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Religion
In reply to the discussion: Too Simple to Be Wrong: Atheism's Bronze-Age Goat Herder Conceit [View all]NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)22. None of us have wonderful odds in our favor with 400 PPM CO2 concentrations
Billions upon billions will face famine by 2100 based on projections using IPCC AR4 models. America will no longer have viable land to grow corn, wheat and soy by 2050 according to Ortiz et al (crops are already just started to experience this failure). The ocean is acidifying, which will--through food-chain disruption--kill off most of the water based populations that are not yet completely depleted through over-fishing. No one has "wonderful odds" unless they own swaths of Peruvian rainforest.
What do you think a parent 100 years ago would have said if they knew how much infant mortality would be reduced in the future?
Why does it concern me that the affluently malnourished agriculturalists (whose infant mortality rates exceeded 30% at one point) finally brought their rates back on par with the pre-agricultural foraging societies according to paleopathological studies? As I said early, I do not romanticize earlier parts of the agriculturalist civilization or their "improvements" to the very problems they created (like high infant mortality, epidemics, malnutrition, xenoestrogens and environmental toxins, etc). And even in doing so, this does not account for the majority in civilization who live in squalor, but only those with a good seat at the game in the land of plenty.
It seems to be that you are stuck in this mindset of "as long as something's not perfect in the world, no progress has been made."
I'm stuck in the mindset that this system of infinite, perpetual growth is destroying our environment without improving the aggregate human condition (Africans to Americans), and we have to pay the piper real soon within our life times. Im stuck in the mindset that I will have to watch my children die of famine because the salmon won't run, wheat won't grow and we will decimate what is left of wild game in our hunger. It doesn't have to be this way, but the science worshipping technophiles believe their new God will save us from our finite limits.
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As an atheist, I must say were it not for religion to control the people, I doubt we would be here
Democratopia
Jan 2013
#58
What you forecast is chilling and seems inevitable, were it not for the ingenuity and ever-expanding
Democratopia
Jan 2013
#59
We will have to build machines that will extract the C02 from the atmosphere.
Democratopia
Jan 2013
#68
Are you implying that the religion of those civilizations gave them that knowledge?
cleanhippie
Jan 2013
#93
Your decision to replace discussion with this personal vendetta type thing is toxic, imo.
pinto
Jan 2013
#28
Discussion? Please don't talk to me about "discussion" when it comes to the bayer family
skepticscott
Jan 2013
#33
Your consistent defense of cbayer, coupled with your eerily similar opinions, posting patterns,
trotsky
Jan 2013
#35
Hi. Back in. Just wanted to speak my piece about civil discourse among members here. Which I did.
pinto
Jan 2013
#48
If our 14th century chap were familiar with Euclid's Elements, he would still today be a capable
dimbear
Jan 2013
#21
I wouldn't restrict the comparison to science; religion is stagnant compared to politics, too
muriel_volestrangler
Jan 2013
#36
Harris talked about 700 years ago; so most of your points are strawmen
muriel_volestrangler
Jan 2013
#73