Pope Francis and Other Christian Leaders Are Calling for Bold Climate Action • Hacker News Board

Re: Pope Francis and Other Christian Leaders Are Calling for Bold Climate Action

#41

Post by dr_dshiv » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 1:15 PM UTC

neither_color wrote: post #25

magicroot75 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thus is the curse of being a religion. You do one thing that general society helps. And then they just criticize another piece of your belief system. There's no system that will perfectly allow people to both find value and meaning in their world AND also promote totally free action of others. Thus we live in a contemporary world of non-religious people seeking out value (look at the current obsession in Silicon Vall…

Thus we live in a contemporary world of non-religious people seeking out value (look at the current obsession in Silicon Valley with Stoicism, mindfulness, pyschadelics, etc). But Silicon Valley also tells their people that they can't use those methods to find an actual belief system of values. It's like, definitely always look for meaning and value in the universe, we like that. But, don't find it and a be bold abou…

> you might as well be religious.

Totally. I'm excited about efforts to buy old churches to repurpose them to serve the spiritual and cultural needs like you list. It's like, rationally speaking, we need spiritual wellbeing, but don't need the baggage of the world religions.

Re: Pope Francis and Other Christian Leaders Are Calling for Bold Climate Action

#42

Post by cletus » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 1:17 PM UTC

Hot take: it doesn't matter who comes out in favour of stronger action on climate change. The only way we'll get significant change is when it becomes economic to do so. The world population or even a significant percentage of it won't change their behaviour altruistically even for a minor inconvenience and risk.

New coal plants aren't built (mostly) and old ones are closing not because of altruism or a genuine concern for climate change. It's because other options are more economic, specifically LNG and solar. Now LNG isn't much better but it is better. Solar is definitely better. But what drove solar adoption over the last decade is the plunging price of panels, not altruism.

Re: Pope Francis and Other Christian Leaders Are Calling for Bold Climate Action

#43

Post by ArchStanton » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 1:17 PM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #31

Great. Now tell the American bishops to call off the culture war. Catholics have instructions on how to resolve the dilemma where one candidate supports doctrine A, and the other candidate supports doctrine B. In plain terms, it's basically "choose your battles." This came to light when the dilemma of the day was abortion versus capital punishment and the poor. Owing largely to the culture war, American Catholics hav…

>Owing largely to the culture war, American Catholics have provided decisive support to the party that calls global warming a hoax. This isn't a political statement on my part, but just a statistical one.

Than why are 44% of Catholics Democrat and only 37% Republican?

https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/party-aff...

Methinks your own POV poisons your opinions.

Re: Pope Francis and Other Christian Leaders Are Calling for Bold Climate Action

#44

Post by HKH2 » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

neither_color wrote: post #25

magicroot75 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thus is the curse of being a religion. You do one thing that general society helps. And then they just criticize another piece of your belief system. There's no system that will perfectly allow people to both find value and meaning in their world AND also promote totally free action of others. Thus we live in a contemporary world of non-religious people seeking out value (look at the current obsession in Silicon Vall…

Thus we live in a contemporary world of non-religious people seeking out value (look at the current obsession in Silicon Valley with Stoicism, mindfulness, pyschadelics, etc). But Silicon Valley also tells their people that they can't use those methods to find an actual belief system of values. It's like, definitely always look for meaning and value in the universe, we like that. But, don't find it and a be bold abou…

You seem to be presupposing that you can choose to believe, yet is not genuine belief the sum of the thoughts/experiences in one's mind?

Re: Pope Francis and Other Christian Leaders Are Calling for Bold Climate Action

#45

Post by User23 » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

legutierr wrote: post #24

fsiefken wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are 1.33 billion catholics in the world

Yes, and 25% of the US population is Catholic, half of which group votes Republican (i.e., against reforms designed to prevent or slow climate change). If more people come to believe that they have a moral obligation to do what they can to prevent climate change—including by supporting government interventions and investments, and gracefully accepting higher energy costs and energy taxes—then maybe we can hope for a…

> Papal infallibility today doesn't seem to be what it was in the past in the minds of many American Catholics, however. There has been a surprising amount of direct criticism of the pope among conservative American Catholics in recent years

That’s not how Papal infallibility works. It has to be explicitly invoked and only for matters of faith and morals. Furthermore doctrine cannot be changed. The Pope can’t speak infallibly about science. So Catholics are free to accept or not what he says on the subject. That’s not the case for abortion. We don’t get to say we disagree with the commandment against killing human beings and remain in good standing.

Also do not confuse loyalty to the Church with loyalty to the clergy. There is quite a lot a Catholic can legitimately be critical of there.

Re: Pope Francis and Other Christian Leaders Are Calling for Bold Climate Action

#46

Post by laurent92 » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 1:20 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #27

williamtrask wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty cynical. The Christian church has guided the way in which many people live for thousands of years, and a cross-denominational, united stance against climate change from its leadership is likely to have impact. Certainly a positive development.

It is rather cynical but also rather accurate to note that people like being warm in winter, and the Catholic Church is not going to make environmentalism their core mission. They already have a core mission, it involves human souls. The environmentalists have faced stiff resistance in my life time not because anyone likes coal or oil, but because there were no alternatives. It isn't like the Catholics have ever had…

Also, the Pope was not a scientist in my registers. Maybe it’s a match because climate change involves more “belief” than science, and they’re both about ideology adherence?

Maybe the ideological match is that this pope seems very fond of the idea that every human is equal, to the point one should not be measured by how much they work or how peaceful they are. And therefore, countries which have already implemented good things for climate change such as regulating their population and reaching lower density, should not, according to this pope, benefit from any permit to collectively consume as much as a dense country, which means that grossly overpopulated countries must not perform larger efforts than the West, and which also means that the country who grossly overpopulates itself is still bound to win the power balance. The West man holds, in this pope’s ideology, a very sour place anyway, he is practically the epitome of the current progressist ideology.

Re: Pope Francis and Other Christian Leaders Are Calling for Bold Climate Action

#47

Post by analog31 » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 1:21 PM UTC

ArchStanton wrote: post #43

analog31 wrote: post #31

Great. Now tell the American bishops to call off the culture war. Catholics have instructions on how to resolve the dilemma where one candidate supports doctrine A, and the other candidate supports doctrine B. In plain terms, it's basically "choose your battles." This came to light when the dilemma of the day was abortion versus capital punishment and the poor. Owing largely to the culture war, American Catholics hav…

>Owing largely to the culture war, American Catholics have provided decisive support to the party that calls global warming a hoax. This isn't a political statement on my part, but just a statistical one. Than why are 44% of Catholics Democrat and only 37% Republican? https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/party-aff... Methinks your own POV poisons your opinions.

True, but if they all went Democratic, it would tip the scales considerably. The margins in many regions are a tiny number of percentage points, and the Senate is 50-50 right now. A small percentage, not even a nationwide majority, have given us a heavily biased supreme court.

That's what I mean by decisive support. The Bishops could tip the scales if they were told to. This is about how the Pope could influence the situation.

I don't know how any individual Catholic votes, and both party allegiances and voting patterns are merely crude attempts at getting a statistical foothold on the question.

Re: Pope Francis and Other Christian Leaders Are Calling for Bold Climate Action

#48

Post by leeoniya » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 1:21 PM UTC

dr_dshiv wrote: post #26

unknown_apostle wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Btw, the Catholic Church is not against birth control because it wants to fill up the planet with people. The Church is obliged to teach that sex is supposed to be about a man and a woman taking part in God's ecstatic act of creation, a selfless act of love. Sex without being open to life is porn: without the act of self giving and preparedness to receive children, you are left with a corrupted, self-directed form of…

> Sex without being open to life is porn: without the act of self giving and preparedness to receive children, you are left with a corrupted, self-directed form of pleasure. Nope. I've had 3 kids. I have emotionally and rationally concluded that having another child is inappropriate; it is a form of excess and inbalance. So, I want to have sex for love now. Really, you are going to tell me that, by stopping at 3, I a…

> But damn. Belief in a petty, spiteful God-man? How can people perpetuate such an idea? Just to scare children?

this is something i've always found hilarious. he's all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing. he created us, and now demands our love, adoration, and is jealous. is he lonely? is there nothing else to do in this universe except be concerned with how we live our lives? punish us with plagues? he gave us free will to then judge us in the end based on how restrained we were in exercising it?

it's silliness.

Re: Pope Francis and Other Christian Leaders Are Calling for Bold Climate Action

#49

Post by fascistusa » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 1:23 PM UTC

There is a meme on reddit currently about how the after-church religious crowd are the worst human beings to serve as a server. So I find it quite hilarious that some people's argument is "25% catholic" with nothing else as though that is the end of the conversation.

I find this hilarious so I am sure it isn't allowed here as it I don't speak like a robot and I am not on the spectrum.

Re: Pope Francis and Other Christian Leaders Are Calling for Bold Climate Action

#50

Post by 542458 » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #42

Hot take: it doesn't matter who comes out in favour of stronger action on climate change. The only way we'll get significant change is when it becomes economic to do so. The world population or even a significant percentage of it won't change their behaviour altruistically even for a minor inconvenience and risk. New coal plants aren't built (mostly) and old ones are closing not because of altruism or a genuine conce…

I don’t think this is strictly true. We banned dumping of waste in the ocean even though it remains the “cheapest” way of disposing of toxic waste.

Governments can make it economic for companies and individuals to behave in more environmentally friendly ways, and will do so when enough political pressure arises (note that since we’re correcting for externalities, this is more economically efficient than letting pollution be “free”). To this end, coming out in favour of climate change action is useful.