Precisely. That's what I've been advocating, too, on these pages. Only problem is, Agent Smith, we haven't found this Agent X that causes both. Nobody is even looking for it, the scientific community is so complacently satisfied that CO2 increase is what causes global warming, and that it's human created.

Thanks and thanks. I think my job here is done. :-)

I just hoped to have found someone on this site who listens to reason instead of just arguing the current the scientific trends that are in vogue.

Scientists don't expect human extinction to take place due to global warming. — Tate

Maybe, but I am going by the clip on the Video displayed on the top of this page. That, as far as I can see it, predicts human extinction. That's why I brought this up.

This is what the official opinion is, as I read it (thanks to Xtrix for the contribution)

“If we face this problem head on, if we listen to our best scientists, and act decisively and passionately— I still don’t see any way we can survive.” — Xtrix

We do know what the forces were. I just described it to you. — Tate

My impression was that you said the causes we suspect are insufficient in explaining the phenomenon. This leads me to believe that there were forces other than wobbling and deep water currents. Your kind explanation was clear on that. So the statement "we do know what those forces were", is, I am sorry, false.

Aside from the causes (whether they were only man-made or a mix of man-and-nature), the alarmist attitude of species extinction and human extinction can be brought to be questioned.

The carbon dioxide effect is huge, as per the sudden unprecedented increase of carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere. But it is not an infinitely progressing increase. It will level off somewhere, hopefully at a spot that causes temperatures and climates that still allow biological life forms to survive, and human beings to survive.

After all, if the climate becomes a killer, then human population will quickly decrease, and some surviving members will not produce an ever-increasing number of CO2 molecules; these people may be high-ranking government officials, men and women, and their spouses, who hide and survive in bunkers.

The flora will thrive in the hot, carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere. They will turn the excess carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and fibres, sugar.

Sooner or later the climate returns to the temperate behaviour that supports complex life.

In conclusion: Current mainstream scientific opinion is that the CO2 concentration increased, and that was a product of human activity. This causes global warming.

My counterpoint: in the past global warming and cooling were caused by non-man-made activities. Those global heat energy producing or reducing forces could still be working today. We don't know what effected them, and what the forces were; so we are not at a liberty by logical and scientific thought to dismiss those forces as not being a part of today's global climate change.

I studied the charts. It is clear that the vertical scales are arbitrary as far as comparison goes. The only thing that can decide what precedes what is the direction of the slope (upward or downward from left to right) of the two colours.

You were quite right in determining that temperature change (historically) determined the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

The remarkable thing I wish to point out here is that SOMETHING precipitated the temperature change. It became an accelerated process; the cooler, the less CO2 in the atmosphere, the warmer, the more CO2, and the CO2 concentration also helped in the cooling and heating process. But the change in direction was never a function of the effect of the CO2 concentration. SOMETHING ELSE effected it.

Do we know what that something else was? this is not a rhetorical question; please, Tate, if you care, tell me just the fact whether we know what that force of heat energy sink or source was.

If we know what it was, then we can look for it in today's world.

If we don't know what it was, then we can't be so sure that it's not acting right now.

This actually a empirical evidence to support my theory that global warming is not purely man-made. And without your graph I would not have discovered this evidence.

Another way to look at it is that temperature did change over time. If it were only a function of CO2 concentration, in an accelerated process, the slope of the curve of temperature would never change from up to down, and from down to up as we proceed left to right on the timeline. Yet it does.

This is clear indication that there are forces other than man-made that make global warming and cooling.

Since these forces exist, and whether we know their nature or origin or not, we CAN'T RULE THEM OUT AS ACTIVE FORCES, AND RENDER THEM TO BE MERE IMPOTENT BYSTANDERS IN THE CHANGE WE EXPERIENCE AND MEASURE TODAY.

Yes, Xtrix, make fun of my choice of words. You are so good at snide remarks and ridiculing others, while your thinking capacity is, in my opinion, seriously lagging and lacking. You should be a journalist, not a philosopher, because at the latter, my friend, you suck, if you ask me.

Well if that's true, we're hopelessly in the dark about pretty much everything. Let's go back to the Stone Age and start over. — Tate

You're turning into an Xtrix with your snide remark and ignoring my arguments, rendering them moot by assuming they are ridiculously stupid. They are not.

we're changing the climate — Tate

Yes, we are!! I am not arguing that. I am arguing that there is or might be natural forces that are precipitating this change, and that the global warming is not created by man alone.

Of course I have no data or theory to back this up. It is complete conjecture on my part. But there are scientists -- like you said -- who have conducted research and say the same thing.

Hundreds of scientists the world over have looked at the question and come up with the same answer: we're changing the climate. — Tate

This is meaningful only if you know the number of scientists who have also looked the question and come up with a different answer. Without supplying that number, the "hundreds" alone is completely not indicative of anything.

We don't usually require 100% buy-in before we accept scientific consensus. — Tate

Who are "we"?

Zealotry has set in, and yet scientists are as free as they ever were to investigate. — Tate

Not quite. Scientific research requires a lot of money. Money comes from political sources. I think you know where this is heading. Scientists are NOT free to investigate as they wish.

Still, some scientists argue there could have been other causes, but they're in the minority at this point. — Tate

That's precisely my point. Global warming had become and has been heavily politicized. And in its drag it politicized science.

Now we look for data that serve a political movement. Not in the service of truth.

So all the people who blame humanity ALONE for the global warming are nothing but puppets of a political game and they themselves are so absorbed in it, that they don't realize that reality has not been captured yet.

The minority scientists could be wrong, or the majority. At this point all we know is that there is no definite theory that gets complete buy-in; the consensus is of the majority, not of the entirety; and it serves a political purpose which skews the scientific finding's meaning. Furthermore, the politicization has bent minds as well, who swear by a definitive explanation that is not at all necessarily the truth.

Simple question: in the two graphs above, on both of them, CO2 is shown as going from 300 to 400, on a vertical line, whereas temperature remains hovering around Zero, not increasing at all much over zero.

Why is that called then a global warming? If CO2 is human-related, and the temperature does not rise, to me the only conclusion you can draw is that human activity does not make the temperature rise.

Look at the graphs. It is a clear, unambiguous depiction. CO2 rises, temperature does not.

Look at it again, if you don't believe me. The brown line (CO2 concentration) increases 30 percent, the blue line (temperature) remains at the same level.

I mean, I did not even have to hunt for a graph or anything to shoot your argument down. You presented this graph which destroys your own argument.

I think you guys just shot yourselves in the foot.

Thanks!

REgarding the OP: Humans have an undaunting faith in their own survival.

When an army is commanded into front-line battle, and the calculations are that there will be at minimum a 40% casualty rate; and all the soldiers are mercenaries, they each go into battle with the conviction that they will survive, and the guy next to them will die. Okay, this feeling may not be as strong as a conviction, but it is stronger than just hope.

Or take the lotteries. Each person who buys a ticket hopes to win; they don't buy the ticket with the intention of adding to the jackpot of the winner who is not them, but in fact that's what they are doing.

Without this will to survive that comes out as a feeling of invincibility, the species would not face challenges that it otherwise does.

For the purposes of this thread not being derailed, we accept the scientific consensus that humans cause global warming and the focus is on a more specific question. If anyone wants to argue otherwise, try the general climate change thread. — Baden

Okay. The operative words are "for the purposes of this thread." Fine. For the purposes of another thread we'll assume that we are all wrong, and for the purposes of a third thread we'll assume we're all right, even with totally opposing opinions.

I can live with that. Thanks for stopping this, Baden.

Based upon that accepted standard, consensus is extremely high (97-100%) that global warming is human-caused. — Pantagruel

Quote your source, please, otherwise I can't accept this.

One is techno-optimism. We are self making gods. Our fate is in our own hands.

The other is old fashioned fatalism. We are the playthings of the gods. It is what it is. — apokrisis

There are other things that play into the picture, other than God and humans: nature, natural forces.

There is no definite determination what causes the global warming. We like to blame ourselves, (but leave me out of that please, I take no blame), for burning too much carbon. True, I shan't argue that, it contributes to global warming. But I am not convinced that that alone is the only contributing factor.

The Earth has gone through many ice ages and warming. Life never died out, although species have.

Human species is adaptive enough to survive, even if not in great numbers.

But the heating/cooling is not up to humans alone, not up to god at all, but due to natural forces as well.

So fatalism is not necessarily religion-driven; it may be driven by forces observable (but not discovered yet) by the tools of scientific atheism.

Virtue is a mode of behaviour; wisdom is a mode of knowledge.
Behavour does not equal knowledge.
They can both be good, but that does not make them equal.

GAAAAAAA!!!!!

If virtue were equal to goodness, they would not have two words with non-congruent meaning for the same idea.

As it is, "virtuous" means either celibate, or playing good on the violin, and "good" means something nobody can define but we all understand what it is.

with India remaining quiet. — Hanover

India has been divided into an Islamic part and another part. The Islamic part is Pakistan, and more recently the independent Bangla Desh. What we call today India is not Islamic. So their silence is not the silence of a Muslim country.

Your post is otherwise impeccable, save for the Shia-Sunni issue of fatwa as pointed out by Tate.

However, rocks likely have a different value system than I have, and certainly more long term perspective. So I am not sure why they would want to talk to me anyway. — Book273

Maybe not to you, personally. Maybe you are boring as a conversationalist, or not sexy enough. I don't know. But one thing is for certain: I have anecdotal evidence of people claiming rocks talking to them. Furthermore, evidence that sheer rock surfaces (at least one evidence) can respond to prayer and let water flow out of the surface.

The argument is logical (inductive argument), don't give your opinions, give reasons why the argument fails. — Sam26

The argument is based on opinion. Why the more stringent restriction on criticism of the argument than the bases on which the argument was built on?

Sorry I m not sure I got that. — dimosthenis9

I would have bet ahead of time that you don't.

Well I m not into this line of thinking. Solipsism isn't my taste. — dimosthenis9

This is not solipsism, my dear friend. This is philosophy. You are into fairy tales and fantasies. "What if", and "I see it, so it must exist." Some call that philosophy, true, but I don't.

I am not saying that everything does not exist. I am saying we can't be sure about that. Big difference.

I am stepping out. I don't care to argue about this.

Hmm.Why are you so sure time exists indeed as to be also infinite? It's a damn huge mystery yet for science what actually time is.
I don't say that your statement is wrong (cause I don't know either) but I just wanna know what is that makes you hold that belief as your absolute truth. — dimosthenis9

Fair question. The proof exists as you can't name any time in the past that had not been preceeded by five minutes, and can't name any time in the future that won't be followed by five minutes.

For example. Mine are : 1.Everything is united.
2.Everything is in motion. — dimosthenis9

I am sorry. Everything is not proven to exist. Nothing is proven to exist, except the mind that thinks.

things that actually we can be sure about the universe...And I couldn't find any except the 2 things that I mentioned. — dimosthenis9

And unfortunately those two which we can be sure of that you chose nobody can be sure of. Sorry.

Three dimensional space is an infinite expanse.
Time is infinite in the past and into the future.

Remember when you were young and you came across that question: if God created everything, what created God? That's it. It's the limit. You can't explain Everything. — Tate

Man. Man has created god. Of course that presupposes that god did not create everything. Christians also believe god did not create everything. Christians don't believe God created Evil, yet Evil is part of everything. Duhh.

Newton’s third law of thermodynamics states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If true equilibrium is reached then “push” and “shove” (the equals and opposites) are equally matched and therefore nothing actually happens. They cancel out. Perfect equilibrium is static and unchanging.

However energy is the ability to do work and if each side is of equal potency no change can occur and work cannot be done. But energy (ability to do work) cannot be created or destroyed (first law) therefore energy has to “always” be able to exert itself/ do work.

This raises the suspicion that I, Benj96, don't understand physics at all. — Benj96

I agree.

Note: quote was altered by me, to make it more expressive for the truth.

People tell me that since I am good at the game Four in a row I am very good at logical think.
Is this really logic at all? — musicpianoaccordion

Nonsensical sentences are never logical. Logic uses language and if language is used inappropriately, then logic is not present.

1. No punctuation.
2. Four what in a row?
3. "Logical" is an adjective. It modifies nouns. "Think" is a verb. Adjectives are inappropriate to modify verbs. Adverbs modify verbs. "Logical" is not an adverb, and "think" is not a noun.
4. "People tell me" sentence. "That" introduces a subordinate sentence. "Since I am good at the game" is a subordinate clause in need of a sentence. All subordinate clauses need a sentence. Your sentence is missing.
5. "Is this really logic at all?" "This" is a demonstrative pronoun. It needs an antecedent. The antecedent is not well defined, because the antecedent could be the fact that you won four (whatevers) in a row and that implies logically that you are a logical thinker, or else the antecedent could be the (lingually inappropriate and nonsensical) statements you attempted to make. In other words, "this" could be pointing at your winning four games in a row, and the relationship of that fact to the conclusion, or else "this" could be pointing at your ability to think logically.
6. Logic is a concept; logical describes that there is a relationship in which the concept is present. Your question ought to have been "Is this really logical?" You are asking if your gibberish is the same as the concept of logic, and you are not asking if your gibberish corresponds to the rules of logic, which you indeed ought to have asked.

Because of these six points my opinion is that there is no statement or claim made, there is gibberish, so no, your post is not logical and this (whatever "this" is pointing at) is not logical.

Confucius is Chinese, not Greek — 180 Proof

That man was, but Analects sounds more Greek to me than Chinese. For my own information I looked it up, and it is used as an English word. However, it does smack of Greek.

That's a straw man position invented by atheists so that they can avoid addressing the fact that morality itself requires God. — Bartricks

You incorrectly invoked the idea of Strawman. This is not a Strawman, even if your claim were true.

Man, (or woman), you made one claim and I found four things wrong with it. Fatally wrong. Why do you do this to yourself?

That's a straw man position invented by atheists so that they can avoid addressing the fact that morality itself requires God. — Bartricks

We, the atheists, are not avoiding to address that position. We are, in fact, addressing it by vehemently denying its truth.

You are incapable of constructing a straightforward thought that has any semblance to reality. In fact, reality is just a fantasy for you, if you ask me.

So what are you saying? — Bartricks

I am not that person that you ask, but I think what he's saying is that you are wrong.

Of course that concept is totally strange and foreign to you, to the extent that you can't even begin to conceive it.

By who's standard? — Bartricks

Englishy speech, pleez. Learn how and when to use "who's" and "whose".

Your ideas are even more screwed up than the language you pretend to write in.

I am logical. If I am irrational, then it's the premise that has errors in it.

So... the elephant is God?

So... when you say "One says..." is the One the elephant? The other philosopher is of course Aristotle, who says nothing. Or that nothing can be proven.

Which is the true elephant? The extreme skeptic, or Aristotle, who, as a true skeptic, does not prove that a skeptic will not acknowledge things before him, as the case might be.

I quoted the question. What are you smoking / drinking? — 180 Proof

Right. I gotta quit that stuff. Apologies. The rest of my criticism stands, though.

But you're right. I was careless. Sorry.

I answered with some classic examples a question raised in the OP. — 180 Proof

Which question? If you wanted to obscure your answer to confuse me, you succeeded.

Whence the idea that morality can be conceived of without reference to religion?

I'm not asking whether morality can be justified without religion. I'm asking whence the idea that it can or should be. Is this just rebellion against religion, or is there something else to it? — baker

But is it possible to conceive of morality without reference to religion to begin with? — baker

Okay, I must have missed something. I looked for some examples you gave, but again, all I saw was Greek authors and the title of their works in Greek. I am sorry, I must have missed the examples.

Or were there any provided?

If you seriously expect me to read several ancient texts to see you point, and in this I think I am not alone on this site, then you are in for a big surprise.

Again: speak to your audience. Speaking above their heads is not communicating.