The instance I encountered features an alleged Roman Catholic (dunno why somebody would choose one of them as their persona, but hey, it takes all types ...) who in the past has confessed to not even reading through the ancient texts deemed sacred to his chosen religion, but instead seems quite content to merely accept the wafflings of the priesthood that accompany that particular religion ... well, at least the wafflings that conveniently resonate with his chosen largely ignorant view.
No surprises that the views he has chosen to share in that regard are easily shown to be considerably distant to "what is written". But that is another story. :) ;)
With that in mind, it should also come as no small surprise that this funny old fellow should similarly accept seemingly without question the priesthood of the AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming, or "Man-made climate change" if you prefer) environmentalist religion.
After all, "blind faith" in those whose views he agrees with seem to be his preferred way to get through life.
The scary thing though is that just as he seems to be blindly happy to accept that which is fed to him by his various chosen priesthoods, it would also appear that in turn he not only expects others to similarly adopt his faith in priesthoods, but also expects his views to be accepted without question !
Like breeding like, and all that ?
Anyhoo, here is the recent exchange that I think gives quite an instructive look into the mindset of those worthy of the tag "True Believers", whether they be 'personas" or not.
The anonymous internut/forum identity/persona calls himself "HumphreyB", and for a time sported as an avatar a picture of his namesake, a well-known (from yesteryear) Oz TV character created for children's television, called "Humphrey B Bear".
It begins with me asking HumphreyB the question "Seriously, do you REALLY believe that it is right that in recent years CO2 is suddenly being called "pollution" and that increasing atmospheric CO2 levels causes/drives global climate ? Do you REALLY ?"
You can find the context here: http://www.behindthebox.com.au/showpost.php?p=1339786&postcount=799 , posted on the 7th of February, 2010
As this question required him to actually commit to a position that could be put to the test, I fully expected him to ignore it and that I'd have to put some work into drawing it out of him. He didn't disappoint. :)
So I reminded him of it again here: http://www.behindthebox.com.au/showpost.php?p=1339921&postcount=806 later that same day, but again (but of course) he ignored it.
So I reminded him of it again here: http://www.behindthebox.com.au/showpost.php?p=1340050&postcount=820 on the 8th of February, also linking in the prior occasions of asking it, and here is that message:
SOQ
08-02-2010, 04:07 PM
HumphreyB: I have answered all your questions.
derspatz: Then you should have no problem of providing to the wider audience and archives your direct answer (and link where you first gave it) to my direct question of:
"Seriously, do you REALLY believe that it is right that in recent years CO2 is suddenly being called "pollution" and that increasing atmospheric CO2 levels causes/drives global climate ? Do you REALLY ?"as asked for the second and third times http://www.behindthebox.com.au/showpost.php?p=1339921&postcount=806, hmmm ?
Cheers in advance for your polite and gentlemanly cooperation and assistance in that regard.
regarDS
EOQ
At last, he forgot himself and publicly committed to an answer that could be put to the test !
You can read his response here: http://www.behindthebox.com.au/showpost.php?p=1340051&postcount=821 as posted on the 8th of February at 4:07pm, and the important bit reads "Yes, CO2 is causing global warming and should be cut. Hence, CO2 is a pollutant that needs to be cut down."
Cool ! Something to work on at last ! Time to test the mettle of a True Believer and see how they would deal with their faith being brought under the scrutiny of reason and logic.
Here is my response to his initial confession of faith, as I posted here barely an hour later: http://www.behindthebox.com.au/showpost.php?p=1340090&postcount=823
SOQ
08-02-2010, 05:09 PM
Backing up the confession of faith with works to prove it ...
HumphreyB: Yes, CO2 is causing global warming and should be cut. Hence, CO2 is a pollutant that needs to be cut down.
derspatz: Oh so you DIDN'T answer that before.
No worries, I'll take it that it was a mere oversight on your behalf rather than a deliberate attempt to avoid having to actually commit your belief to the public record and archives, and thank you for your candour.
My next question is this.
If it can be shown to you that CO2 is neither a pollutant needing "to be cut down", and that rises in atmospheric CO2 levels lag rather than lead periods of warming, will you abandon your belief in and support of the Anthropogenic Global Warming environmentalist religion and make a stand against the fraud and evil that is being attempted via the trojan horse it provides ?
Also, considering that civilisation has historically enjoyed (and prospered in) warmer periods than we currently are experiencing now, times that saw less ice but more rain, less desertification but more lakes and life-supporting biomass, etc, and that historically it is times of cooling that have always brought the most hardship, death, and extinctions upon the globe, why on earth are you resistant to the thought of a return to more pleasant and prosperous times as are typically provided by a warmer planet ?
On top of that, and back on the subject of global atmospheric CO2 levels (which currently is virtually at starvation levels for the bio-mass we depend upon), why on earth wouldn't you want a return to a presumed Edenic like balance of atmosphere that so favours bigger, better, healthier, and more fruitful plant-life ?
Do you REALLY think that (a) the climate of the planet is static, and (b) our current global climate is the ideal for life ?
Wouldn't you by far prefer a world where there is more accessible water and rainfall, where things grew bigger, better, healthier, and more fruitful, where there was more healthy soil and less ice-stripped mountains and wind-swept dustbowls and deserts, where Greenland could support forests and farmlands again (just like it did in Viking times), where the likes of Lake Chad in Africa returned to Lake Megachad dimensions, and near everyone everywhere was able to grow all the food they liked and starvation would become virtually extinct ?
Are you able to consider even for one moment, especially with all the power, government, banking big business and MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, etc, involved, coupled with typical human nature, that the whole AGW Alarmism thing seems to be more about fame and fortune than doing the right thing by humanity, and that no small number of questions are going begging for an accurate and truthful answer ?
What do you think would be so wrong with the planet returning to warmer times ?
Come, let us reason together and logically determine as thinking people not really any more nor less intelligent or capable of discovering and recognising truth than the thinking people who belong to the various religious priesthoods regardless of whether their religious persuasion is AGW Alarmism, or of one of the more traditional forms.
Are you able to set aside your blinkered view centred upon the various messengers and instead start hearing and seeing the message ?
If so, then let us begin. I eagerly await your frank and candid answers to the above sensible and reasonable non-messenger attacking questions, and similarly shall endeavour to give frank and candid answers to any questions you care to raise providing they too are about the message as opposed to attacking the messengers.
However, if it really is just a forum barny you are after, yeah, I'm happy to have that taken to the firepit and you can make a new attempt at testing your mettle against me.
regarDS
EOQ
All very polite and reasonable don't you think ?
However, what happened next is simply astounding and something I think worthy of repeating the storing of in the vast archives of the internut for history to judge.
Here: http://www.behindthebox.com.au/showpost.php?p=1340151&postcount=825 you can see that all of a sudden he realises that by committing to position that can be shown to be false, he has been hoisted upon his own petard and/or put himself between the horns of a dilemma that surely would see any reasonable person admit they are in error and their faith unfounded and modify their thinking and stance accordingly.
Recognising his predicament and the certain very public destruction of his faith, near three hours later he opts for this:
SOQ
08-02-2010, 08:52 PM
derspatz: Seriously, do you REALLY believe that it is right that in recent years CO2 is suddenly being called "pollution" and that increasing atmospheric CO2 levels causes/drives global climate ? Do you REALLY ?
HumphreyB: Actually, I retract that answer completely (by the way, I never know what question of yours to answer, because you smother any actual questions with so much cut and paste shit!).
I believe CO2 is actually magical fairy dust, given to us by God, which will reforest the world - even the deserts and the bald heads of men in the 30s and 40s. So, we should be making more of it. More and more, so the fields, rivers and seas should boil with it. Yay CO2!!! Magical Fairy Dust!!!!
EOQ
Dunno why he thought feigning madness might help him, or that such a retraction could be deemed anything other than an admission that he was fully aware that the dogmas and claims of the AGW environmentalist religion are supremely dodgy and that he was going to cling to them regardless of what Real Science was proving on the subject.
What a funny old fellow is Humphrey indeed !
In fact, I was so astounded by his flying-off-the-handle hot-headed cut-off-his-nose-to-spite-his-face stubborn response that I thought I'd give him a 24hr cooling off period to see if a new day would see him in a more constructive and less embarrassing state of mind and that he would man up and deal with his dilemma in an open and reasonable way.
24hrs came and went, so rather bother wasting effort trying to again nail down an obviously time wasting and deliberately clueless True Believer, I posted this: http://www.behindthebox.com.au/showpost.php?p=1340439&postcount=826 along with a quickly concocted youtube that more succinctly summed up what HumphreyB chose to do rather than have his religion brought down around his furry ears.
Oh, as for the "Mecca" reference, True Believer HumphreyB had previously likened folk who had gone to any of the debates and seminars put on by Chris Monckton and Ian Plimer as being like "religious excursions to mecca" or words to that nature. Real "Pot. Kettle. Black." stuff. :)
"HACC" is another "in joke" to the forum ... HumphreyB has a bit of a bee in his bonnet when it comes to journalists who don't share his somewhat left of centre political and religious outlook. Those he cannot bring himself to agree with in any way, he labels as "hacks", and he made up some long and convoluted instantly forgettable acronym to commemorate his bloody minded view. However, because the vain old poor dear does like to feel relevant and noticed I thought I'd give the dog a bone by including the part of his efforts that best resembled an understandable word. :)
Oh++ HumphreyB is also prone to "look over there, a unicorn" type responses when attempting to join in on political discussions. ie, he would rather bash on about the previous government and what they might have done, than admit much as to what the current government ARE doing. Hence the "Howard" reference, with "Howard" being the Prime Minister of Oz prior to the current dangerously inept government led by the public servant who signs off all his twitter posts as "KRudd".
SOQ
10-02-2010, 12:27 AM
Back from a pilgrimage to Mecca ...
HumphreyB: Actually, I retract that answer completely (by the way, I never know what question of yours to answer, because you smother any actual questions with so much cut and paste shit!).
I believe CO2 is actually magical fairy dust, given to us by God, which will reforest the world - even the deserts and the bald heads of men in the 30s and 40s. So, we should be making more of it. More and more, so the fields, rivers and seas should boil with it. Yay CO2!!! Magical Fairy Dust!!!!
derspatz: Oh HumphreyB.
I thought I'd give you at least 24hrs to change your mind about your above quoted cringe-worthy and embarrassing response to my fair, reasonable, and even gentlemanly challenge, but I guess I'm waiting in vain, especially considering that instead of you opting for the higher road and breaking out of your vicious cycle of attacking the messenger rather than debating the message, you instead took the familiar "Waa, Howard !" road.
Oh well. Your life, your choice.
Anyhoo, I hope you'll be suitably flattered by my efforts this evening to find a suitable way to commemorate and honour your choice NOT to have your faith in the AGW environmentalist religion, put to the test.
I decided to HACC it together while riding Der Ratte back from a pilgrimage to Mecca this evening.
For this "people watcher", it was quite fascinating. Although virtually everything covered was old and familiar news to me, it was quite obvious by various gasps and rumbles from certain demographics in the audience, that perhaps they should forget about and turn off the lollypop MSM T.V. news and instead spend more time learning how to internut !
Before it began I was a little bit worried that the presentation was going to start off like when I went along to a One Nation / Pauline Hansen Town Hall meeting, and another time when I thought I'd check out first hand the "Rodney Howard Brown" "Toronto Blessing" thang.
You know how those sorts of things can attract certain "in your face" wild eyed fringe elements.
I needn't have worried ... near everyone was dignified and well behaved, well, except for the odd moment from a bold and intense confessed ETS supporter sitting behind me who couldn't help but slip out the odd "lies ... it's all lies" to the people next to him. Heh.
No, I didn't bother to offer a question, nor even meet either Plimer or Monckton.
AFAIC, we're all just foot-soldiers who have been inspired one way or another to do a particular job and play a particular role for now, and shall sink back into the everyday when it has been completed. Some break the ground, others sow, yet others reap, and others just sit around under a tree with a bit of straw in their cap while puffing out a familiar tune on a dented and scratched harp.
Besides, I was in a hurry to get home so I could do this:
Yeah, HumphreyB, you're just ALWAYS on my mind.
regarDS
EOQ
Yes, he "bravely ran away", and AFAIC, by doing so provided quite an insight into the mindset of a True Believer ... as well as no small amount of entertainment - well, at least for this little bird who can't help but chirp joyfully when folk choose to pwn themselves with their own words.
These days, rather than be faced with accidentally having his blind faith put to the test in such a way again and example a similar epic fail and be so pwned by his own words, he apparently has me on "ignore".
Which in itself is yet another insight into the mindset of a True Believer. :)
Anyhoo, anyone else out there have encountered mindsets, attitudes and responses similar to that just exampled by the anonymous internut forum fake identity/persona going by the nick of HumphreyB ?
If so, how did you choose to deal with their religious fundamentalism and denialism ?
With a laugh and turning it into entertainment like I've attempted ?
BTW, I'm of the view that in fact there is nothing wrong with feeding a troll, providing that what you are attempting to feed them with is not actually what they want to be eating. :)
Especially feed them that which makes entertainment of them !
regarDS
PS: For a post-note, see: http://www.behindthebox.com.au/showpost.php?p=1340860&postcount=828 ;)
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