An appeal to atheists and young earthers - enjoy the mystery

What have atheists and young earthers got in common?

Certainty in the face of mystery.

The atheist believes in  philosophical materialism, assuming that nothing exists outside the space, time, matter and energy which we detect directly with the 5 senses or via technology (microscopes, particle detectors etc.) or via direct inference, and tries to explain our existence in basically two different ways (please correct me if I’m wrong):

1. The material world created itself out of existential nothingness.
2. The material world is infinite in time and space.

1 is obviously irrational but so is 2, since it appeals to the physically meaningless concept of infinity (e.g. infinity is always infinitely far away even when you have travelled an almost infinite way towards it – wherever that may be; or it is 1 divided by zero).

The young earth creationists believe that the Genesis account in the Holy Bible is a literal scientific account of events over six days, ending about 6000 years ago. Since it was inspired by God before humans had evolved a scientific framework in which to interpret it why would our Creator have tried to communicate a scientific description? The biblical account surely is to show the relationship between God and humankind. There are various accounts in Genesis which, taken literally, contradict each other. The author was no fool, so it can only have been intended to deep, sacred truths as a divine metaphor – and I believe this is how the original Jewish mystics saw it. Creationism, as the word is used in the USA, is a modern innovation.

So both atheists and young earthers are denying themselves access to the mystery of being – all is explicable in terms of a magic materialisation out of existential nothingness with no first cause, or it has existed for a meaningless period of time, or it was all created in one week by a rather parochial God and there is no need to look further into the cosmic drama or meditate on its existence.

Atheists persist in refusing to accept that there are signs of intelligent unfolding of events in the living world in the face of overwhelming evidence, lest this should be taken by young earthers to mean there is a God who absolves us from the need to apply our own intelligence to understand the world. Young earthers refuse to accept any evidence which contradicts the 6-day model of creation only 6000 years ago. (Question for young earthers: perhaps I’m being too dismissive – it may be only the evolutionary time scale and details of terrestrial life which differentiates you from the scientific mainstream. What about modern cosmology? Please let me know.)

I believe the universe was created by our Creator somehow, sometime, probably billions of years ago. Just how we will never know but I believe God wants us to keep exploring with open minds, to be curious and to enjoy the wonder, like children (‘the kingdom of heaven is given to such as these’, Matt 19:14). To think we know it all in any sense is a terrible conceit. 

So if you fall into either the atheist or the young earth camp please stop attacking each other.

Why not just keep quiet and enjoy the mystery of being ?

John

Author, 2077 AD


cosmik.jo@gmail.com

Transition Towns and C40 Cities

About 3.5 billion people live in an urban environment out of a world total of 7 billion. Not only is this total rising fast but  the consumption of resources and production of waste per person is rising, thereby putting a dangerous stress on our biosphere. So it is good to know that we do not have to rely wholly on governments to deal with this problem - two worldwide initiatives at local community and city level have been under way for several years.

TRANSITION TOWNS

These are led from the bottom up, and range from villages to cities.

Transition towns  started about 8 years ago when Kinsale Town Council (Ireland) adopted a plan to integrate human activity with natural surroundings. A couple of years later Totnes in Devon, UK, developed the idea further. Since then the movement has taken off worldwide. There are now over 300 officially recognised Transition Towns in the USA, UK, Ireland, Italy, Canada, Australia, New Zealand  and Chile.

The idea of sustainable communities grew out of the permaculture concept  in which high yielding fruit and vegetable plots are cultivated in cities, so that whole urban communities can avoid depending on the energy-intensive import of food.  The plots can be, for example, in window boxes, on waste ground, in gardens  or on the roofs of offices. Low energy high tech life styles, recyling and efficent waste disposal together form  part of the concept.

There is no fixed way to run a TT but one of the intentions is to bring more cohesion across the social spectrum during dislocation when oil production peaks and starts to decline while demand continues to rise. 

This approach to living should have an even wider appeal if food, energy and waste disposal costs escalate worldwide.

C40 CITIES

These adopt a variety of measures, each suited to a particular urban situation and are led from the top by mayors and urban managers.

in 2006 some 40 cities in various countries, having a combined  population of over 300 million,  signed to join the C40, known as the Large Cities Climate Leadership Group. 18 additional cities have joined the scheme. The USA, e.g., has ten C40 cities: Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Austin, Houston and New Orleans.  With most of the projected growth in world population concentrated in cities the need for more sustainable ways of living in them is particularly pressing.

Examples: switching from private cars to greener, more efficient public transport or cycling, roof gardens, retrofitting of homes and offfices for energy efficiency, composting, recycling, and energy generation from waste.

As with transition towns the fact that adopting green measures means lowering the cost of living is a great incentive. In the C40 case much of the cost saving will show up in local tax reductions – or at least the increases in taxes will be less than they would have been.

So overall we can be grateful that these two worldwide movements are equipping us to withstand not only food shortages, energy shortfalls and climate change but are in a sense improving the fabric of society and setting up new community structures for solving a whole range of problems that could arise in future.

John

Author, 2077 AD

Wanted - water in the right place at the right time

 As the world population grows and the consumption per capita also grows, fresh water is going to be increasingly in demand; not only for drinking but for sanitation and hygiene. Yet droughts in some parts and extreme rainfall in others, or even the two extremes in a given place, are making reliable, clean water supply difficult. Some 900 million people have inadequate access to drinking water while those having bad water-related sanitation or waste disposal number 2.5 billion. According to the World Bank 88% of all waterborne diseases derive from water supplies which are in some way inadequate.

What are the chances of solving this problem? In the long term quite good. It is expected that within a few decades water will become as expensive as oil is today and this means it will become viable to spend money on supplying, conserving and distributing it. But how many have to suffer or die in the mean time? Can we wait for the 'market' to solve this?

 Here are some possibilities:

CHINA

Lake Baikal in Russia is fed by 365 rivers and contains 20% of the world’s fresh water and there is no reason in principle why this can’t be piped into and around China, where some 2 out of 3 cities are short of water.  Plans for this are being made but as yet there have been no decisions. It could also supply other parts of the world. China is making good progress with wind turbine and solar cell electricity, so the power needed for pumping can be produced without relying on fossil fuels .

AFRICA

Desalination using solar energy could supply water for irrigation and drinking in Africa. The method involves forcing salt water through membranes and this needs energy which can come from solar thermal power generation. A  large European consortium is planning to generate electricity for the European grid using steam driven turbine generators, the steam coming from solar heating plants in North Africa. Siemens, a German engineering company which is part of the consortium, has found a way of reducing by well over 50% the amount of energy needed to turn seawater into drinking water (0.5% salt or less) and has already put this into practice in Singapore.

INDIA AND PAKISTAN

The monsoon rainfalls are becoming increasingly heavy. It should be possible to conserve the water by diverting it into aquifers and reservoirs for use throughout the year. Political, ethnic, sectarian and religious conflicts are the chief obstacle to the large engineering projects needed. Corruption, poor management and inadequate or non-existent waste disposal  are thought to be the main causes of present water problems, although extreme weather events are not helping, the current floods in South Pakistan being even worse than the those in 2010.

Towing of icebergs, which are made of fresh water, to the coasts of countries where water is in short supply is another possibility which is becoming increasingly viable, although distribution inland will still be a challenge.

Combining these measures with more sparing use of this precious gift CAN solve the problem. In the last analysis it is a question of human will for good or evil.

John

Author, 2077 AD