When the world is on Fire, are your beliefs tested?

Did you see the Facebook post by the People for Bernie Sander's? 

Doesn't it feel like Trump denied climate change and the climate said, "Hold my beer and watch this!"

I wasn't going to post this particular piece on climate change but after seeing "Hold my beer and watch this!", I knew I had to get this off my chest. You can comment and get it off your chest too. Then we can all wait. It is sad.

Images from Oregon Live. Smoke and ash filled the area in the PDX metro area.

Image from Oregon Live. The fire jumped the Columbia and is now burning on the Washington side too.

Here in the Portland metro area we could not breath the air this week. A teen dropped firecrackers over a cliff in the Columbia George and now both sides of the Columbia River are on fire. People have been evacuated from their homes. Most of the area affected is in the Columbia Gorge wilderness area or impossible to build on so only 2 homes have been lost.

It has been a record hot summer with temperatures in the 100s in September. Children went back to school this week but could not go outside to play because of ash in the air and hot temperatures. If I were a praying person, I would be praying for rain! We will see.

We are not complaining because we know that our earth is under siege everywhere. We are not unique. I suppose this place always has been a fragile ship floating through space but now it seems to me that there is no denying what we, the passengers on the ship have done to upset the wonderful balance of nature. As those people in Texas and in Florida know, disaster is a promise. Even here nature takes it toll with lightning and rain but in comparison to those places our life is a piece of cake.

When it comes to natural disaster, it becomes unclear who believes what about the why. Here in the United States we are surprised every time we have to endure a hurricanes of historic magnitude and fires that have no respect for wealth or fame. We somehow think we are in control. I began wondering how our belief systems is affecting our actions. Global warming and all that it implies is on my mind.

Let me see if I can explain. When a natural disaster related to weather hits your world, why do you think that is all happening? Who or what or even why is the universe so angry at us?

1. If you believe that God is in charge of our world, do you think that he/she is angry at you and yours and testing your resolve. Are you being punished for some unnamed sin?
2. If you believe that, do you simply throw your hands up and change nothing? Is donating money for relief enough?
3. Do you believe that the theory of climate change is a hoax? 
4. Wikipedia has detailed information on the various causes of the climate changing. That information includes information on the effects of Methane and Chlorofluorocarbon. Do you just ignore that?
5. If you are a big business that thinks it would cost too much to do the right thing or your profit would go down, how much do you think cleaning up after a hurricane or rebuilding is going to cost? 
6. If you believe that scientists are right and we are going to need to clean up our act even more, what do you think we should do?

It is so sad that when we were told the "Inconvenient Truth" all those years ago, the scientific theory became a political/religious ball tossed around by people that changed the documents showing the facts to suit their belief system. For them, the world is still flat, gravity is an act of God and the sun rotates around the earth. When a scientist discovered that the world was round, he was persecuted and maybe even punished. It took a very long time for people to realize the truth of the idea. But up until now, all of those battles that scientist have fought through history have not been about warning us that we are destroying the ground we stand on...the surface of the earth.

No matter how your look at it, I think we are up against it now. Even though we have come along way and responsible people are truly trying to do the right thing, I am wondering if the ship has sailed and we are all on board. The oceans are rising, the tundra melting and our land is falling into the sea. I am wondering if, like Noah on the Ark, we will have to sit on the mountain top until it is safe to begin a new way of life.

One thing I know for sure is that we cannot close our eyes or plug our ears anymore. Even when the ship is going down, the people on board bail water and hope. Sometimes it even works!

What do you think? Did the Universe say, "Hold my beer and watch this?"

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Note:  1824 - French physicist Joseph Fourier describes the Earth's natural "greenhouse effect". He writes: "The temperature [of the Earth] can be augmented by the interposition of the atmosphere, because heat in the state of light finds less resistance in penetrating the air, than in re-passing into the air when converted into non-luminous heat." BBC News and Science

Religion My Way: Pascal's Wager

I suppose that most of you know a lot more about religion than I do. I have lived a long time and was raised to be a good girl using the Christian Ethic so I am not totally clueless.  However, I am finding that I love Pascal's Wager. This little philosophy describes the games so many of us play with our religious beliefs.

Blaise Pascal was a philosopher that lived in the mid 17th century. Here is the game of chance he talked about:

Pascal's Wager is an argument in apologetic philosophy which was devised by the seventeenth-century French philosopher, mathematician, and physicist Blaise Pascal (1623–1662). It posits that humans all bet with their lives either that God exists or does not exist. Given the possibility that God actually does exist and assuming the infinite gain or loss associated with belief in God or with unbelief, a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss. Wikipedia

unknown; a copy of the painture of François II Quesnel, which was made for Gérard Edelinck en 1691. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I find that rationality and religion belief are two intellectual inclination that cannot walk hand in hand very successfully. I try to live a moral and good life but I often question belief systems and widely held rules. However, I always keep in mind that I could be very wrong about what I think is true. I suppose that is the reason I live as though I believe it all and remember the golden rules of religion. It seems that it is a good idea. After all, according the Pascal, I have everything to gain if it is true and nothing to lose if it is not.

I think Pascal's Wager is fascinating. How about you?

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