I am an atheist, and what's more, I'm a nihilist. More of an absurdist, maybe, but I suppose it doesn't matter.
I think religious beliefs are kind of stupid - but at least there's some kind of reason behind them: a need to find spiritual comfort in a sometimes harsh, material world. It's unsupported, maybe, but it has tangible benefits. Sometimes.
Well I would not say thay religions benefit anyone. Yoi could argue they do, but it is kind of a placebo because it isn't actually true. It seems that religious poeple's benegit is that they 'know' that when they die the will be in a better place. Their actual life itself is usually worse, but they feel better about death.
But placebos *do* benefit people. Also, religion - while maybe not necessary anymore - have been the binding force of all sorts of societies since the beginning of human history. It's caused a whole host of problems, but one could argue that the cooperation and mutual trust required for a complex, functioning society needed religion - before the rise of various secular ideologies that took its place.
Yes, a different but more interesting argument. Your optimism seems warranted to me, but I think you are underestimating the intractability of global warming. A major volcanic eruption can cool things off for a bit, but eventually too many ppm of CO₂ heats things up again. Fixing carbon permanently is a difficult problem with which nobody has made any progress.
Yes, but it's also a relatively *new* problem. I don't think I even have to bring up the countless times technology has 180'd a problem the world was facing. It's a difficult problem, but not an unsolvable one. Innovation is key.
Actually, it's not so new. Humans have been burning things since the invention of fire. We went to fixed carbon (coal) five hundred years ago.
Other than fusion power, I'm afraid the constraints in the global warming problem space are overbearing. And, fusion power has been eternally 30 years away, ever since 1947. Is there a highly classified energy source for UFOs, discovered from the Roswell crash? If so, getting that released will never happen.
Is it normal to think no major problem in this world can be fixed?
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I am an atheist, and what's more, I'm a nihilist. More of an absurdist, maybe, but I suppose it doesn't matter.
I think religious beliefs are kind of stupid - but at least there's some kind of reason behind them: a need to find spiritual comfort in a sometimes harsh, material world. It's unsupported, maybe, but it has tangible benefits. Sometimes.
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Well I would not say thay religions benefit anyone. Yoi could argue they do, but it is kind of a placebo because it isn't actually true. It seems that religious poeple's benegit is that they 'know' that when they die the will be in a better place. Their actual life itself is usually worse, but they feel better about death.
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palehorse
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But placebos *do* benefit people. Also, religion - while maybe not necessary anymore - have been the binding force of all sorts of societies since the beginning of human history. It's caused a whole host of problems, but one could argue that the cooperation and mutual trust required for a complex, functioning society needed religion - before the rise of various secular ideologies that took its place.
In any case, this is a different argument.
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Yes, a different but more interesting argument. Your optimism seems warranted to me, but I think you are underestimating the intractability of global warming. A major volcanic eruption can cool things off for a bit, but eventually too many ppm of CO₂ heats things up again. Fixing carbon permanently is a difficult problem with which nobody has made any progress.
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Yes, but it's also a relatively *new* problem. I don't think I even have to bring up the countless times technology has 180'd a problem the world was facing. It's a difficult problem, but not an unsolvable one. Innovation is key.
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Actually, it's not so new. Humans have been burning things since the invention of fire. We went to fixed carbon (coal) five hundred years ago.
Other than fusion power, I'm afraid the constraints in the global warming problem space are overbearing. And, fusion power has been eternally 30 years away, ever since 1947. Is there a highly classified energy source for UFOs, discovered from the Roswell crash? If so, getting that released will never happen.
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It's new in the sense that we didn't know it was a problem until relatively recently.