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

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

#101

Post by tpm »

laurent92 wrote: post #97
tpm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change involves more belief than science?

Well, do you “believe in science”? or are you persuaded after reading thousands of boring papers? which contradict each other? Philosophically, if you have an opinion, then it’s not science. More pragmatically, if science converges with an ideology, then the probability is high that both the researchers and the filtering networks have enough bias to invert the results to match the ideology. Which, you know, we’re see…

Science is a methodology, not a destination. So of course your opinion is not science, but it can align with the current state of scientific findigs, or not. In the case of climate change, my opinion aligns with the current state of science. I would rather not believe in it, because the implications of climate change are rather unpleasant. I also do not think e.g. Margaret Thatcher was a strong believer of whatever ideology are you talking about, but she tought climate change is real enough, and that was 30 years ago.

In the last 15 or so years I have read hundreds (probably well over 1000) science papers about various topics. Those in climate change seem to me to be scientific enough compared with other fields.

Also racism and feminism are very far from main topics of my life, maybe because I am from a different part of the world and also left most social networks. But the climate change seems to be still happening around here.

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

#102

Post by ArchStanton »

ethbr0 wrote: post #96
ArchStanton wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, US Catholics appear to have roughly the same birthrate as US Evangelical Protestants, although that might change as Catholic demographics shift to Latino. What we (the world) will be awash in is Moslems and sub Saharan Africans unless those curves get bent via behavior changes, resource depletion, or war. I can't say that the Pope is much involved in that situation.

> I can't say that the Pope is much involved in that situation Like the 15% of (mostly-sub Saharan) Africa that identifies as Catholic? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_Africa

That's a good point, but do Catholics account for more than their share of births in Nigeria (5.5 children per woman, or, as we say in the brave new world, 'people who menstruate')?

hah. Partly answered.

https://paa2015.princeton.edu/papers/151197

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

#103

Post by angelzen »

ArchStanton wrote: post #102
ethbr0 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't say that the Pope is much involved in that situation Like the 15% of (mostly-sub Saharan) Africa that identifies as Catholic? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_Africa

That's a good point, but do Catholics account for more than their share of births in Nigeria (5.5 children per woman, or, as we say in the brave new world, 'people who menstruate')? hah. Partly answered. https://paa2015.princeton.edu/papers/151197

You are not following The Science close enough. It's bodies. "Bodies with vaginas".

https://twitter.com/TheLancet/status/1441372277786951681

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

#104

Post by mbg721 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #91
analog31 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The Bishops could tip the scales if they were told to No, they couldn't. This is pretty evident on the political issue that the Bishops have most aggressively tried to tell people what stance to take, abortion, where Catholic attitudes are nonetheless split just like the broader country.

The split is different (but apparently not as different as I thought [1]) if you filter for Catholics who attend Mass regularly. Surveys of people who merely identify as Catholic also show that a large percentage do not believe in transubstantiation, one of the most fundamental beliefs of the Church. The Bishops have lots of problems to deal with besides just politics.

[1] https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/religious...

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

#105

Post by dr_dshiv »

neither_color wrote: post #53
dr_dshiv wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That’s been tried before, during the French Revolution. It didn’t go so well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Reason https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_Reason

If at first you don't succeed at creating secular spirituality...

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

#106

Post by dr_dshiv »

unknown_apostle wrote: post #99
dr_dshiv wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You're not going against the will of God by stopping at 3. Or by not having children at all. But if you give contraception a fixed place in your life, to have sex which is fundamentally closed to children, then you have introduced a contradiction into your body and into your life. And yes, He rules over 100 billion galaxies (more if we live in a multiverse) and cares about such things. If you think this is petty or s…

> If you think this is petty or spiteful, then you think too little of your sexuality and of yourself.

No, i just expect more from the unifying principal of the universe. And so should anyone who wants real faith and not myths and fairytales.

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

#107

Post by analog31 »

magicroot75 wrote: post #9
dr_dshiv wrote: post #4

Cool, maybe these Christian leaders will finally be accepting of voluntary birth control as a wise form of choosing life — e.g., by acting as a steward of nature and reducing poverty? (Ok, well, even if not, the gesture in support of environmental justice is appreciated)

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 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.

In turn, that's the curse of infallibility.

>>>> Catholics are against birth control because we're for a world in which human life is nourished, valued, and lifted up within the family. Not that it's seen as a problem to be dealt with. A knock on impact of that mentality is the sex becomes seen as a sacred act of deep value to humanity, an act with profound power and responsibility.

A way out of this dilemma is to acknowledge that sexuality and reproduction are not supernatural phenomena, therefore there is no need for them to be a topic of theological interest, any more than the orbits of the planets or the evolution of species.

>>>> Almost no Catholics suggest that we legally outlaw birth control.

Cynically, I wonder if that's strategic -- to avoid alienating voters until abortion is outlawed. Also (I took "Catholic classes" when I got married), birth control is portrayed as causing abortion.

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

#108

Post by bjowen »

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…

Outsider to US religious / politics interface here but the impression from over here is that it’s the Falwell end of the evangelical movement rather than the RC church that has been driving denialism.
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