The main evidence I present for this rather negative outlook is based on our utter failure as a species to address a much more recent and tractable problem and that was the covid-19 pandemic. One disturbing truth that the pandemic revealed was that the overall response of humanity to any particular challenge is only as good as the response of the worst leaders on our planet. In relation covid-19, while some national leaders have adopted appropriate polices to address the covid-19 pandemic, there have also been world leaders who have completely failed to take the necessary action to prevent the disease from becoming established within the world population. In the same way, even if some nations were to make the necessary adjustments to their economies to drastically reduce their carbon emissions, unless all nations act in unison then this will make little difference to the overall outcome of runaway global heating.

Because my overall conclusion in the first past of this video is that humanity is in serious trouble in relation to the damage we have now done to our planet, I then spend some time exploring the implications of a future where the carrying capacity of the planet has been substantially reduced first from an atheist and then from a Christian perspective. As an aside I also spend some time explaining why it is not irrational to believe that our universe is the product of a God who is relationally responsive. Once I have developed this argument I then conclude by examining how theists, and in particular Christians can respond to the climate crisis arguing that repentant prayer will be a component of that response because if our universe is the product of an outside intelligence, then that intelligence has the power to underdo normal causation that will follow from changing the concentration of CO₂ in our atmosphere from the pre-industrial level of 278 parts per million (ppm) to 417 ppm.

Some other ideas that are touched on this video are the Fermi Paradox and the Turing test plus a video by Roger Hallam who founded Extinction rebellion. Please use the above links if you would like further information about any of these topics. Also make reference to my earlier videos on the philosophy that underpins the scientific method. Here is the video on the coherency test of truth and this one covers correspondence.

One of the ideas I present in this video is to assess Yeadon’s claims in terms of their overall coherency. For those who have watched my earlier videos, they will recognise that part of the underlying philosophy that governs the scientific method is to assess a theory based on two main criterion: 1) how well it explains the observed data and 2) its logically coherency. Obviously if a scientific theory contains logical fallacies or contradictions then it must be rejected. In this video I apply the coherency test to Yeadon’s claim that the Covid-19 RNA vaccine is more dangerous than the others because it produces the spike protein which he claims is highly toxic. The video where I discuss the coherency test of truth can be found here

I then consider how the teachings of Christ offer a real possibility for the Prisoner’s dilemma to be resisted because his teaching and example exemplify upholding the truth independent of the negative consequences that may result from such an action.

I surmise that this might be one reason why totalitarian regimes and despotic leaders instinctively hate Christianity and historically have often attempted to eliminate the church via intense persecution.

Finally, I deal with the obvious counter-example to my claim and that is the capitulation of US Republican politicians to the power of Trump as many of them display the classic behaviour that is predicted by the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Of course most of these lawmakers would claim to be Christians. However, I suggest that their cowering to the dominance of Trump politics, within the party, is actually just one more demonstration that their expression of the Christian faith is flawed in a similar way to other Christian heresies that have arisen over the centuries; beginning with Gnosticism and Judaizers that are critiqued within the pages of the New Testament.

However, despite the fact that God is directly and formally excluded from the scientific paradigm, it does not mean that science itself is unaffected by the philosophical question of whether God exists because the question of God’s existence has a direct bearing on how we calibrate science in relation to its utility of explaining aspects of the strange reality in which we all find ourselves. If God doesn’t exist, then in principle there is no limit to the efficacy of science to resolve reality in its entirety. However, if God does exist then this sets an upper limit to the questions that science is able to address. For example, if God exists then it forever means that the ultimate origins of the universe cannot be explained just in terms of the universe itself because clearly the origin of the universe is based on the actions of a non-observable entity that preceded it and which is outside the scope of scientific enquiry.

I conclude this video by surmising that the entanglement of atheism with science as it is currently practiced is harming the progress of the science because it is limiting the possible ideas that can be explored in relation to say unifying quantum mechanics with the general theory of relativity because it is demanding that such a theory must also contain an explanation of how our universe could spontaneously arise on its own terms rather than allowing for the idea that this single question might be outside of science’s explanatory scope because the origin of the universe is bound up inside the creative act of a deity. I suggest that just as science had to be disentangled from theism in the middle ages, perhaps now it is time to disentangle science from atheism because neither belief system is appropriate within the scientific paradigm.

The two videos I cite in this video are Brian Cox’s Human Universe and Emergence Theory presented by Marion Kerr.

In this video I critique the simplistic idea that most ethical questions occupy the binary space of simply right/wrong. Rather I suggest that the ethical issues, which are now dominating Western culture, occupy an ethical spectrum. Furthermore, if more people engaged in thinking about these ethical questions, in terms of viewing them on a moral spectrum, they might choose to deprioritize some of their ethical desires for other important political considerations when they exercise their democratic vote at the ballot box.

During the presentation, I give a working example of the ethical spectrum in terms of examining the two polarised positions around female reproductive rights: critiquing both the left (pro-choice) and right (pro-life) positions in terms of showing how neither position is considering the ethics of abortion on a normal ethical scale that possesses degrees of wrongness. Rather both camps are assessing the issue using a simple right/wrong dichotomy.

Finally I argue that because so many people are adopting binary views on hot-topic issues, there is not a intense peer group pressure for people to move away from balanced positions because those who try and hold a middle ground view, are rejected by both political camps and so there is a strong pressure for individuals to adopt ever more uncompromising positions so they do not receive harsh criticism and rejection from their peer group.