I really wish people who have important things to say, hired people who can convey them well. I know having the actual researchers/activists doing the talking lends to authenticity, but sometimes you need people to pay attention. "Preaching to the choir" never needs diction or charisma, but this topic in particular needs to reach more ears than those who are knowledgeable already...

You would be surprised at how many people get this wrong. I'm actually amazed this video even exists. I preach about this all the time to deaf ears.

Gorillaman-'People who believe in different things than I do are sub human and should be killed.'

Do you feel the same about Christians, who's holy book endorses rape, torture, misogyny, and slavery, and commands Christians to follow strictly the example of their prophet who preached inclusion and tolerance, but also commands them to kill any infidel or those who worship Jesus differently than they interpret the 'proper way to worship', and to wage holy wars?
How do you unthinking animals go on the internet and write such nonsense? Religious people are fundamentally broken, they can't reason. Their brains are not alive in the same way thinking humans are.

trickle down has been the prevailing economic policy for the last thirty years and it does not work. This is also the same time period that the middle class has been disappearing not just the last 6 years.

Carter and Clinton are the last two presidents to have budget surpluses. Republicans preach about being fiscally responsible, but the record shows they aren't. Had we followed Carters course, we would be energy independent and it's possible we would have avoided wars with Iraq twice and Afghanistan. Think of what we could have done with all the money that would have been saved. Trillions of dollars.

Oh goodie, another Ayn Rand being cooked up. Just what we need, another sociopath preaching the evils of regulation.

I'm guess from you're tone your American, or at least only figure Americans are going to be reading? You note that 'we' can't get to the moon, while Chinese rovers navigate it's surface. You note with alarm what coastal Florida will face from sea level rise, and not an entire nation like Kiribati. When we look at a global problem we can't ignore technology just because it's Chinese, or focus so hard on Florida's coast we ignore an entire nation in peril.

Sea levels aren't going to be fine in 2099 and then rise a foot on the eve of 2100. They will continue to rise about 3mm annually, as they have already for the last 100 years.(on a more granular level slightly less than 3mm nearer 1900 and slightly more nearer 2100 but the point stands). Coastal land owners aren't merely going to see this coming. They've watched it happening for nearly 100 years already and managed to cope thus far. Cope is of course a bad word for building housing near the coast and at less than a foot above sea level. It's like how occupants at the base of active volcanoes 'cope' with the occasional eruption. All that is to say, the problem for homes built in such locations has always been a matter of when not if disaster will strike. The entire island nation of Kiribati is barely above sea level. It is one tsunami away from annihilation. Climate change though is, let me be brutally honest, a small part of the problem. A tsunami in 1914 would've annihilated Kiribati, as a tsunami today in 2014 would, as a tsunami in 2114 would. And we are talking annihilate in a way the 2004 tsunami never touched. I mean an island that's all uninhabited, cleared to the ground and brand new, albeit a bit smaller for the wear. That scenario is going to happen sooner or later, even if the planet were cooling for the next 100 years so let's be cautious about preaching it's salvation through prevention of climate change.

Your points on food production are, sorry, wrong. You are correct enough that local food growth is a big part of the problem. You are dead wrong that most, or even any appreciable amount is to blame on climate change now or in the future. All the African nations starving for want of local food production lack it for the same reason, violence and instability. From this point forward referenced as 'men with guns'. The people in Africa have, or at least had, the means to grow their own food. Despite your insistence that men with guns couldn't stop them from eating then, they still did and continue to. A farmer has to control his land for a whole year to plant, raise and harvest his crop or his livestock. Trouble is men with guns come by at harvest time and take everything. In places like the DRC or Somalia they rape the farmer's wife and daughters too. This has been going on for decades and decades, and it obviously doesn't take many years for the farmer to decide it's time to move their family, if they are lucky enough to still be alive. That is the population make up of all the refugee camps of starving people wanting for food. It's not a climate change problem, it's a people are horrible to each other problem. A different climate, better or worse growing conditions, is a tiny and hardly worth noting dent in the real problem.
CO@ emission restrictions do not equate to global economic downturn, they could just as easily mean global economic upturn as new tech is adopted and implemented.
I stated meaningful CO2 emission changes. That means changes that will sway us to less than 1 foot of sea level change by 2100 and corresponding temperatures. Those are massive and rapid reductions, and I'm sorry but that can not be an economic boon too. I'm completely confident that electric cars and alternative or fusion power will have almost entirely supplanted fossil fuel usage before 2100, and because they are good business. Pushing today though for massive emission reductions can only be accomplish be reducing global consumption. People don't like that, and they jump all over any excuse to go to war if it means lifting those reductions. That's just the terrible nature of our species.

As for glaciers, I did read the article. You'll notice it observed that increasing the spatial resolution of models changed the picture entirely? The IPCC noted this and updated their findings accordingly as well(page 242). The best guess by 2100 is better than 50% of the glaciers through the entire range remaining. The uncertainty range even includes a potential, though less likely GAIN of mass:
. Results for the Himalaya range between 2% gain and 29% loss to 2035; to 2100, the range of losses is 15 to 78% under RCP4.5. The modelmean loss to 2100 is 45% under RCP4.5 and 68% under RCP8.5 (medium confidence). It is virtually certain that these projections are more reliable than in earlier erroneous assessment (Cruz et al., 2007) of complete disappearance by 2035.

If you still want to insist Nepal will be without glaciers in 2100 please provide a source of your own or stop insisting on contradicting the science to make things scarier.

Then slow down with theories of our impending demise, the IPCC doesn't support it. You want to talk about not denying the science, then you don't get to preach gloom and doom. Don't claim a large percentage of farmland is going to be lost to sea level rise by 2100. Don't claim coastlines are going to be pushed back 10 miles by a worst case 1 foot rise of sea level by 2100.

We are talking about advancements solving problems like a maximum sea level rise of a foot in the next 100 years, with best guesses being lower than that. I think it's modest to suggest our children's children will have figured out how to raise the dikes around places like New Orleans by a foot in the next 100 years.
The concord and moon trips are no longer happening because they are expensive. We can do them if we needed to, and more easily than the first time around. Finding out people aren't willing to pay the premium to shave an hour off their flight doesn't mean the technology no longer exists. Just because America no longer needs to prove they can lift massive quantities of nuclear warheads into orbit doesn't mean we couldn't still go to the moon again if it was needed. There's just no reason to do it, the tech exists still none the less.
Yes, there are social problems that confound the use of new technology. You fail to notice that is also the problem with feeding everybody. Food production isn't the problem, but rather the men with guns that control distribution. Stalin's mass starvation of millions was a social problem, not climate change or technology. Mao's was the same. North Koreas the same. All over Africa is the same. We have more than enough food, and plenty of charities work hard to send food over to places like Africa. Once the food gets there though the men with guns take most of it and people still starve. The reason Africa has so many crop failures is the violent displacement of the farmers. Exactly the same problem that saw millions starve in Russia, China and North Korea.
You are right that a changing climate could compound Africa's ag industry a bit, but it's a small hit compared to the violent displacement problem. Also, don't neglect to consider to impact of meaningful CO2 emission restrictions around the globe. A large scale global economic downturn probably means a lot more war, bloodshed, and starvation. If you do not reduce emissions enough to trigger that downturn and instead just 'marginally', you get stuck with both because Africa is still going to see virtually the same climate changes through the next hundred years.

And if you are worried about losing the glaciers in the Himalayas by 2100 there is very good reason to believe that's gonna be alright:
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S41/39/84Q12/index.xml?section=topstories

From my viewpoint, I have not seen a 'concerted campaign to deny your participation', but I have seen your comments disputed nearly every time. That's not the same thing by far.
As you noted, being a 'Christian voice' on a mostly 'secular' site is going to get you confrontation and disputes, some of them might be over the top. Please consider how an atheist posting anti-religious propaganda daily on a purely religious site might be treated, it would be FAR worse than you are treated here, they would likely be banned on day one. You on the other hand, are still 'welcome' here (if not by everyone) and have not been banned or hobbled that I know of.
Many find your 'preaching' insulting, which is why you get the replies you get. You know you are spreading unwanted proselytizing in a place it won't get much support, indeed in a place where it's unwanted by most. That is your right, I suppose, but because you do it knowingly, I feel little sympathy for you and the disputes you find yourself in, you put yourself there intentionally. No whining about it.

All that said, and as much as I disagree with your viewpoint, I would not like to see you banned or leave. It would be nice if you would show a less one dimensional personality and comment on non-religious topics in a non-religious way, but to each his own. I'll just say that you are incredibly unlikely to convince anyone here, especially by the methods you use, but you are free to try. We can always hit 'ignore' if we are bothered.

not exactly a secret.
elites by the very definition feel themselves superior to the befuddled herd (actual term used) and therefore feel compelled to "guide" them and "control" them.
this attitude crosses partisan lines.
so on one side you have educated,indoctrinated elites who disdain the masses but use the language of empathy and compassion to manipulate and on the other side of the aisle you have a perverted aynrand/jesus monster to manipulate the masses.

either way....you are being manipulated.

and there aint NO way the republicans are getting rid of obamacare.only the largest bailout gimme to big pharma and the health insurance industry.that would be political suicide.the entire policy was written by the heritage foundation for fucks sake! not exactly a bastion of liberal ideologies.

just as no republican will repeal roe vs wade.
they will use abortion like a battering ram to get their religious base into a frothy frenzy of hate and self-righteousness,but no way would they EVER let go of that boom stick.

this video is stupid and is only being used to create a platform so a certain someone can jump on his soapbox and preach his religion.

fuck that shit.go on a street corner and peddle your wares.this video has zero relevance.

downvote*

@RedSky profiling is dumb. I thought that exactly as Harris mention the old granny in the wheelchair who shouldn't be searched. Guess what, if that was the case where do you think they will hide the next one ? It's so dumb. If the bad guys know you will not search children or old people, who do you think will be used for smuggling next ?.
Your other post, Radical Christians are just as happy to die and go to heaven. it's called the Military, and yes they forcibly proselytize and recruit from the poor and minorities and yes they murder people of other religions on a massive scale.

@gwiz665 No. Judaism is just as bad. Judaism also suffers from Racism. That could be argued is why it does not spread. Look up Jewish intermarriage. Their doctrine preaches the disregard and manipulation of the 'GOYA' or 'animals' because they are lesser human beings. That is why they do not inter-marry or recruit. That is why over 90% Israeli's support bombing defenseless Gazans including targeting children. That is why Israel is imprisoning or forcibly deporting Africans. That is why Israel treats Israeli Arabs like sub humans.

ALL RELIGIONS ARE EQUALLY AWFUL.

Strictly speaking, I'm still not following your line of logic.

First, Islam is a religion, not a race, so anything regarding the religion by definition can not validly be called racist. But that may just be semantics.

Second, the discussion is about Islam's sexism and homophobia because the majority of people who follow the religion are on board with sexism and homophobia and encourage it as a group activity, but more importantly, people within the religion who are actually against sexism and homophobia are deemed heretics and worthy of execution.

Homophobia and sexism in Christianity is not worthy of the same type of discussion not because most Christians have paler skin than most Muslims (hearkening back to your "racist" claim), but because like the good Christians they are, most (except fringe groups like Westboro Baptist Church) ignore what the bible and their god told them to think and they tend never to preach about encouraging homophobia and enslaving women.

(You really seem to be unflinchingly practicing exactly what Sam Harris described and treating any even totally valid, objective mention of indisputable issues in the Islamic religion as racism. The facts seem very cut and dry to me, so I can't help feeling like I must be missing something. I mean does this scan... at all?)

What is Islam? Who or what are Muslims?

It seems every single debate over whether Islam is a religion of peace or of violence comes down to this same argument over who or what defines those terms and there is never an agreement. Indeed, much of the conflict in the middle east is due to followers of Islam arguing over who's particular interpretation is correct. Meanwhile in the western world religion is something that, as the late Hitchens put it, we take "a la carte". It seems you can no more describe a person by revealing their particular faith than you could describe what food you had last night by giving somebody the whole menu to the restaurant. You might ascertain that it was perhaps Thai food... but little else.

Still though, when we go the texts we do find quite unequivocally immoral preachings. I think the religious really have to find an answer for this. We aren't buying the alternate interpretations or the lost in translation theories. When you describe yourself as a Muslim or as a Christian, or as any other faith, it seems to me you don't really have much of a right to get upset when we call you on the evil shit in your holy books. You might protest that you are not that "kind" of Christian, but the speed at which you dismiss any given passage is only matched by the speed at which you declare divine truth for another. We understand the vast plurality of beliefs, which is why it baffles us that you subscribe to a particularly narrow set of ideals whilst simultaneously admonishing us for tarring you all with the same brush.

Okay... if the bible is the infallible word of God, then why are you wasting your Sunday preaching, when he told you to stone those poor people who work over the weekend to death? C'mon, get with the program.

I assume, as a biologist, he also knows that rabbits are ruminants, some flying creatures have four legs, whales are a kind of fish, and bats are a kind of bird.

God is omnipotent, except when he's not.

Multiple Kings began their reigns at different ages (depending on which book of the bible you look at).

Saul killed himself, and the Philistines killed him.

@ChaosEngine I can see how you would feel like this is preaching to the choir (much like he accuses Fat Fred Durst of doing), but there are still good reasons to support this type of dressing down. You have to consider who the audience is for this video. As I see it, there are 3 possibilities: FFD and his followers, fellow sceptics and atheists, and the general public. While, ostensibly, this video aims at all three audiences, it is only the latter where you can hope for any movement.

If FFD is the only voice talking to teenage kids and incurious adults, then more of them will follow him. This video offers a counterpoint and if it influences just one or two otherwise unswayed people to think more deeply about religious claims, rhetorical logic or the scientific process, then it is a win.

I haven't confused anything with anything. The American ideal is ridiculous. Our belief, for the most part, is that everyone can strike it rich. Republicans preach it, so do democrats, our president, etc. Trillions of lotto tickets have been sold. Even poor people spend on some rich man's idea of necessity.

And to your point that the system is rigged. Absolutely. Absolutely absolutely absolutely. That does not diminish my point though...

You know why I am going to school? Why I am have a 3.98 GPA at a prestigious University? Because I want to work in a job that pays less. Yes, I mean that. I want a job that is a pay cut. I can't stand the brutal nature of my job. I want to be an educator. Period.