I read somewhere that data collected over last 23 years show no sign of global warming trend.

Lol.  So in other words, your evidence is limited to wikipedia????

I am sure wikipedia is credible.  Hahaha.

Not that I agree or disagree (I'm not giong to get into the Global Warming argument), but do you not see the irony in laughing at his use of Wikipedia when you counter with "I read somewhere..."?

You are wise in staying out of that argument.  I am not suppose to argue about that either.  Its hard to guarantee the accuracy of information unless you do the research yourself.  No, I am not going to look up 23 years of data.  I had to laugh, I was surprised and couldn't help it.

off-topic: Even one of the founders of greenpeace stated that global warming is a natural phenomenon that occurred periodically during all of earth's lifetime, in a documentary on a science channel not long ago.

Undoubtedly it's a good idea to reduce CO2 emissions and air polution as a whole, but all this panic mongering is simply just another instrument of furthering the interests of those branches of industry which provide the so called green tech.

Also what politicians are pulling atm is hillariously rediculous. On one hand they're trying to force measures on private persons which at best would reduce CO2 emissions by a small fraction, like flying less and driving slowly, while on the other hand they approve new coal-fired power plants which in one week emit more CO2 than my car in a lifetime driving at 250 km/h.

Or they try enforcing the use of bio-fuel for which plants are used which growing ground is provided by cutting off rain forest all over the world.

And on murder being bad:

If someone would have murdered Hitler would that have been bad?

If someone kills a man who has raped and mutilated let's say a dozen girls aged 10 to 12 would that be bad?

The evaluation of something being good or bad is always depending on the circumstances. To say that man simply is not allowed to take someone's life is utterly stupid.

And more on-topic:

If people would just see "god" or religion as a hope to not simply end when death occurs it would be fine. But instead they use it to commit atrocities beyond imagination. Including forcing their belief on others.

And as for "god" not being proveable or disproveable by science: I guess that's something we have to live with. But one thing that COULD possibly be proven ist that Jesus didn't die at the cross and resurrected later, and THAT would disprove the very basis for christian belief hence make "god"'s existence much more questionable.

Not true. Freeman Dyson doesn't.

http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge219.html#dysonf

Please read this article. It's also about other things, like the need for heretics in science. He brings up many good points, like Sahara being a fertile plain several thousand years ago (which clearly proves that major climate changes happened even before humans were capable of releasing large quantities of CO2)

See, the great thing about Wikipedia is that it has these cool things called SOURCES, all listed nice and neat at the bottom of every page.  Or, you could go to the actual websites of EVERY ACCREDITED SCIENTIFIC GROUP IN THE ENTIRE WORLD that has made statements on global warming and read them for yourself.

But I'm sure you won't; I read somewhere that you would rather just deny it.

Freemon Dyson is not a "national or international scientific body".  He is one guy.  A good physicist, to be sure, but he has no background in climatology.  Plus, everyone else in the world says that his findings are false, he has no actual data that correlates with any of his views, and things like "Hey, it sometimes gets hot for other reasons too" is not nearly enough counter-evidence for the years and years of data that has been collected, verified, and proven repeatedly by the actual scientists working on this problem.  Let me be clear about that, since it's something conservatives like to bring up all the time - scientists DO KNOW that sometimes it was hot in the past.  They know that sometimes the weather changes for different reasons.  But there is more than enough data showing that this time, it's not the case.  Just saying "Hey, it was hot sometimes before" is not any sort of legitimate scientific argument.

And I think it's a little ridiculous to think of himself as a "heretic".  The heretics of old were people who proved things through science that went against what the mainstream and church wanted to hear.  The global warming conspiracy theorists of today are the exact opposite: fearful people clinging to conservative propaganda because they don't want to believe that, god forbid, they might have to stop driving their SUV around so much and actually walk to the store.  They are not doing any actual research - they don't have any findings that match up with the data from any of the accredited organizations in the world, and they mostly get famous by making grand sweeping claims that the entire scientific world except for them are pawns of some giant political scheme.

Science can neither prove nor disprove the existence of god.

Well. *reads thread*

Not credible science, at any rate.

You can try to use logic, but that will generally be spurious logic.

Attempts has been made. Descartes' removing everything we can possibly doubt and then see what remains (I think, therefore I am) and from there deduce what must be, for instance, but he takes a side step in his logic somewhere.

Cougarsham's example - Heisenberg's uncertainty principle - only works if you accept that man himself is an unknowable quantity - and while we are to some extent, I doubt that we will remain so.

For my part, I notice that the power of happenstance is considerable, and leave it at that.

Wether you have faith - fine by me. I see no reason to vilify faith, while I will remain free to judge the actions of men on their own merit and not of what higher power whose name they are done in, wether for better or worse.

This is everyone's justification, but the whole point of atheism is the realization that this argument is flawed.  If something is unprovable by definition, it entails a lot of important things: this thing is completely incapable of being seen or sensed in any way, it is unable to have any interaction whatsoever with anything that actually physically exists, it has no "qualities" of any sort that mesh with a physical reality, the universe will appear exactly as it would appear if this thing did not exist, it can't have ever physically done anything in the past and can't in the future, the thing is just one of an infinite set of other things that could be "unprovably existant", and there is absolutely no way that anyone can possess or learn any information about this thing.

If that's what "God" is, it's basically the same exact thing as not existing.  If not, what is the difference between a thing that doesn't exist, and a thing that exists but appears in every possible way to not exist?  If this version of God is allowed to use the word "exist", then the word becomes meaningless - EVERYTHING exists, and there is no such thing as not existing, because anything that appears to not exist could be classed as a thing that exists but acts nonexistent.

I guess this is a key - if this version of God does exist, it doesn't just mean Flying Spaghetti monster might exist, it means Flying Spaghetti Monster DOES exist.  Anything that anyone can imagine (or not) would "exist" under this usage of the word.

I thought this would be funny to add, its a video my friend posted and it has nothing to do with my opinion...........http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ca861703b8/religion-from-danny

something came to me at work (monotonous drudgery leaves the mind to wander)..

about the Op, about Science replacing God..

in a sense, it has happened. We have accumulated such a vast amount of knowledge through the ages, research based on research, based on research that we don't question everything anymore. Some things, in Science, are taken "as a matter of faith". From time to time, these preconceptions are revealed to be incorrect and Laws are rewritten. This, to me, is the major difference between Science and Religion.

The Law of Coservation of matter was mentioned earlier in this thread (not by name, but still..) This is an example of such a flawed misconception. For ages, it was TRUTH, undeniable, and anyone who would say so was a radical or crackpot. Until...

Einstien and his famous equation changed everything... he proposed that Matter CAN be destroyed, releasing massive amounts of energy, or that Massive amounts of energy could coalesce into matter.. His theory was not met with univeral and immediate acceptance. This speaks more about human nature than any failing of science though.

As for the whole Global warming thing... read Micheal Crichton's State of Fear. very interesting points come up in that book. That it is happening isn't the issue (although some people do dispute even that.) WHY it's happening is..

Who do you mean by "we"?  You?  Because I don't see any evidence that the brilliant minds in science today have stopped questioning things or started publishing papers on faith.  Research in all areas of science has continually progressed; we have made advances in technology that would seem astounding to people fifty years ago.  If you're not going to show some examples of this alleged massive brainwashing in science, then you should stop making such sweeping accusations.

There is one huge difference between Einstein and the Republican Party.  Einstein did actual scientific research.  He came up with the equations, he tested them, he proved them right.  He built a model to explain his findings, had his findings verified by many other accredited scientists, and proved through hard evidence and scientific rigour that his model was correct.  The scientific community scoffed at Einstein at first, but after he presented his research and experiments, everyone eventually agreed that he was correct.  They reached scientific consensus.

The Republican Party does not do any actual scientific research.  They do not have any results backing their claims that everything is fine and that fossil fuels don't create carbon emissions.  They haven't come up with any experiments that worked, they haven't had any successful tests, and they haven't made any attempt to prove themselves right to the scientific community: only to FOX News viewers.  They haven't built a model to explain any of their findings; they are content to say "Maybe it's just happening for no reason" and leave it at that.  The scientific community has looked at their "research", and unanimously declared it to be fraudulent, incorrect, and in complete opposition to observed facts.  Scientific consensus is completely against them.

Now, is it possible that maybe the Republican Party is the next Einstein, and they might actually be right?  Incredibly unlikely, but possible.  However, if they expect to be taken seriously, like Einstein, they can't just say "Hey, global warming is fake because we don't like it".  They need to prove their belief scientifically.  They need an actual model that explains the current trend of global warming better than the one that the entire rest of the world agrees upon.  But they don't, and they're not even attempting it.  The Republican Party doesn't do science; they convince their followers that science and education are massive liberal conspiracies that should be feared and ignored.

If anything, I think you have it backwards.  Those who began researching global warming and came forward with their ideas were the ones who were shot down.  Of course no one wants to believe global warming is real; we would have to actually change some of our habits.  Many scientists dismissed global warming research when it began.  However, eventually, the scientific world agreed they were correct when the evidence was too great to ignore.  The Republicans aren't the "maverick scientists" here.  They're the people who refused to listen to Einstein even after he presented his proof.  The Republicans aren't coming up with any science of their own, they are just dismissing all of the research and evidence that has been presented.

You mean the fiction novel that was widely dismissed by the entire scientific community as preposterous?  The novel by the same guy whose idea of chaos mathematics was that the female dinosaurs in Jurassic Park will spontaneously switch genders because they were destined to kill the bad guys for tinkering with nature? Yeah, I'll definitely add that to the list of evidence.

Honestly, I was hoping not to derail the thread, so I won't post anymore about global warming here.  If someone wants to start another thread to discuss it I'd be happy to join.  Of course I don't think the debate will go anywhere.  Honestly, if you're at the point where you can look at two groups: One which is an American political party backed by oil companies and auto manufacturers, and one which is all of the scientific institutions in the world formed by a vast mix of nationalities and ideologies with no uniting politics or income....  if you can look at those two groups, and somehow decide that it's the second who are politicizing science because of greed, then there's really not much chance to change your mind.

Sometimes politics, like religion, refuse to be associated with logic.

You can't even use Wikipedia as a source for college paper.  I just don't do serious search on wikipedia; some people won't take it seriously.  Anyway I did found something:  http://www.cgfi.org/2009/03/10/natural-global-warmings-have-become-more-moderate-by-dennis-t-avery/.

I do think that some people use science as a weapon, and it is powerful just like religion was hundreds years ago.

At the end you believe what you will.

Haha, why not derail this thread?  The title seem pretty ridiculous and the timing was one day before Easter.