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Merry Christmas to you all!

Just don't get us started on intelligent design! We had a thread about that not long ago. I made so good arguments in that thread, it'd take me several minutes to come up with equally good arguments.

Look everyone, Evenwolf is delirious

Big brother, maybe the christians in question are the millions and millions of missionaries, narrowminded priests, conservative catholics who condemn just about everything, etc etc, all those who actually need to spread ignorance to the people in order to maintain their power? I don't think a handful of scientists (who happened to be religious) change this argument.

Yeah I recognise those pics. Pretty

Massive respect, man!

If you read a brief history of scientific research, you'll find that the majority of scientists have very personal goals and a multitude of faiths in this or that which affect the outcome of their scientific work.
Most researchers only present results that go hand in hand with their personal desires (or their sponsors'); if they cannot produce such results they either shut up or tweak the results until they're at least ambigous or impossible to identify.
The romantic idea of absolute, blind science only applies to very few.
Still, scientific labour as a joint universal effort has in my opinion shedded more light on the mysteries of our existence than any religion has - the latter having obscured things instead.

But the individual, general scientist is not a faithless truth-seeking robot.

Progzmax, that was very thoughtful reading, thank you.

Darth, when we first touched upon the subject of endangered species, you sounded a bit indifferent, something like "well, species died out before in the history of the earth, from volcanos or whatever, nothing much to do".
What I read now makes me happy and warm, even though I can't help but wonder what your previous stance was all about, and why you chose to refute our arguments so fiercely, when actually you do agree that things need to be done in order to change stuff and make the world better.
Please note that I never separated other people from myself, I've always said "we need to do this and that, we must be aware of this and that." I'm not a bit better than anyone else. I'm not the environmentalist hippie character you picture driving a car with pedals and living on fruit and water.

Nacho...I don't know, I didn't fully grasp the sentiment of your last string of arguments. This might have to do a little with me being high from glögg. Can you take out the core of your argument and rephrase it a bit? Only bring the crucial parts, please, I can only focus for so long.

Guys, what exactly do you think we're debating here? Do you think what we trying to make you believe the earth will suddenly explode and that lava will rain from the sky?

Darth and Geoffkhan: You both think we should do something about pollution (you apparently don't care about endangered species and all that, so let's limit the debate to pollution). Well, we all need to change our way of living. The pollution won't go away if we don't change things. It will grow worse. That's how this debate started. As simple as that. Case closed.

Yeah, I also reacted on how the issue of making species extinct and the air disgusting to breath within our own life-time has been pushed away to some armageddon scenario which noone has mentioned in the first place.

EDIT:
Darth, your final comment there was nice to hear. I'm glad we can agree on one point.

because when I (and those who agree with me) are proven right hundreds of years in the future nobody reading this will be around to hear me say, "I told you so"

This comment does not merit a reply, I think. I'm curious whether it fits Nacho's standards of reasonable and mature discussions.

Nacho, I don't think it's fair to say that you refuse to debate unless everybody reads one specific book that you happened to lay your hands on. There are, just like Scotch pointed out, quite a steady volume of studies and literature arguing that we are actually affecting our environment.

Allow me to reitterate that the issue here is hypothetical; if the world is fine and dandy as it is, it's because only a portion of the world's population live like we do. If those billions of people who still don't drive a car (etc and all of that) would do so, the situation would be different. That's why we're being arrogant when we claim we're actually living sustainably.
But sure, I guess you have read and perhaps performed scientific studies that prove that we're not all affecting the earth. That we're not actually emptying the sea of certain fish, that we're not threatening the existence of entire species or that pollution is actually harmless and not at all getting worse.
I trust the wisdom of Nacho and Darth that we can carry on like we do, that the rainforest will suddenly stop being reduced (although we will still need endless of acres for our over-consumption) and that Coca Cola factories do not actually ruin the water for natives in third world countries, and so on and so on.
It's all scare tactics.

Darth, I simply don't see how you can refute this. The issue is not only about global warming, it's simply how the earth's resources are distributed.
And please, I think everyone here knows about the ice age etc, and yes, you're quite correct, there were no cars 10000 years ago. And ok, it's great that you've picked up the scare tactics concept, I guess we can thank Michael Moore for opening people's eyes when it comes to authorities' way of keeping their minions in control by scaring them.
But get with the program now.

I'd like to see every african villager, every asian rice farmer and every street kid around the world suddenly acquire a car and a computer, and start flying aeroplanes to eat business-lunches far away.
As I said, the only reason why we can still do this, we rich people in the west, is that they still can't. We would run out of resources, and the air would be too polluted. It's ignorance to not accept this fact.

Allright, allright, you have convinced me.
I'm re-installing Colouring Ball as an official activity of this board.

PS:
I guess it's Progzmax's turn to start a new round. If he doesn't want to, the next one to reply here and express interest may have the honor.

Actually my life style doesn't harm the planet at all.

The test is simply saying that if everybody lived like you do, one earth would not be enough. Do you disagree?

Don't get me wrong, I like occasional mind-absent violence and action as well. Not to mention silly cartoon spin-offs and whatnot. Spiderman is one of my favourites all time. If I made a list of favourite movies, the majority would not be classified as "deep" or philosphical at all.
I'm criticizing this one because it just looks completely unoriginal and weird, and, as I said, characterised by some sort of racial elite concept.

Ok, not enough attention is bad wording. The case is that we performed a public vote to determine the top 7 activities/competition, and the colouring ball didn't really get that many votes, simple as that.
If people liked it that much, why did they not vote for it?

Donnie Darko and Twelve Monkeys are excellent movies, I applaud you for those example.
I don't see how you could watch Love Actually "purely for the visual factor", though

Jimmy Shelter, may I ask how you answered? Getting only 1.7 planets on that test is quite extra-ordinary.

I think this is a really good way for people to understand how the western population is living astronimically above their resources. We can only survive on this earth because most humans never go by car, don't eat meat, never use electricity and don't even own a fridge.
Most people are still not interested in this, even now when the weather is evidently being screwed up by global heating. Most people still think it's urban myths and nothing they need worry about.

Hehe, what a pile of crap...spartans were warmongers, obsessed with strange ideals and a perverted will to fight, why make them into some sort of freaking freedom force (aren't we all tired of hearing the "we fight for freedom!"?), and why do all "persians" look like either robots or weird aliens?
Sure, if a mixture of Troy, Alexander and whatever other grand "historical" warepics from the recent 5 years - along with some awkward racial eliticism - is all you crave from your cinema experience, then congrats.