Christians and Judaism

A Christian ought to ponder seriously the tremendous implications of a process begun early in Christian history. I mean the conscious or unconscious dejudaization of Christianity, affecting the Church’s way of thinking, its inner life as well as its relationship to the past and present reality of Israel – the father and mother of the very being of Christianity. The children did not arise to call the mother blessed; instead they called the mother blind. Some theologians continue to act as if they did not know the meaning of “honor your father and mother”; others, anxious to prove the superiority of the church, speak as if they suffered from a spiritual Oedipus complex.

A Christian ought to realize that a world without Israel will be a world without the God of Israel.

-- Abraham Joshua Heschel

The Second Commandment

The second commandment implies more than the prohibition of images; it implies rejection of all visible symbols for God; not only images fashioned by man but also of “any manner of likeness, of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”

And yet there is something in the world that the Bible does regard as a symbol of God. It is not a temple or a tree, it is not a statue or a star. The symbol of God is man, every man. God created man in His image, in His likeness.

-- Abraham Joshua Heschel

The Closing of the Western Mind by Charles Freeman

Aristotle (Metaphysics, quoted in “The Closing of the Western Mind”, by Charles Freeman)

The investigation of truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able to attain the truth adequately, while, on the other hand, no one fails entirely, but everyone says something true about the nature of things, and while individually the contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed.

“The Closing of the Western Mind”, Charles Freeman, pp 21-22.

While Aristotle believed that an underlying unity would be found to all knowledge, he accepted that in the present state of knowledge much must remain provisional and unsure. Take, for example, a difficult question in the natural world, how to differentiate between “plants” and “animals.” A dogmatic scientist might have drawn up some arbitrary rules and simply classified each organism as one or the other. Aristotle realized that this was to avoid the real issue. He took some examples from the marine world, the sponge, the jellyfish, sea anemones, razor shells. He noted that when a sponge was pulled from a rock to which it was attached, it reacted by clinging to the rock. So perhaps it was some kind of animal. Yet it could not live detached from the rock, as an animal would. Jellyfish, on the other hand, lived as detached organisms but did not, so far as Aristotle could see, have any perception. They are like plants but, unlike other plants, do not stay attached to a base. Should one create a separate category, “plants which are detached,” or does one accept that it is possible to be an animal without having perception? Aristotle’s genius lay in realizing that these issues had to be worked out undogmatically, that observation had to continue and that sometimes the boundaries between categories would have to be redrawn as a result. In the natural world one could seldom, perhaps never, talk with absolute certainty in the face of the mass of living organisms that had to be categorized. It was this openness to the provisional nature of knowledge that helps make Aristotle one of the truly great philosophers.

Aristotle also firmly believed that knowledge would be cumulative from generation to generation, and this process was supported by the competitive nature of Greek science. Take, for example, the idea of spontaneous generation. Aristotle first posited the concept after he had tried in vain to find out how eels spawned. He could find elvers, young eels, but no sign of what they grew from. The answer was straightforward if remarkable – eels spawned in the Bermudas and the young swam back to Europe – but, of course, this was well beyond any possibility of discovery in the fourth century B.C. The act of spawning was not observed for the first time until the 1920s. So the idea of spontaneous generation, from mud in the case of eels, was one possibility. Aristotle’s successor Theophrastus took the matter further. He examined many different cases of apparent spontaneous generation in plants and showed that, in fact, there were often tiny seeds from which plants grew. He noted too that spontaneous generation seemed to take place when the earth was warmed. Even though he could not grasp the importance of this as we can today, he still recorded it as part of his investigation. He concluded by leaving the issue open: “More accurate investigation must be made of the subject and the matter in which spontaneous generation takes place be thoroughly inquired into … This is why an experienced person is needed to gather it [the evidence], who has the ability to observe the proper season and recognise the seed itself.” For Theophrastus it remained a possibility that every form of spontaneous generation would one day be explained, although he insisted that the concept remain in place until it was actually disproved by empirical observation. He was also insistent on the importance of professional expertise, another important development in the history of science.

Fundamentalism ... a problem with all religions

From the conclusion of Fundamentalism: The Search for Meaning, by Malise Ruthven

The attacks of 9/11 revealed the dangers of [the] apocalyptic outlook. … The leaders were not ignorant young men from a deprived region of the world protesting against economic injustices, but privileged enragés who could have expected to achieve high-status jobs in fields like medicine, engineering, and architecture. Their rage was theological: the God of Battles who looms so largely in the Abrahamic imagination had let them down disastrously. ‘Their faith in the benign and compassionate deity of Islam had begun to wobble. Their final act was not a gesture of Islamic heroism, but of Nietzchean despair.’ (“A Fury for God: The Islamist Attack on America”, by Malise Ruthven, p. 132-133) The same mentality exists in the Western branch of what is often called fundamentalism – but might be better described as ‘Abrahamic apocalypticism’. Christian premillenialists are theological refugees in a world they no longer control. In America, fortunately, their avenues of expression usually fall short of violence (though there have been physical attacks by fundamentalists on doctors performing abortions). They have a baleful influence on American foreign policy, by tilting it towards the Jewish state which they aim eventually to obliterate, by converting ‘righteous’ Jews to Christ. They have damaged the education of American children in some places by adding ‘scientific creationism’ to the curriculum. They inconvenience some women – especially poor women with limited access to travel – by making abortion illegal in certain states. On a planetary level they are selfish, greedy, and stupid, damaging the environment by the excessive use of energy and lobbying against environmental controls. What is the point of saving the planet, they argue, if Jesus is arriving tomorrow?

American fundamentalists are a headache, a thorn in flesh of the bien-pensant liberals, the subject of bemused concern to ‘Old Europeans’ who have experienced too many real catastrophes to yearn for Armageddon. Given that premillenialism and its associated theologies are significant components of American policy, especially under Republican administrations, it seems fair to state that Protestant fundamentalism is a dangerous religion. Whatever spiritual benefits individuals may have gained by taking Jesus as their ‘personal saviour’ the apocalyptic fantasies harboured by born-again Christians have a negative impact on public policy. Because of its impact on the environment and its baleful role in the Middle East, America’s religiosity is a problem.

Our endangered values

… one of the characteristics of fundamentalists is to forgo discussion or negotiation to resolve differences, interpreting this as a sign of weakness in adhering to their own principles. The most telltale distinction between Republicans and Democrats is their preference between ways of resolving controversial international issues – reliance on force, or diplomacy.

…

What are our best responses? Is it better to cherish our historic role as the great champion of human rights, or to abandon our high domestic and international standards in response to threats? Is it better to set a firm example of reducing reliance on nuclear weapons and their further proliferation, or to insist on our right (and that of others) to retain our arsenals, expand them, and therefore abrogate or derogate control agreements negotiated for many decades? Are we best served by espousing peace as a national priority unless our security is threatened, or by proclaiming an unabridged right to attack other nations unilaterally to change an unsavory regime or for other purposes? Is declaration of “You are either with us or against us” superior to forming alliances based on a clear comprehension of mutual interests? When there are serious differences with other nations, is it best to permit direct negotiations to resolve the problems, or to brand those who differ as international pariahs – and to refuse to permit such discussions?

Most of these questions are already being answered by our government’s policies – policies that are predicated on the basic premises of fundamentalism. It is not yet clear if the American people approve.

-- Jimmy Carter, Our Endangered Values, p 161-163

Wayward Christian Soldiers, by Charles Marsh

I read this book in less than two (week) days -- breakneck speed for me, since I still work 8+ hours/day (not counting commuting, etc). It gives voice to my own feelings, which border on constant outrage (sometimes I'm merely mad).

The middle of the book gives a sobering prescription for what the true evangelical church should be about in the post-Bush era, and I intend to reread that part in particular. However, the first chapters and the last give voice to what is for me something maddeningly painful. It has been so painful in fact that of late I'm finding that I am withdrawing from discussions of the situation. Nevertheless, in reading this book I found myself wanting to buy a copy for every "evangelical Christian" Bush supporter I know, and sit them down and yell at them and say "read this! See what you have done!" But that's not right, I know.

Years, decades ago, I ceased going to "Christian" bookstores because I was grossed out by the trinkets and tchotchkie, the volume of which dwarfed that of the (mostly intellectually pamblumesque) books. I don't enter them because I consider my time more valuable than to spend it deciding I don't need such things as The Prayer of Jabez or the collected works of Joel Osteen. Even so, Marsh tells of a recent visit to such a "Christian" bookstore after the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom (sic).

I had gone to one fo my local Christian bookstores to find a Bible for my goddaughter. On a whim, I also decided to look for a Holy Spirit lapel pin, the kind that had always been easy to find in the display case in the front. Many people in my church and in the plaxes where I traveled had been wearing the American flag in their lapel for months now. It seemed like a pretty good time for Christians to put the Spirit back on. But the doves were nowhere in site. ... I was greeted instead by a full assortment of patriotic accessories -- red-white-and-blue ties, bandanas, ... "I support our troops" ribbons, ... and an extraordinary cross and flag bangle with the two images welded together and interlocked. ... I asked the clerk behind the counter where the doves had gone. ... The man's response was jarring ... an apt theological summation of the current religious age. "They're in the back with the other discounted items."

It would be well if the sermon in every pulpit this next Sunday was merely a reading of the first chapter, "On Being a Christian After Bush."

Franklin Graham boasted that the American invasion of Iraq opened up exciting new opportunities for missions to non-Christian Arabs. But this is not what the Hebrew prophets or the Christian teachers mean by righteousness and discipleship. In fact, this grotesque notion -- that preemptive war and the destruction of innocent life pave the way for the preaching of the good news -- strikes me as a mockery of the cross and a betrayal of the Christian's baptism into the body of Christ. ...

If Franklin Graham speaks truthfully of the Christian faith and its mission in the world -- as many evangelicals seem to believe -- the we should have none of it. [Amen!] We should rather join the ranks of the righteous unbelievers and bighearted humanists who rage against cruelty and oppression with the intensity of people who live fully in this world. I am certain that it would be better for Christians to stand in solidarity with compassionate atheists and agnostics, firmly resolved against injustice and cruelty, that to sing "Amazing Grace" with the heroic masses who cannot tell the difference between the cross and the flag. ...

And while we are on the subject, may I please as a favor of the decent men and women who edit the magazine Christianity Today? The next time Franklin Graham utters a remark so completely contrary to the spirit of Christ, please denounce it with the same clarity that your columnists have brought to their criticisms of Bishop Spong's heterodox views, Bill Clinton's lechery, or Mark Felt's deathbed revelation that he was Watergate's Deep Throat.

Perhaps the last quoted paragraph is the reason Books and Culture, a CT spinoff, gave this book a sniff-sniff, harrumph-harrumph review. I dropped my CT subscription some decades back, figuring I could get enough "God's Own Party" rhetoric from the MSM; nothing yet to regret in that department.

UK article on sun link to climate change: NOT

Solar activity 'not the cause of global warming'

By Steve Connor, Science Editor

Published: 11 July 2007

Claims that increased solar activity is the cause of global warming - rather than man-made greenhouse gases - have been comprehensively disproved by a detailed study of the Sun.

Scientists have delivered the final blow to the theory that recent global warming can be explained by variations in the natural cycles of the Sun - a favourite refuge for climate sceptics who dismiss the influence of greenhouse-gas emissions.

An analysis of the records of all of the Sun's activities over the past few decades - such as sunspot cycles and magnetic fields - shows that since 1985 solar activity has decreased significantly, while global warming has continued to increase.

Mike Lockwood, of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Chilton, Oxfordshire, said: "In 1985, the Sun did a U-turn in every respect. It no longer went in the right direction to contribute to global warming. We think it's almost completely conclusive proof that the Sun does not account for the recent increases in global warming."

The study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A, shows there is no doubt that solar activity over the past 20 years has run in the opposite direction to global warming, and therefore cannot explain rises in average global temperatures.

Dr Lockwood and his colleague Claus Fröhlich, of the World Radiation Centre in Davos Dorf, Switzerland, have produced the most powerful counter argument to suggestions that current warming is part of the natural cycle of solar activities. "There is considerable evidence for solar influence on Earth's pre-industrial climate, and the Sun may well have been a factor in post-industrial change in the first half of the last century," they write.

However, since about 1940 there has been no evidence to suggest that increases in global average temperatures were caused by solar activity. "Our results show that the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanisms is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified," the two scientists said.

The theory that past changes in solar activity may have explained some changes in the climate before the industrial revolution is not in dispute. In previous centuries, for instance, notably between about 1420 and 1570, when the Vikings had to abandon their Greenland settlements, solar minima corresponded with unusually cool weather, such as the "little ice age" of the 17th century.

But climate sceptics have exploited this to dispute the idea that man-made emissions are responsible for global warming. In the recent Channel 4 programme The Great Global Warming Swindle, the rise in solar activity over the latter half of the 20th century was erroneously presented as perfectly matching the rise in global average temperatures.

Dr Lockwood said he was outraged when he saw the documentary, because of the way the programme-makers used graphs of temperature rises and sunspot cycles that were cut off in the 1980s, when the two trends went in the opposite direction.

"The trouble is that the theory of solar activity and climate was being misappropriated to apply to modern-day warming. The sceptics were taking perfectly good science and bringing it into disrespect," Dr Lockwood said.

The Royal Society said yesterday: "There is a small minority which is seeking to confuse the public on the causes of climate change. They are often misrepresenting the science, when the reality is that the evidence is getting stronger every day."

'No sun link' to climate change

By Richard Black BBC Environment Correspondent

Scientists have been measuring the frequency of solar flares

A new scientific study concludes that changes in the Sun's output cannot be causing modern-day climate change.

It shows that for the last 20 years, the Sun's output has declined, yet temperatures on Earth have risen.

It also shows that modern temperatures are not determined by the Sun's effect on cosmic rays, as has been claimed.

Writing in the Royal Society's journal Proceedings A, the researchers say cosmic rays may have affected climate in the past, but not the present.

"This should settle the debate," said Mike Lockwood from the UK's Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, who carried out the new analysis together with Claus Froehlich from the World Radiation Center in Switzerland.

Dr Lockwood initiated the study partially in response to the TV documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, broadcast on Britain's Channel Four earlier this year, which featured the cosmic ray hypothesis.

"All the graphs they showed stopped in about 1980, and I knew why, because things diverged after that," he told the BBC News website.

"You can't just ignore bits of data that you don't like," he said.

Warming trend

The scientists' main approach on this new analysis was simple; to look at solar output and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature, which has risen by about 0.4C over the period.

The Sun varies on a cycle of about 11 years between periods of high and low activity.

But that cycle comes on top of longer-term trends; and most of the 20th Century saw a slight but steady increase in solar output.

But in about 1985, that trend appears to have reversed, with solar output declining.

This paper re-enforces the fact that the warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been caused by solar activity Dr Piers Forster

Yet this period has seen temperatures rise as fast as, if not faster than, at any time during the previous 100 years.

"This paper re-enforces the fact that the warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been caused by solar activity," said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment of climate science.

Cosmic relief

The IPCC's February summary report concluded that greenhouse gases were about 13 times more responsible than solar changes for rising global temperatures.

But the organisation was criticised in some quarters for not taking into account the cosmic ray hypothesis, developed among others by Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen of the Danish National Space Center.

Their theory holds that cosmic rays help clouds to form by providing tiny particles around which water vapour can condense. Overall, clouds cool the Earth.

During periods of active solar activity, cosmic rays are partially blocked by the Sun's more intense magnetic field. Cloud formation diminishes, and the Earth warms.

Mike Lockwood's analysis appears to have put a large, probably fatal nail in this intriguing and elegant hypothesis.

He said: "I do think there is a cosmic ray effect on cloud cover. It works in clean maritime air where there isn't much else for water vapour to condense around.

"It might even have had a significant effect on pre-industrial climate. But you cannot apply it to what we're seeing now, because we're in a completely different ball game."

Drs Svensmark and Friis-Christensen could not be reached for comment.

Cosmic Rays and Global Warming

One of the more hair-brained (in my opinion) schemes to "explain" global warming as something other than a human induced phenomenon (not to say complete and utter disaster in the making) is the idea that it is caused and/or mitigated by fluctuations in cloud cover governed by cosmic rays which are in turned governed by the sunspot cycle. This is a take-down of that argument (to me this argument should be to cosmic ray people much like cold fusion phenomenon was to nuclear people -- two minutes of ratiocination, accompanied perhaps by a back-of-the-envelope-calculation or two, leads to the conclusion that someone has been doing more smokin' than science). Nevertheless serious scientists feel compelled to deal with this simply because, I suppose, this is one of many "ideas" that are placed before a public that does not have the intellectual tools to deal in the most elementary and commonsense fashion with such a claim.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/07/no-link-between.html

The link above discusses this paper:

Cosmic Rays and Global Warming

What is the Christian response to Iraq?

WaPo has an ongoing series on "faith issues" where they pose to an array of theologians and/or well-known Christians (sometimes to a person who fits both descriptions) questions that are occasionally interesting. The one this week is

Some political leaders say we need to get out of Iraq now. Others say we are obligated to stay and try to restore civil order and authority. What's the moral position? Is there one?

Marcus Borg's response, of the one's that I have read -- I confess to have summarily ignored Chuck Colson's response -- is by far the best, in my opinion.

Borg points out that the first three centuries after the resurrection were the centuries of Christian pacifism -- the Christian position was that there was no way for the faithful to legitimately participate in war. After Constantine, when Christianity went from being in an adversarial position with respect to the state to the religion of the state, Christian thought changed to legitimize war under certain conditions -- for a war to be "just" in this new scheme it must be defensive, and all other options must be have tried before war is begun. Pre-emptive war is categorically forbidden under the "just war" model.

Borg says,

I am dismayed that our country violated Christian teaching by launching a pre-emptive war – a war of choice, as it is often correctly called. And I am dismayed that a President who is a born-again Christian could have been so unaware of the history of Christian teaching and wisdom about this issue. It is a galling defect in his re-socialization as a Christian.

The heresy that is American evangelicalism today is captured in the event of the Iraq War. Not only is it a pre-emptive war begun by the most overtly "Christian" president in a generation, and one who if anything wears his Christianity more prominently on his sleeve that the other principle candidate for "Christian" president, Jimmy Carter, but his greatest and most loyal support comes from the "evangelical" community in the United States. That such a thing can happen -- a Christian President can lead the country to pre-emptive war, that this can happen in such a determined rush with what were clearly lies and deliberate mis-information, that the vast majority of the most religious people backed him so completely and continue for the most part to do so -- begs the question: What the hell good is Christianity?

In my opinion there are only two alternatives: a) It's not a damn bit of good, and "faith" in Jesus is crap; or b) The evangelical church in America today is a heretical religion, and until its adherents realize that they have been deceived, not only by Bush but by the vast majority of the evangelical leaders who went along with this disaster (Dobson, Falwell, Kennedy, etc.), they are propagating a lie.

Borg's solution is obviously the only Christian one, and easily recognized by anyone who has ever experienced what it means to be really rescued by the God of grace. But those who set up the idol of American nationalism in the temple that should only accommodate the God of Jesus, will reject his argument, even as they claim to be "Christian":

So as a country, we are involved in a war that is wrong and that never should have happened. Given that, what is the responsibility of Christians, of people who affirm that Jesus is our Lord? When one commits a wrong act, of course one is responsible for minimizing the consequences of that wrong act. So how should those of us who are Christian respond in this situation?

The first act should be confession – confession that as a nation, we were wrong to do this. Confession is about repentance – which means going beyond the mind that we have. Our national mind in the wake of 9/11 has been shaped and manipulated by fear – despite the fact that one of the most common affirmations in the Bible is “Fear not,” “Do not be afraid.”

Interestingly the evangelical heretics who bloviate about gays and prayer in public schools and proclaim that this nation has lost its Christian roots, have no problem with pre-emptive war and the crusading mentality. They have no need of repentance. Jesus was a servant and said that his disciples would also be servants. If that is true and it is possible for there to be a Christian nation (I categorically deny this possibility), how can a Christian nation be anything other than a servant? How is it that those who would have us be a Christian nation would also be the ones who are so enthusaistic about going to war?

Southern Baptists in the lead on the march backwards

From the Baptist Standard [my writhing is in green ...]

Global warming debate generates heat

By Marv Knox

Texas Baptist Standard

SAN ANTONIO - Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) messengers generated some heat during their annual meeting as they debated the government's responsibility to address global warming.

They also stood by the SBC resolution committee's decision not to address how many people actually populate Southern Baptist churches.

Otherwise, they quickly dispatched seven of eight proposed resolutions June 13.

The global warming resolution did not generate debate on its basic points: global temperatures have risen for decades, [even if they hadn't the basic argument would be unaffected] "scientific evidence does not support computer models of catastrophic human-induced global warming" [this, and evolution is a theory with no good evidence] and major steps to reduce greenhouse gases would unfairly impact the world's poorest people.[all those climate scientists, demographers and insurance policy writers simply don't know what they are talking about]

But messengers disagreed over the SBC resolutions committee's call for the government to do something about climate change.

The committee's proposal encouraged "continued government funding to find definitive answers on the issue of human-induced global warming that are based on empirical facts and are free of ideology and partisanship."[a WTF moment ... how would they know non-partisanship when they saw it?] It also supported "economically responsible government initiatives and funding to locate and implement viable energy alternatives" that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Bob Carpenter of Cedar Street Baptist Church in Holt, Mich., proposed deleting the two sections of the resolution that called for government action.

"For 70 years, beginning with the Franklin Roosevelt administration, we've endured expansion of government," Carpenter said, calling government "part of the cause of the problem rather than the solution."

The government cannot provide simple solutions to problems, he said, adding, "hundreds of millions of tax dollars already are being spent" by the government on global warming. He said that private enterprise is a founding principle of the country. "We solve problems ... when government stays out of the way."

What I think is the most basic argument for global warming

A month ago I commented on a post at the site www.jesuscreed.org. The topic was global warming and an earlier poster had written that he had yet to see one piece of evidence in favor of global warming. This was my effort to respond:

-----------

The physics of CO2 in the atmosphere began to be understood over 100 years ago, and even then scientists were speculating about the effect a carbon based economy would have on the atmosphere and its “greenhouse” mechanism. Check out the web site of the Amerian Institute of Physics ( http://webster-alt.aip.org/history/climate/ ) for a history of the “discovery of global warming”. Here is a physics Op-ed on the subject from about a year ago:
http://webster-alt.aip.org/history/climate/pdf/Weart_APS_News_2-06.pdf

With your indulgence, I’ll present the essence of the argument that leaves me a GW “believer”. By profession I am an experimental physicist, and as such I find data most compelling. Over the last decade or so scientists have cored ice from various glaciers and ice caps which have, like tree rings, preserved climate data but have done so for more than the last half million years. From the analyses of these cores a record of temperature and the constituents of the atmosphere can be obtained. Cores from locations as widely separated as Greenland and Antarctica correlate very well; this correlation leads scientists to the reasonable belief that the data from the cores are representative of global, rather than merely local, climate variation.

The data show that for at least the time covered by the ice cores the climate has oscillated between longer periods of cold (ice ages) and relatively brief warm periods. The earth has been in the latest warm period for about the last 10,000 years. Someone has noted (Al Gore perhaps?) that an indication of what a cold period means can be obtained by noting that the Chicago area would be under an ice sheet a mile or so thick. The average global temperature difference between warm and cold periods is about 8 degrees Centigrade.

These variations in the climate record occur with a periodicity of 100,000 years. The best candidate for the cause of the ice ages is an independently known variation in the orbit of the earth of the same periodicity and phase. There is a consequent change in solar irradiation associated with this orbital variation; however, taken alone it explains only about half of the temperature change between warm and cold periods.

The ice cores also show a corresponding increase CO2 atmospheric content with the warm periods and a decrease accompanying the cold periods. That the environment should “respirate” CO2 with warming and cooling is reasonable. It is also reasonable that this natural CO2 variation is the root of a positive feedback mechanism which amplifies the temperature extremes to the values associated with the data. During this regular, 100,000 year repeating cycle, the CO2 content of the atmosphere varies by 100 ppm (parts per million concentration).

Roughly, then, during the last half million years, about half of the historic, natural temperature variation of the earth can be ascribed to changes in solar input caused by variation of the orbit of the earth (4 degrees C). The remaining temperature change can be ascribed to the 100 ppm change in atmospheric content of CO2.

Here is why we should expect global warming, even if there were no signs such as melting glaciers, permafrost or polar ice caps: Since 1750 or so, that is since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and mainly in the last century, human activity has increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by 100 ppm. This change in CO2 content has been on top of the normal maximum concentration, and is the same as the natural variation that occurs over 100,000 year periods in association with historic climate change.

In what amounts to an instant of geologic time, then, humans have modified the atmosphere by an amount comparable to what normally occurs in 100 millenia. Furthermore, we have done so in a way which takes the atmosphere far outside its normal range of variation. Moreover, with business as usual, the concentration of CO2 will increase by yet another 100 ppm in a mere 50 years. This is without precedent in the ice core record, and probably nothing like it has happened in several tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of years (I realize the young earth creationists are now leaving the room, if they haven’t already ).

One of the objections of the “skeptics” is that since we have only seen a change in global temperature of a fraction of a degree, and definitely not four degrees, global warming is a myth, or at least highly overblown. The answer to this is that ALL physical systems require a finite (as opposed to instantaneous) amount of time to fully respond to a stimulation. The response of the earth to CO2 increase will be governed by its heat capacity (which is mainly in the oceans). No one knows precisely what this reponse time is, but it is most certainly not months or even years. Reasonable estimates of the response time from known physics range from several decades to a century or more. Observation of a relatively small temperature change up to this point is entirely reasonable, given the data, and it is foolish and naive to scoff as some do at the the small change seen so far. Indeed, some scientists are alarmed at the apparent speed that is observed.

So, we have, as physicists might say, a back-of-the-envelope estimate of a 4 degree temperature change for each 100 ppm of CO2 we add to the atmosphere. We have added 100 ppm already, and are very firmly on track to add another 100 ppm in the lifetimes, presumably, of most readers of Jesuscreed. We are also on track therefore, for let’s say, a 6 to 8 degree C (11 to 14 F) world for our grandchildren. There are reasons this estimate might be high by a degree or two; there are also reasons it might be low. But to bet the future on the unlikely possibility that the true sensitivity of the climate to CO2 is less than a degree per 100 ppm is … well, simply nuts.

In the foregoing I have not mentioned mathematical climate models (which the “skeptics” appear to despise) — or hurricanes, melting glaciers, or the fact that during the last 20 years the bird species populating my back yard have changed. Each of these individual phenomena could be associated with climate change, or with something else. They are not the reasons to believe in global warming. It is the record of climate change in the past, coupled with the fact that we have irrevocably changed the atmosphere already, that is the reason for expecting global warming to occur. The melting glaciers and ice caps are merely leading indicators of how rapidly or slowly the change is happening.

[Illustrations of the ice core data, as well as versions of the foregoing argument, are all over the web. Here is one of Jim Hansen’s many talks: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/threattalk_complete_05Sept2006.pdf
Go to slide 16 for the historic ice core data, and slide 21 to see the last couple of centuries added in.]

Various Christianities

I've started what looks like a "scholarly" book called "The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture" by Bart Ehrman. He has a more recent and popular, even best sellling, book called "Misquoting Jesus" which you could very well have noticed. "Misquoting" is really a popularization of some of the basic ideas in the first book, which basically revolve around the notion that early copyists of the bible (of course mass printing didn't happen until 1500 years or so after the time of Jesus) when they made their copies, would change the wording to fit their own theologies. His thesis is that there were many different "Christianities" at first, each distinguished at least in part by how they viewed the nature of Jesus (was he just a man, a man whom god entered in some way, or was he not really a man but only appeared to be one? The Docetists were the people who advocated this last point of view). The issue was "finally" decided (but not really) at some of the church councils that occurred in the 3d and 4th centuries out of which came things like the Nicene Creed. Anyway, bother all that -- as the bible was copied by individuals, variations appeared in the text, usually by accident, but sometimes by design. And Ehrman's books talk about the examples of textual variants that are probably due to someone changing the text to benefit his particular theological point of view. The title of his first book ("The Orthodox ...") just refers to the fact that what we now call "Orthodoxy" -- mainstream western christianity -- happens to be the particular sect of early Christianity that won the contest among various early christianities, and he studies the variations in the text that can be associated with various theologies that the contending points of view had.

The thing that interests me in the topic is the possibility of plumbing what the diversity of views of Jesus was like in the early church, and that is the main application of "The Orthodox ..." as well. Many modern Christians just sort of "know" that Christianity started out as a more or less pure thing, and then as history moved along corruption ("backsliding") occurred and the story of the church has been the story of the struggle to get back to that original pure thing, of which is the best, most successful effort to date. I think I agree with Ehrman's general notions, although some of his detailed arguments seem here and there somewhat stretched.

I see an analogy between Ehrman's view of how the church arrived at orthodoxy and my view of how many CEO's of major companies have gotten to be the CEO. Thirty years ago the company hired a bunch of entry level guys in various fields, with all of them being more or less ordinary and undistinguishable. I like to think of the bulk of them as having been interior offensive linemen on their high school football teams. Most of these guys professionally were accountants or business guys, with an occasional liberal arts person thrown in. Anyway, the real point is they were a bunch of ordinary unremarkable guys (even in high school the cheer leaders preferred the quarterback and the halfbacks). Thirty years and a half dozen layoffs later there is one guy standing and he is the CEO. The outcome was no more determined by qualifications than if at the beginning of the thirty years they had all played "rock-scissors-paper" until one guy was left. Of course the last guy, the CEO, has a staff and they make up a story about how he has to be paid a bunch of money because of all the responsibility he has and because there are so few people like him (well, yeah).

It may seem a bit antiseptic, but with a few substitutions in the above story (change 30 years to 300), I think that is how Ehrman thinks we arrived at Christian orthodoxy.

[I say it's "scholarly" but what that means is the guy here and there uses greek words that I can't understand, but there aren't too many of them and the balance of the text is so well written that I'm immensely enjoying reading it. Perhaps I'll manage later a rundown of the various views of Jesus that he "ferrets" out.]

Global Warming & Climate Change

Recently I led a Sunday School class discussing global warming and climate change (let's say "GW/CC" for short). I'm a "believer" in GW/CC, but have been reluctant to advocate out of fear, mainly, of seeming pushy. Most people don't want to be bothered about anything, I think, but especially about politics. And GW/CC has definitely been politicized.

I've got some thoughts about it that I'm going to write down. These are what I think are the essential case "for" global warming (of course this "for" does not mean I'm an advocate for it, but that I'm a believer in the "theory", or truth of global warming. As with all truth, it is better for us that we plan our behavior in the light of truth, rather than in the "light" of non-truth).

I'll present the data favoring the reasonableness of it. I'll also write down some thoughts about why it is so contentious -- I think GW/CC controversy has some kinship to scientific controversies of the past as well as the present (e.g., evolution vs. creation).

As I progress I may even advertise.

Last Summer ...

Three Washington Monthly Posts

Public vs. Experts (50% Conservative/ 50 % Liberal) views foreign policy.

Public view of torture before & after 9/11.

Questioning assumptions about Iraq future after American withdrawal (when/if it ever happens):