If Earth was your mother, she’d hold you under water in one rocky hand until you no longer bubbled

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A collection of videos … that you will enjoy.

BBC Wonders of Life Trailer:

Climate 2013: Perspectives of 8 Scientists:

Chasing Ice movie reveals largest iceberg break-up ever filmed:

Kathleen Dean Moore at Nobel Conference 48 on the greatest violation of human rights ever seen:

With all due respect to the introducers, the talk actually starts at 8 minutes. Also, the best line delivered in any talk this year starts just after 42 minutes and 50 seconds (but really, start at 40:40 for best effect). It would be interesting to hear comments about the religious vs. secular approaches both suggested by Moore.

Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:

In Search of Sungudogo by Greg Laden, now in Kindle or Paperback
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Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.

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19 thoughts on “If Earth was your mother, she’d hold you under water in one rocky hand until you no longer bubbled

  1. where is that dopey coal miner that said humans live by breathing CO? I wish to hold his face by my car exhaust until he gets enough of that life giving CO and ends any possibility of him breeding.

  2. Yes, hearing atheists speak about becoming “moral beings” while not believing in an objective moral standard is as interesting as jeffrey joking about sterilization or Ms. Moore discussing how “mother earth” should drown certain entities.

  3. ron, why do you assume I’m joking. A main problem in life is that anybody can breed, including hamsters like you.

  4. ron, I’m just saying, I’d rather not see inbred and illiterate people (who think we subsist by breathing carbon monoxide ) reproduce. I apologize for calling you a hamster. That was rude and uncalled for by me. Sometimes I act like the very people I despise. Anyhow, i found it confusing when I tried to read “being and nothingness “by Sartre….. He said that man is morally undefined, then wrote a big ass book on what our moral definitions ought to be. Part of the appeal of existentialism is that the individual defines morality only as it relates to him.

  5. ron, I’d rather not see inbred and illiterate people (who think we subsist by breathing carbon monoxide ) reproduce. I apologize for calling you a hamster. That was rude and uncalled for by me. Sometimes I act like the very people I despise. Anyhow, i found it confusing when I tried to read “being and nothingness “by Sartre….. He said that man is morally undefined, then wrote a big ass book on what our moral definitions ought to be. Part of the appeal of existentialism is that the individual defines morality only as it relates to him. Yes, if I had the power, I’d gladly sterilize that coal miner. We have few checks on breeding in modern society…. If coal miner gomer was a chimpanzee the other chimps would not let him near any females. BTW, I’d sterilize myself if I could press a button. Ive got some nasty tendencies that work well for Komodo Dragons, but not for human interactions.

  6. True that Greg. The only person who knows what Ms. Moore or any of us truly believe is that person. What does it matter anyway? Some of the best people I know are atheists or agnostics, and some (most) of the people I consider “evil” are god fearing dorks like romney and both george bushes. Anyway, I’ve got no clue, so Pascal’s wager works for now.

  7. Neither secularists nor atheists recognize an objective moral standard bearer. The point remains that Ms. Moore and atheists are out of their depth when calling humans to become “moral beings” as they look only to themselves as the pinnacle of morality.

    The point is that Ms. Moore’s crass joke about “mother nature” eliminating enemies demonstrates that something as moral as life and death can be rationalized away if there is a “greater good” to the masses. When people can value anything they want as greater than anything else, you can’t call people to be more moral. The definition of morality is ever shifting in this worldview.

    Conversely, people get upset when pointed towards an objective moral standard bearer and told that while none are going to achieve that standard, we can forgive one another for some of our shortcomings/offenses (others deserve punishment), in love, as we all strive to get closer to that unchanging standard.

  8. ron, I think anyone who watched Moore’s talk and then read your comment would have some serious questions about your sincerity and motivations.

  9. I’m happy to discuss serious questions.

    As an educated philosopher, it should be self evident to Ms. Moore that without an objective moral standard that resides outside herself, her call to morality rings hollow. That her crass joke about drowning entities or their leaders runs against the cultural standard of morality regarding life, further undermining her position.

    Thanks for the opportunity to clarify. While I don’t desire this conversation to be about me, but rather Ms. Moore and her worldview, I am happy to dispel misunderstanding.

  10. I have to agree with Mrs (Ms?) Moore about our blatant abuse of the environment; we have to lessen our wanton destruction of so much beauty. However, I do find her berating those who live “comfortable, profligate lives” while she is obviously living a comfortable, profligate life a bit hard to bear.

    Are her points, P1 and P2 correct?
    P1: Is any climate change harmful? Or is it only anthropogenic climate change that is harmful? Which way is harmful – global warming or global cooling? Is the present climate change anthropogenic – i.e. without humans it would never occur? (History tells us that this is not necessarily the case, or are the historical climate change events irrelevant?)
    P2: Is it wrong to harm the future? As it is the future, how are we to know that we are harming it? We may be destroying what we know and love in our present, but is it necessarily harming the future?

    She stands there, in front of a microphone largely comprised of hydrocarbon-based materials, in her hydrocarbon-based clothes, in front of a hydrocarbon-based presentation screen, in a room heated (directly or indirectly) by hydrocarbon fuel, to an audience similarly clad and supported, having arrived there in transport incorporating many hydrocarbon-based features and propelled by hydrocarbon fuel, and berates “Big Oil”; she advocates the murder of people with whose philosophy she is in disagreement (ironic, for a philosopher). Does she not feel just a little hypocritical?

    How about you? You might roundly applaud her, and pour your bile upon “Big Oil”. However, look around you; I doubt there is much that you can see that is not there because of “Big Oil”; not even the computer you are reading this on, nor even the electricity that is powering it. “Ah, but,” you may smugly say, “my electricity comes from wind-turbines.” Okay; then look to see what wind-turbines are made of (clue: much of it is hydrocarbon-based) – even the rare earth metals (REM) that comprise the magnets of the generator are not particularly easily and cleanly obtained (every tonne of REM gained produces 1 tonne of radio-active waste). Oh, and don’t hide behind your use of solar cells – they, too, are made of REM.

  11. Actually, the more I see the quote: “If Earth was your mother, she’d hold you under water in one rocky hand until you no longer bubbled,” the more horrified I am by it; it is a disgusting, despicable thing to say, especially from a philosopher, or “sacred secularist” as she may prefer to be known as. If that was said to or about Jews, or negroes, or Asiatics, there would be a massive outcry of condemnation, not the guffawing hilarity we hear on the video.

  12. I am with you, ron (or Ron), she definitely needs an objective moral standard bearer, as her own (self-set?) standards are truly abysmal. Her talk was not of philosophical thinking, it was out-an-out propaganda, and propaganda of the worst kind, as it contained half-truths and lies, as well as incitement to the most heinous of crime – murder. Yet the audience lapped it up; what sort of monster are we creating, here?
    My notion of the Nobel institute had been very high; the issuing of a prize to Al Gore was a minor aberration in their principles. Giving the “Peace” prize to the EU shook my belief in them to the core, and hearing this lady speak her vitriol, and then hear it so applauded has ditched their reputation into the gutter for me.

  13. Moore says:

    “When I tell people of faith that I don’t believe in a divine Creator, I think they feel sorry for me. ”

    I can’t think of a clearer definition of a clearer declaration of atheism. I know since I am one too and would say the same thing. So not sure why Laden is so adamant to argue otherwise?

    I think that raises serious questions about his sincerity and motivations. 😉

  14. Jeffrey, to raise a few points with you:

    It is not clear whether you consider yourself a scientist or a scientific thinker, but your dismissal of the mythical miner does indicate that you are neither. What an incredible leap of logic to assume that ignorance of what you consider to be basic knowledge is proof of inbreeding and illiteracy; it only shows ignorance, of which we are all guilty (what do you know of coal mining?).

    Ron (or ron) was right in pointing out the similarity between your thinking (“sterilise the stupid”) with eugenics; perhaps you do not know what the term “eugenics” means?

    Then you state that you have some affinity with komodo dragons, without explaining what, other than its unpleasantness. Is it bad breath?

    Until you have something constructive to add to the debate, maybe it would be a good idea to keep quiet.

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