Thursday, April 30, 2015

Pope Francis' endorsement of science has upset deniers at WUWT

Sou | 12:07 PM Go to the first of 13 comments. Add a comment
The coming encyclical from Pope Francis has really irked deniers. There've been five protest articles in the past week or so, at WUWT. Funny thing is deniers can't make up their mind about what their beef is.

You'd think that by the twenty-first century, most people who've had any sort of education would understand science basics. Yet even in countries as developed as the USA and Australia, there is a sizeable minority of people who are committed flat-earthers. People who not only reject science, they are opposed to the creation of knowledge. These people congregate at disinformation blogs like WUWT. They are the science illiterati. The wilfully ignorant hobnob with the disinformers, so that sometimes you can't tell which is which. Such people are a threat to society.  These anti-science activists are an obstacle to progress. Not an insurmountable obstacle - their greed and selfishness and lack of morals may well be their downfall.

Forget science. Follow your immoral conscience

In one of the Pope Francis protest articles at WUWT, the "guest" is trying to rationalise the immoral stance deniers have taken, by claiming it should be a conscience vote. As you know, deniers have no conscience when it comes to maintaining their cosy and warped view of the world. Their hip pocket takes priority over everything.

The Pope as a filthy capitalist wanting to rob the poor

Some WUWT deniers are claiming that the Pope is in it for the money and doesn't care about the poor people.

marque2 reckons "various governments around the world" are going to pay the Pope "billions of dollar of financing":
April 29, 2015 at 12:05 pm
...So what the Pope is doing is trying to get on these governments’ good side, by supporting the Global Warming doctrine. That way the Church feels it will still be able to get the billions of dollars of financing from various governments around the world, who want to tax us for our carbon.

Joel O'Bryan says the Pope "wants a cut"
April 29, 2015 at 1:30 pm
The Vatican is just looking to get in on a cut of the $100Billion Climate Aid fund. Expression of fealty to this new faith of Climate Change is necessary. 

The Pope as a filthy Marxist wanting to help the poor

Other deniers are claiming that the Pope wants to help the poor by stealing from deniers and giving the money to people who are living in dire poverty.

April 28, 2015 at 8:29 am
I grow weary of this Marxist Pope. Nothing good can come from mixing him with the UN and the warmunistas.

April 29, 2015 at 5:05 pm
The problem with those who want to fight climate change aren’t doing so because they care for the environment, but they only want to do it for income redistribution. It is a watermelon exercise, It looks green on the outside by the core is red, communistic red. 

The Catholic Church and science

The most interesting thread at WUWT (if you find the weird and wacky world of deniers interesting - say, from a psychological perspective) was the one under the silly and wrong article by Eric Worrall (archived here). In that thread, deniers debated Galileo, the role of the Catholic Church in science in general, and one hard-boiled denier even made the point that Pope Francis is not rejecting science - he is endorsing mainstream science. It's deniers who are rejecting science. (Elsewhere the same person describes mainstream science from the most august scientific institutions on the planet, as "pseudo-science".)

Empty rhetoric in empty rooms

The Heartland Institute used it as an excuse to send a couple of deniers to Rome during arguably the most pleasant month of the year for a vacation in Italy. The only price they had to pay was to talk to an almost empty room in a hotel.

Heartland is also running advertisements to try to get people to write to Pope Francis and tell him to forget about climate science, the well-being of the planet, and the vulnerable people and nations. As Joe Bast put it, the earth is here for deniers to rape and pillage to their hearts content. Or, in his words: "Humans are not causing a climate crisis on God’s Green Earth – in fact, they are fulfilling their Biblical duty to protect and use it for the benefit of humanity."


  1. Replies
    1. Yes, what's your question?

      R the Omnipotent!

  2. No the apt comment is 'forgive them father as they know not what they do'.

    It is the ravings of lunatics.


  3. The constant tension of denier narratives is highly instructive: [*cue the lachrymal crocidilians*] the 'Warmunists', papal or otherwise, want to steal from The Poors, denying them lifegiving coal and diverting oceans of Gubmint money to their nefarious cronies like Big Grants, Big Wind and Big Solar instead, while at the same time the 'Warmunists' are stealing from hapless deniers in order to finance the undeserving and shiftless poor.

    They love The Poors, but hate the thieving bastards. Simultaneously. This is about the most telling sign of how broken denial is.

    Two simultaneously contradictory positions held, well, simultaneously. Bonkers, huh?!

    Though, if you look at it from the reference point of their being, well, let's face it, just plain mean-spirited folks who are prepared to embrace any flimsy position that helps bolster their keen attachment to the Jack Principle - now the key Article of Faith of the Right - the contradiction miraculously disappears!

    No wonder a Pope who doesn't seem to think God is his investment advisor, and who apparently believes that if the (purported) values of the New Testament tell us anything at all, they tell us this is precisely the kind of issue Christians should be taking on specifically because it hurts the poor the most rattles them! It undermines the meshing to the Church of God (OT) and Church of Mammon that has made of 'Christianity' something almost unrecognisable to its nominal founder, particularly in the States...

    1. They love The Poors, but hate the thieving bastards. Simultaneously.

      Nicely put.

    2. The pseudo-consistent-if-you-squint-a-bit position is that unbridled capitalism lifts the poor out of poverty whereas socialism perpetuates poverty. So they love the Poors and the pope is just misguided.

      It has as much basis in fact as claims of ice ages comething, and an equal amount of basis in logic (even if you take the axioms as true and treat the whole thing as a mathematical exercise you don't get to this conclusion). But as long as you don't think too hard, it works well as a slogan.

  4. I doubt that cardinals are any more expensive to buy than politicians or supreme court judges. So if Pope Francis has any effect then the fossil fuel companies will take steps to ensure his successor protects their interests.

  5. WUWT Deniers and Republicans are peas in a pod. They are not all dumb but they are all impervious to being embarrassed. That's a powerful skill when you think about it.

    1. That's not so much a skill as it is a condition.

  6. noloctd April 28, 2015 at 8:29 am
    "I grow weary of this Marxist Pope."

    Alas, we get only the merest glimpse of the travails of climate change deniers. We will never get to know how the pope bothers this man (or sockpuppet) day after day.

  7. Praise the Lord! Not one mention by the ignoranti of South-American-style liberation theology with its premise of 'preferential option for the poor' that Pope Francis accepts. Can't imagine their, the illiterati, outrage at the poor being the privileged channel of God's grace and the Pope's 'real name' being Jorge Mario Bergoglio, not Frank Pope. Laudate dominum omnes gentes!

  8. I find it amusing that pre the Pope selection (Pope idol?) The right were excited about having a black Pope who the liberals wouldn't be able to criticise without being racist, but instead we have an 'uber left proto neo envirowarmunazi pagan ' who doesn't know he's bible or science...

    1. I dunno 'bout that. If I had the time and the interest, it could even be fun to give the bozos a quick rundown on liberation theology.

      The fizzing and sparking of all the blown circuits from all those who too quickly misread it as libertarian theology would liven up the place a bit.



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