but he says God made it happen, but that is not what God has said.
Where are you going to go for your truth? You need to ask some even bigger questions.
“The truth according to “science” is that everything that exists does so through chance processes, and there is no purpose in anything.”
Not quite. The scientific method restricts itself by definition to the material world and can make no assertion whatsoever on the spiritual level.
Also, through Gödel we know of the principal incompleteness of that description.
Stupid asshats like Dawkins don’t quite grasp this limitation and should be ignored.
I appreciate the comment and of course I agree with you somewhat about the scientific method, except that the logic of pure naturalistic origins for everything, explaining everything, leaves things like spirituality, conscience etc as mere delusions. Pure science is about knowledge, and defining it in purely materialist terms, ruling out other possibilities, in my view is a corruption of science and should not even be called science.
Science in its purest form seeks to find the truth about everything, wherever it leads. It is precisely the same dogmatic anti-pure science attitude of naturalism that is seen in climate science. Inconvenient facts are hidden, misrepresented, corrupted or even destroyed. This is not pure science.
As Mindert said earier (my interpretation of his words), the laws of physics were created by God, nothing else. This is the God of the gaps idea and I sympathise with those who criticise this.
I dislike Dawkins intensely, and his methods. My world view totally contradicts his because I do believe in a divine Creator, but I am also convinced that his conclusions (not his science) from his own world view are correct. His logic is full of big holes but he is trying to bridge huge gaps that seem impossible by any measure, and he fails, but he tries hard enough to convince many “by faith” that it is possible. Mount improbable becomes almost believable after enough Dawkins or other mind altering substance.
If the origin of the universe was indeed from a big bang, and all life on Earth is an accident, then there is no purpose, no morality, no soul, no God. I think the evidence is overwhelmingly against this though.
Religion is not science, and science should noe be religious.
Science has nothing to say about morals.
In naturalistic science there can be no morals.
If you want morals you have to justify scientifically where they come from, and naturalistically you can’t do it.
Religion, or faith in something higher than mere chemicals and physics, can provide morals but then these morals are useless if the religious foundation is false.
However, just because something is not scientifically understood, tested, confirmed by peer (or pal) reviewed literature doesn’t mean it is not true.
More to the point, religion is the antithesis of science and of any rational thought. The RC church has, from the beginning, been about politics and greed. Only the numbnuts at the bottom of the hierarchal food chain might actually believe. The higher one rises, the farther behind faith is abandoned.
So where do you think does your consciousness come from, you lump of meat?
Well my consciousness certainly doesn’t come from religion
It arises from the Brownian motion of material entities, then?
Good point Gary. Expect lots of mindless rebuttal.
Is that Lenin with a wig?
True science had its origin in Christianity and many scientists in history believed and were motivated by their belief in God. In contrast science today has become a new religion with its own priesthood.
How can it be that the Church, symbol of truth and morality, would accept a science that is built on outright lies, flakey theories, deception and fortunetelling – See more at: https://notrickszone.com/#sthash.a63lG6gX.dpuf
Isn’t that what religion is founded on ??
Who is that Pope fellow?
He’s similar to your Imam, Bengt.
That bad?
Your Imam is bad?
Much badder than yours!!!!
I’m a Christian, Bengt. But Salem A leikum to you.
“The truth according to “science” is that everything that exists does so through chance processes, and there is no purpose in anything.”
What? No!
The laws of physics are not “chance” processes. They are very well defined. Entropy is always increasing. The “purpose” of the universe is to reduce all energy and matter to inert uniformity. Of course, this will take awhile… a very long while.
Who wrote the laws of physics?
Who designed the Periodic Table?
Who sparked the Big Bang?
The God of MY universe didn’t wave a magic wand on six days in 4004BCE. He (or She, or It) was much grander and more powerful than that.
Is this the same magic wand that the Pope talks about?
If the purpose of God was to create laws of physics that had the aim of reducing energy and matter into one inert uniformity, then there is absolutely no meaningful purpose that can be derived out of this for the sake of human kind, or any kind at all.
Without those laws you weren’t here (long before that moment arrives).
I have always made the difference between God and religion (from whatever church we are referring to or talking about).
Is this the same (type of) church leader who was behind the excommunication of Galileo for suggesting that the earth was not the center of our solar system? Is this the same religious thinking that in 1616, ordered Galileo not to “hold, teach, or defend in any manner” the Copernican theory regarding the motion of the earth.
Yes, the Catholic Church and its leader have set a fine example of their knowledge of reason and Science. And now, we are expected by the chief airhead to follow his superstitions and thinking now?
This almost as bad a the suggestion that we should follow without question, the consensus of politically highly-paid government-sponsored scientists and non-scientists, who without their unquestioning obedience might not have a decent-paying job at all.
Seems the pope is trying to combine two religions together.
Both have similar “responses” if you don’t “believe”
Hell and damnation !!
At Junkscience.com:
Well ain’t the Pope just a jackass–he lectures man on slapping nature. All hail nature
Unfortunately, satire can be deflated rather effectively when it pushes some easily checked un- or nontruths (the “pot, meet kettle” thing).
When was it, exactly, that the RC taught that the Earth was flat?
As far as I know, it never taught that it was flat. The Earth was known to be a sphere long before the birth of Christ, and is also clear from early christian writings.
“How can it be that the Church, symbol of truth and morality, would accept a science that is built on outright lies, flakey theories, deception and fortunetelling? That’s no Church for me.”
Pierre, you are making the same mistake as has been made by many people down the centuries. You are confusing ‘The Church’ and ‘individual people in the Church’. Individual people in the Church may have made statements with which you find yourself in disagreement but ‘the Church’ has never made any definitive statement about the climate which all Catholics are expected to accept. As a Catholic you knew, or should have known, that the Church is only infallible in certain circumstances and that in all other circumstances individuals in the Church, no matter how high up they may be, can make mistakes. Pope Benedict made that same point in the introduction to his books on Jesus of Nazareth.
Can I also ask, what is this ‘Vatican’ you keep talking about? There is no such body in the Catholic Church called ‘the Vatican’. There are individuals and organisations which work in the Vatican. These individuals and organisations (which are just group of individuals) can make mistakes as much as anybody else. You may recall that Pope Francis recently gave a whole list of them.
The only reason for belonging to the Catholic Church is because of a belief that it is the Church which Jesus Christ founded. That belief is based on Scripture and Tradition, not on what the Church says or does not say about the climate. You either believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God or you don’t. You either believe that Jesus founded a Church or you don’t. You either believe that that Church is the Catholic Church or you don’t. But deciding not to believe because of the statements of some people IN the Church on an issue which is not about faith or morals? That doesn’t make any sense. Where do you now go to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist?
The Catholic Church was probably pressured to jump on the bandwagon of “The Great Social Experiment of 1945-2015” as it crashed: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/Social_Experiment.pdf