An article by Rupert Cornwell in today’s Independent says that today the Doomsday Clock, which has since 1947 calculated the probability of global nuclear war, will be moved closer to zero from the seven minutes to midnight at which it has stood since 2002.
The reasons prompting this decision by the Clock’s sponsors, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, include growing turmoil in the
Apart from the growing number of countries seeking to acquire nuclear weapons – there are already nine nuclear powers - the renewed popularity of atomic energy as a source of ‘clean’ fuel will led to the proliferation of nuclear reactors and the increased circulation of enriched uranium and plutonium, which are also raw materials for atomic bombs.
If al-Qai’da or some other group of international terrorists acquire an atomic device, and threaten to use it, the deterrence doctrine of MAD – mutually assured destruction – which prevented the Cold War from turning into an atomic holocaust will no longer apply, and a dangerous threshold will have been crossed.
This article says nothing new, and simply outlines a situation that we push to the outer recesses of our consciousness most of the time in order to be able to carry on with our ‘normal’ daily lives. But considered in cold blood, it is the stuff of which the most nightmarish horror movies and science fiction are made.
Is it really possible that our rulers, who know far more of the actual details of this gruesome scenario than we do, are content to blunder on further along the perilous paths they are treading? Do they have a death-wish, not just for themselves, but for all of us?
And if so, what can we, the people, do about it?
39 comments:
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light"
(Dylan Thomas)
They say everything that has a beginning also has an end. The universe began therefore it is logical it also ends. But the question is what is the likely cause of its termination?
It is true, as Anticant says, that nuclear ambitions of most countries or the misuse of nuclear devices by so-called terrorists may trigger off a domino reaction that could wipe all living beings off the face of the earth, well if not all at least those of us who cannot access a nuclear refuge. Although even for the latter life afterwards would not be an easy one.
I do not know if the Jewish Armageddon could be applied to this eventuality.
Linear time is a human concept. There are theories that time is an endless loop. How can we be sure that the universe - or all the others - had a "beginning"? They may just have always been there.
Anyway, if there is a man-made nuclear holocaust, it doesn't really matter what it's called, or whether it accords with this, that or the other interpretation of scripture, does it?
"They may just have always been there"
It is so unconceivable for me to accept this theory at the time that it is impossible to find any proofs against it, that I cannot comment unless I use religious reasons to support the beginning of all these stony objects spinning up there.
By a logical principle (no pun meant) it is not out of the reasonable that the world have been created. By the same logical principle I find IT IS out of any reason that it have "sprouted" from a Big Bang - by the way something that does not implicate any noise - because something should have had a "hand" in the process.
What it is true is the quantity of natural catastrophes that little by little deteriorate our planet, and the quantity of other phenomena in the form of uncontrolled meteorites that seem to proceed from disruptions of perhaps other worlds or space matter far away, let alone the natural erosion of planet Earth which can be seen every day.
As it is, the reality of it all is that we are very, very far from determining what will be the fate of everything.
"Always" is a human concept, Jose, - as is "God". Why do we NEED to know how we came to be here? What matters is that we ARE here; and that the future is more important to us than the past, because we cannot change the past but the present and the future are in our hands, at least to some extent.
Of course we cannot control everything that is going to happen - the notion that we can is the hubristic route to disaster - but we are able to influence and modify certain tendencies.
There is an old prayer that says "Lord, give us the strength to endure what we cannot change, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference".
Part of the usefulness of our debates here and elsewhere is to clarify what the differences are, and to act where we usefully can.
I am a sceptic, but not a fatalist.
I forgot to mention in my previous post that Planet Earth has been given an age by scientists. If my memory does not fail me it is approximately 4500 million years. Are we going to believe it because the scientists have said so?
If everything is relative, and I tend to believe that it is, the process by which those scientists reckoned this age may also have been erroneous. I understand they used meteorites, but again those meteorites, or the rocks which they also used for their calculations, could have been originated by another process in places with an older age.
In fact in my opinion the universe keeps being a mystery, much that scientists try to get satisfied by measurements which may not be so accurate as they deemed.
But my opinion again bumps against theories of higher standing by, I presume, conscientious researchers in geology.
Is this mystery God?
jose - A scientist will be satisfied with the predictive power of the truths he has found. If they cease to be accurate tools of prediction than their status as truths will be questioned. This is rational. What on the other hand is the predictive power of a belief in God? What can it tell you?
I understand that, Toby. But there may be other reasons why new theories are not sought, or perhaps brains are too limited to find new solutions. After what I have read about those "truths" and how they were reached, I still am very doubtful about their credibility.
The thoughts of three men come to mind here :
1. Cyril Joad : "My faith lies in the least implausible explanation of the Universe" (which I think is brilliant cos I think I understand it, but then I don't)
2. Karl Popper's Scientific Method (which I think is brilliant cos I think I understand it!) :
P1 -> TS1 -> EE1 -> P2 -> TS2 ->
Where
P1 = Problem 1 ->
TS1 = Trial Solution 1 (eg a Theory) ->
EE1 = Error Elimination 1 ->
P2 = Problem 2 (a new problem)
TS2 = Trial Solution 2 (a new theory)...and so on...I'm sure you get the drift.
3. St Anselm and his Ontological Theory for the Existence of God (which I think is brilliant cos I think it's devilishly difficult to argue against - or, disprove) :
"God is that of which nothing greater can be conceived".
Is this cause for optimism - or not ?
http://mathaba.net/rss/?x=548815
You may have noticed in today's papers that the Doomsday Clock has been moved forward two minutes - to five minutes before midnight.
The Gorbachev article struck me as a rare breath of sanity, although inevitably he was rubbished by some of the blog commentators in the 'Guardian'.
As for St. Anselm's theory, I should have thought that the logical answer is "everything that exists". If you choose to call it 'God' that is, I suppose, pantheism.
'St Anselm's Acid Test', as I call it, is a little party 'mind' trick which can be played anywhere...
Can you conceive of anything greater than...SEX ?
I can - so can you. The answer can be anything, but let's say you answer 'Love'.
Can you conceive of anything greater than...LOVE ?
I can - so can you. The answer can be anything, but let's say you answer "Justice".
Can you conceive of anything greater than...JUSTICE
And so the game can go on until everyone gets p..... off and want to play at something else.
At that point, ask the knock-out question :
Can you conceive anything greater than...GOD.
For some reason, the mind seems to stop - well, mine does - and I think for most people who are honest with themselves, they would say the same.
We can conceive of something greater with Sex, Love, Justice or Whatever - but the mind does not seem to be able to conceive of anything greater when it comes to the concept of God - in much the same way as the mind can't get its head round the concept of eternity-forever - perhaps ?
St Anselm therefore states : God is that of which we can conceive of nothing greater.
I think it's clever - but not so clever that people can't understand it.
I throw that into the melting-pot of ideas...
Yes, it is indeed a party trick. "God" is an inchoate concept. Read "Atheism. The Case Against God" by George H. Smith. More philosphically rigorous than Dawkins, and should appeal to your hungry mind.
Richard, if god is by definition the most perfect what is this perfection?
Isn't an ordinary work-a-day square the most perfect example of itself?
Is god the perfected rules of a future physics?
Or the first cause?
Or could it be the most perfect thing in existence is War and Peace? That's a bloody strange example of God!
St. Anselm's definition was: "God is that of which nothing greater can be conceived" - which is not the same as the most perfect thing in existence.
But this supposedly beneficent God, if it exists, is unable, or unwilling, to prevent evil. So evil must be that of which nothing greater can be conceived.
All these "definitions" are nonsensically tautologous, anyway.
Most definitions are "nonsensical" tautologies to inchoates.
I'd never dare to challenge a religious tenet. Beliefs are intrinsic to individuals and nothing I could say against a particular religion would give a satisfactory outcome. If I criticise anyone because he/she believes in God I might be proselytising for Atheism, conversely I'd be doing the same thing for Theism.
In my opinion a belief should be a person's inalienable right and, as a right sanctioned by most constitutions, respectable.
I'll grant you that Anselm's definition is not the same as the most perfect thing in existence. Yet if this god were to exist surely it would be the most perfect thing?
The ontological argument can thus be run like this, 1) The greatest (or perfection) exists.
2) God is by definition the greatest.
3) God exists.
The major problem is as you say this first premise of the realist variety or Anselm's is completely nonsensical.
The Christians have all sorts of arguments about theodicy. As you know, they concede that suffering and evil exist. Yet to counter this they also claim the lord works in mysterious ways and man is allowed to be evil because of his greatest gift, free will so that we can realise what good is from its opposite.
Now's the time when someone whips out their Duns Scotus and the next person reaches for their Aristotle.
JOSE, do you really think that the world will ever become a better place while people holding beliefs they deem "sacred" are unchallenged and given free rein to perpetrate whatever atrocities they wish in the name of their "faith"?
Do you think the British in India were wrong to suppress Suttee - the burning alive of a widow on her husband's funeral pyre? Do you think it wrong for the authorities to interfere when worshippers in extreme Christian cults starve and torture small children to death because they believe they are possessed by the devil? Do you think it is right that 'heretics' were burned to death by the Inquisition? Do you think it is right for suicide bombers to be excused because they kill in the name of Allah?
I am sorry, but I think you are completely off-beam on this one. Jesus said; "By their fruits ye shall know them". This is especially true of those who claim their actions are motivated by religious faith.
tOBY: "Now's the time when someone whips out their Duns Scotus and the next person reaches for their Aristotle." And a third person [me] yawns, turns over, and says "what a load of tripe these pie-in-the-sky arguments are!"
Anticant,
Have I said that I approve the atrocities you mention? The death of just one person is never justifiable. There is a right, a paramount right, that we all have and it is the right to live.
I was referring to the individual faith a person is entitled to have, or absence of faith for that matter.
Wars are a plague for the humankind, wars should be condemned whatever may be their reasons. Indiscriminate slaying of persons is never justified for whatever it is the reason.
But if a country declares war on my country, should I remain idle? Or is it my duty to defend my house and my land by any means? If anybody breaks into my house should I remain as if nothing had happened, let alone if my family is hurt or damaged?
Let us assume that Palestine were a recognised country, that its constitution had been approved by the UN, that it had a regular army, and that Israel invaded it with its army. I suppose the Palestinian reaction would be enter a war against Israel. But Palestine is not organised as a nation, as you well know.
If all resolutions dictated by the UN have failed to meet with the acceptance of Israel do you think Palestine finds itself defended by the international organisation? How do you think Palestine should defend itself?
If through devious reasons the US-led coalition invaded Iraq after having weakened that country by embargoes and blockades, what do you think the Iraqis should do?
To comment on the Iraqi war of questions that we all know would be long and boring, I'll subject myself to the present moment.
There are two questions that, in my opinion, should be dealt with separately although both of them inter-relate : civil and religious sides of the problem.
To start with the US, let us not forget that President Bush stated that he was being led by God Himself to make war on Iraq, here again the God of the Christians and the God of the Muslims - that happen to be the same - were involved in the conflict. But both religions prohibit violence to their faithful. And both religions have been involved in the use of violence, on the US side and on the Iraq side. When this happens history - which always repeats itself - has much to say.
In the case of Iraq the US-led coalition triggered off the conflict, to me at least there is not the least shade of doubt. The Iraqi army which was so well organised during the war with Iran, disappeared from the scenario - rumours have it that its commanders had been bribed by the US intelligence.
I am not talking of Saddam because talking of Saddam would compel me to talking of other US(and Britain)-sponsored tyrants all over the world, even Saddam was backed by the US for a long time. I am talking of what we have seen to happen, which else was not approved by the UN, which was illegal under all considerations.
Muslims are using religion to send suicides to their deaths and the deaths of innocents, but how many innocent Iraqis have died because of the sanctions imposed by the US under the real god for which this war has been fought : oil? The figures bear no comparison, indeed.
I repeat I am against all these atrocities, but as a human being I also understand.
Jose, I have no wish to upset you. What Kant called "the crooked timber of humanity" being what it is, all the grievous events you mention would have probably been committed under some other pretext than religion. But the fact is that much religious faith, and religious teachings, stir up hatred and contempt for 'the other' - non-believers - and religion is a prime incitement to violence.
It is true that there are some Christian and Muslim texts prohibiting violence, but these are honoured more in the breach than the observance, and this has always been so throughout history. The history of faith is the history of violence, lust for power, and unscrupulousness.
We shall have to agree to disagree about this. I maintain that religious beliefs and the intolerance they generate are the biggest threats to peace, and the worst curse of the human psyche, in the increasingly dangerous world we are living in.
Man's inhumanity to Man is well-documented - God is the 'Divine Scapegoat'.
As Carl Jung said in a 1959 John Freeman interview : "The only real danger is Man himself...he is the great danger...and we are pitifully unaware of it.
Stop blaming God, Anticant, and/or the people who dare call themselves religious.
Dangerously blind fanaticism and extremism is just as evident in the secular world - as well as the religious world.
Look at 'gangster capitalism', or 'Stalinist communism'. No mention of God in those creeds - but look at the lives lost through secular stupidity, arrogance and cruelty.
I don't buy your point of view, fellow inchoate.
Idealogical fanatics come in many different forms - religious and non-religious. Both fanatical beliefs "and the intolerance they generate are the greatest threats to peace, and the worst curse of the human psyche".
Richard Dawkin is a secular, idealogical fanatic - in my book.
His 'selfish gene' ideas (et al) are great, but he holds those beliefs with a fanaticism which is disturbing.
The beliefs he holds aren't the problem - it's his intolerant, fanatic holding of those beliefs which are the problem.
I've met a few psychologists like that - very nice people, but they appear fixated with their particular psychological doctrine.
When I 'point the finger' like this, I am acutely aware that 'three fingers are pointing back' at me. I might be as guilty - or more so - of the very things I criticise others for.
I can't answer that - I don't know. I think not, and hope not...but self-deception is very deceptive.
My personal reaction to someone who I perceive to be fanatical is extreme strange, but fascinatly 'over the top'.
For example, if a Jehovah's Witness, or Mormon, or 'some pushy seller of something' - religious, political or whatever - tries to confront me on the street, or at my front door, I am very deeply offended and disturbed by it. They are an abhorrence to me, and I feel very insulted by their ignorant arrogance.
Am I alone in feeling like this ?
I am with Richard in this. It is not religion, it is the human person.
As I know we are not going to agree on this I prefer abandoning the discussion.
Peace be upon you.
Jose and Richard, you both persist in misunderstanding me. How can I "blame" an entity imagined by others whose existence I have seen no convincing evidence for? I blame the credulity of the faithful.
And I totally agree about secular and any other forms of fanaticsm. Fanaticism is abhorrent, and an aberration of the human mind. But religious belief is a prime haven and breeder of fanaticism. That is why it is so dangerous.
It is not Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on my door who bother me. It is Muslims threatening to kill anyone who denies that their religion is peaceful - and doing it - who scare the hell out of me. The doctrines and believers of Islam are an even bigger threat to our Western pluralistic way of life today than Nazism was in the 1930s. Wake up!
I have repeatedly said that the object of debate is not to 'win' or to convert your opponent. I am perfectly happy for us to agree to disagree - though I would prefer it if you realised the gravity of the threat religions pose. The fact that we disagree will not deter me from continuing to state my own position and beliefs.
Just a passing (inchoate) thought for Saturday morning :
IS A THOUGHT A THING, OR ABOUT A THING ?
Remember, our high-minded thoughts/clever ideas/cherished beliefs are just a collection of thoughts (consciousness?) strung together...
But a thought is not 'real' in one sense - I can't open my brain and say : 'Look there's a thought'. But, in another sense, thoughts are very real indeed.
Substitute 'God' for 'Thought'...
I'm not playing games here - I'm very serious - but it's also fun...don't you think ?
Agreed about thoughts. But "God" isn't any old thought. It's a God-thought, with centuries-old accretions of layer upon layer of superimposed, 'supernatural' meaning for those who think it's meaningful. Too diffuse and waffly to be useful. Like the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Richard -
Substitute "unicorn" for "thought" or for that matter "hhhhhhrr".
One is obvious nonsense. We vaguely know what a unicorn would be if we lived in a world, let's call it Pegasus. Now we have no evidence we live in Pegasus and most people hopefully think we don't, yet what's the difference between this and a God-world? Pegasus you see is so fast he only pops up in places where nothing is there to perceive him.
Anticant,
Your words reflect a symptom of immobility, something like a firewall to stop any threats.
I am resolutely contrary to your opinion about the "danger of religions". There is not such. I am not religious but I accept religion as a way to lead people of good faith, of good will. The tenets of the three most important religions so order their faithful.
The danger really, always in my opinion, is in those who use anything that may help them in their aims such as lies, tricks, anything for them is valid as long as their interests be met with.
Just one fact which has convinced me that this is so is the number of people who are religiously used in these atrocities and those who do not permit it. The difference is overwhelming on the side of the latter, be them Muslims or Christians.
The actual danger is outside religions.
From your posts I see you are adamant in your convictions and therefore it is of no use that I keep posting in this thread, at least as long as religions be dealt with.
Friends are not very easily found.
Sorry, Toby, I'm not following your 'stream of consciousness' quite yet...but I'll get there...
But no matter, isn't incredible that our 'thoughts' (which don't 'exist' in one sense) can be communicated in words arranged in a certain order (in our case grammatical English) - and we can can understand each other...and we can do that spinning on a rock, hurtling round a bloody great ball of fire !
As to 'Anticant's Rant' about the threat from Islamic fundamentalists...Judaeo-Christian fundamentalists in the White House worry me more...and they have every WMD imaginable.
Yes, the Christian and Zionist fanatics are very alarming - but I don't worry so much about the USA ones as about Islam, because America is a democracy [of sorts] and the electorate there are waking up at last - if too slowly - to the folly of what has been done in their name over the past five years. Also, the USA Constitution provides for the separation of church and state, however much the fundamentalists dislike this.
Islam, however, is a universalist theocratic creed which regards religion as inseparable from government and preaches that the sons of Allah are destined to rule the world. I find this far more frightening.
Anticant, you seem to be "raging" primarily against people who have a sincerely-held religious faith.
If so, you're wasting precious energy which could be put to better use - perhaps.
Jose's already given you a clue...but you don't seem to get it.
Thr threat comes from those who wish to seek and secure POWER (Orwell covers this majestically in 1984) - and who use, abuse and misuse religions (and religious people) for their own ends.
You only have to identify the string-pullers - the master puppeteers who control the world's financial resources - to find out who whips up this fanaticism and extremism.
Who are the people who remain 'untouched' by wars and famine and turmoil ?
If you're going to "rage" against anybody, Anticant, rage against these master-puppeteers (& their master-puppets) who have created a 'matrix' of power for their own ends.
So, stop picking on God, Religion, Religious Believers, or Whoever. This "rage" is not just misplaced, it is also misdirected...and you are just falling into the trap set for you by the 'master-puppeteers'...that is, you become a convenient 'conduit' for them to breed fear, suspicion and hatred.
Our thoughts (and the words & actions which express them) can harm or heal - for evil or for good.
And we must also 'lighten up' and have a good laugh about it.
Have a nice Saturday evening.
RICHARD: Kindly don't preach at me and tell me what and what not to think and do! I am just as much entitled to express my opinions as you are to voice yours, and I shall continue to do so, whether you loftily think they are 'misdirected' or not.
Anyway, you persist in misunderstanding me. I am NOT "raging primarily against people who have a sincerely-held religious faith". I am deploring nonsensical religious doctrines which incite believers in them to contemptuous attitudes towards, and violence against, 'infidels'. I have nothing against sincere believers in twaddle, as long as they leave me alone. But disciples of Islam, like American 'born-again' Christians, don't leave non-believers alone. Can't you see that it is their pernicious doctrines which inspire their wicked behaviour and global aggression?
Of course the cynical string-pullers and power-seekers are culpable as well - you really don't need to point that out to me. But you are too patronising to sincere believers when you imply that they are all helpless puppets in the hands of manipulating rogues.
I suggest it is you who is being simplistic and misdirected.
Incidentally, isn't it curious how the topic of my original post - the growing threat of imminent Doomsday - has morphed into yet another futile squabble about religion?
I enjoyed the thread immensely. Please don't fight over the irrelevance or not of religions! There are so many other more fruitful areas to disagree about.
Anticant, if you think this debate is "futile", then you are not the man I thought you were.
You have attacked a particular point of view - which is your right - and I have attacked back - which is my right.
It's called 'debate' - a concept you cherish, I understand.
I experience a lot of attempted thought-control in these discussions! I am constantly being told I "shouldn't" say this, that, or the other. Debates about the nature of religious belief are extremely important, but surely not in the context of this thread, which I had hoped might produce some useful ideas about what needs to be done to reduce the risk of 'Armageddon' occurring in the next few years. It is the BEHAVIOUR of religious people that matters here - not why they believe what they do, or whether their beliefs are intellectually coherent, but what those beliefs motivate them to do. It is the failure of others to address this crucial issue that led me to characterise this discussion as futile.
As for more fruitful areas of disagreement, these will doutless emerge if my blogs continue to interest people.
There, there, friends! As Toby says let's not digress and do concentrate our efforts in fighting those who are the danger to our civilisation. We do not want to hurt one another here, do we?
So as to drive that edge of bellicosity from this thread and trying to keep to heart what is most important for us, I would like to reflect on what is waiting for us at the end of the times.
I remember some occasions in my life - too many for my taste - when I was threatened by ominous people and when veiled warnings of attempts at my life were uttered, that my reaction had always been of serenity, of thinking that later or sooner I had to die. Those threats never were carried out - it is obvious!.
Fear is what people with a definite target in mind use to control. To control fear of people has given splendid results to those who were controllers. Wars have been declared using fears of all kinds and it occurs to me now that this is another case of controlling through fear.
People are getting nervous with all the news about the likelihood of a nuclear confrontation. The media, which as you know is perfectly controlled, do not cease letting us know of imminent conflicts with North Korea, Iran, Syria. Unrest grows everywhere else starting at the former Soviet Republics, through Asia and America. Everywhere we look at there seem dramatic changes are going to take place. Why is this in my opinion?
Armageddon is just a name of a prophecy. I have seen on many occasions how prophecies are dealt with to make them fit into actual facts. A way, without doubt to me, to strengthen their meanings and, consequently, keep fear latent.
There are powerful brains at work, more than my simple mind can think of.
I remember what Anticant said about how things have dramatically changed since the incumbent President of the US took over. Why had they not changed before? If we link Bush's (I mention Bush to avoid giving many names in mny references, Bush to me means the whole system, not that I believe he is the only one to blame) attitude to the string of lies that preceded the invasion of Iraq. If we link that attitude to prior serious, proved contacts among the Bush family and the AlQaeda family, perhaps we would not be so sure that what we are warned against is exactly true. A spark in our brains warns us that we are maybe under the spell of an intended mirage.
Previous staunch friends of Bush's have left him and they were those who counselled him to undertake the absurd adventures in which he got the American people and the world. The old expression of rats abandoning the sinking ship comes to my mind.
Neo-Cons or Neo-Labour or Neo-Fascists, or Neo-whatever seem expressions too coincidental to make me think that there is nothing hidden behind them. They are just euphemisms for the New Order, beause as far as my sight can reach I cannot see but evident signs of same politics, a politics - if we can name that so - that is bound to keep us restrained inside our paper homes and lives for the good of that entity that has always been lurking behind the curtains: Capitalism.
I do not deny frontally that that threat of extinction of our world does not come to materialise, as I have already said a beginning always (sorry Anticant) has an end. I was taught in mny childhood that the Universe was infinite, what I see in Nature and what I read about the outer space, makes me lean towards the theory that it is finite. We are finite. Why do we then have to feel fear?. Fear comes from not knowing, if we know what is coming then we may prepare to confront it, we do not feel fear. At least that is how I react.
I apologise for this tirade.
"Never in all our political history were so many bamboozled...by so few" (Anticant 9/1/07).
Bamboozled by fear.
"Is Doomsday approaching?", Anticant asks.
If enough 'fellow inchoates' are less bamboozled - no.
Post a Comment