Religious or not, we must respect the power of Mother Nature

[kentuck]

Floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc, all have power beyond our comprehension. We must respect the fact that it can happen to any of us. None of us are immune from the possibility of natural disasters. Whether we believe in God or not, there are forces beyond our control. We are small.

[barbtries]

1. absolutely.

nt

[underseasurveyor]

2. It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature.

:-)

Older DUers will recognize that oldie commercial.

[kentauros]

18. Parkay!

God, that's sad how brainwashed we are :P

[Confusious]

3. Maybe you can't

Other people can. They do have scales that describe the power of each. If we couldn't comprehend it, we couldn't make a scale.

I would really rather not return to the days of throwing chicken bones and checking livers for signs of the future, thank you.

[kentuck]

5. You can describe it...

but you don't have the power to do anything about it. Except run and hide.

[Confusious]

6. Maybe you would run

You can build buildings that withstand earthquakes and tornadoes (I worked in a building that was built in the 1940's and survived a 9.2)

You can make materials to withstand the heat of a volcano. http://www.aremco.com/

You can move the ground to contain floods.

[kentuck]

7. You are invincible.

We are convinced.

[Confusious]

8. No, i just don't like

giving supernatural qualities to natural phenomena.

[kentuck]

9. I hope you are never caught outside your safe environment.

And that you never experience anything beyond your control. Call it "supernatural" or whatever you want. I would call it dangerous arrogance.

[Gamow]

17. Trying to understand, master what you do not understand is the opposite of "dangerous arrogance".

[Confusious]

19. They used to call going faster then a horse

"dangerously arrogant" also.

Hell, the first person to build a roof over his head was probably called "dangerously arrogant" because he tried to defy the great storm god.

As for my comfort zone, I prefer the unknown to the known, it's more interesting. I don't delude myself into thinking "HC SVNT DRACONES" though.

http://www.maphist.nl/extra/herebedragons.html

[Brickbat]

4. The forces are comprehensible, and there are places where some severe weather is more likely than

others.

[elocs]

10. Why do we feel the need to personify the natural forces of this earth?

Does it make us feel less powerless?

[kentuck]

11. Mother Nature is "personified"?

I give up. You win. :shrug:

[elocs]

13. So, "Mother" is not a big enough clue for you? Does "Mother" Nature have some babies?

:shrug: Sounds like personification to me. Glad to see you give up so easily, and rightfully so.

[kentuck]

14. Some folks might believe that the Earth is Mother to us All.

A living force that should be respected. Your argument, I think, is weaker than your imagination.

[KoKo]

31. "some folks might." But, they might be hard to find these days.....

[BluDogsRPubs]

12. Over the last few years

the intensity of storms has been increasing all over the world, that is an undeniable fact.

Temps are increasing all over the world too, that is an undeniable fact.

98% of REAL Climate Scientists and the vast MAJORITY of the human beings on the planet agree this increase of storm intensity is due to MAN, that is an undeniable fact.

Now one can disagree that the earth is an living organism or not, I happen come to the conclusion that it is.

We are being sent a message and we are not paying attention.

So we have a choice, either we fix it or earth will fix it and right now the message is MAN will lose.

[KoKo]

34. Some RW Scientist say...that none of this is true...

Strange...isn't it. But, then there have always been those who DENY what isn't fitting into their "calculations or models" of what their "superior intellect" tells them.

I wonder if ego and hubris hasn't always been party of the Decline of Civilizations from the beginning of time... :shrug:

[elleng]

15. NATURE is IT,

agnostic forever.

[MrScorpio]

16. Yeah, it's not nice to fuck with Mother Nature

[malaise]

20. Mother Nature rules

but if you pay attention you can usually escape her wrath.

[FLPanhandle]

21. Sounds a little "wooish", but I agree with your post

I've sat through a few hurricanes. It's incredible to feel the energy and power of a truly massive hurricane.

I'm no believer in God or any "life force"/Mother Earth woo, but I respect the energy released in natural events.

[RetroLounge]

22. beyond our comprehension?

Maybe yours. Don't speak for everyone.

RL

[kentuck]

24. You are correct.

Everyone comprehended the huge tsunami that hit Japan that caused a meltdown of their nuclear plants and everyone comprehended and predicted the huge volcanic cloud now coming out of the mountain in Iceland. Yes, you are correct.

[Forkboy]

25. The mechanisms that caused those are indeed within our realm of comprehension.

Comprehend does not = predict, and where you got that correlation from escapes me.

[kentuck]

26. We think we comprehend it.

I have my doubts. Earthquakes cause tidal waves cause destruction of nuclear power plants cause radioactive clouds to hover over your house. We comprehend less than we think we comprehend, I do believe.

[Forkboy]

27. Well, plate tectonics is pretty well understood.

Nothing that happened was outside the realm of our knowledge. We know earthquakes are caused by shifting tectonic plates, we know when that happens in the ocean that a tsunami can be a result, and we know that nuclear power plants are susceptible to natural disasters. The problem isn't one of comprehension but of arrogance.

[kentuck]

28. We do not understand the possible magnitude.

of maybe a tsunami ten times as strong as the one that hit Japan. Is it not possible or is it beyond our comprehension? Nature has forces yet unseen, in my opinion. Science knows a lot but doesn't know everything. We can only "know" what we have experienced. Everything else is imaginary.

[Forkboy]

29. Yes, we do.

There are numerous shows on the Discovery Channel that revel in such doomsday/what if type scenarios. Numerous science magazines and journals have talked about "mega-quakes" and "mega-tsunamis". Again, all this is understood, if often played up for dramatic purposes. I don't argue at all that there are still forces that are unknown to us, or that science knows all, but the ones we're talking about here aren't among those unknown forces (earthquakes, tsunamis, etc). We fully understand how these things work, even on a scale way larger than we've seen. The tsunami in Japan is far from the largest one ever recorded, which happened in some bay in Alaska and measured in at over 1700 feet high.

We can only "know" what we have experienced.

Kepler never traveled around the planets, yet we still use his theories on planetary motion to this day to guide all of our spacecraft and satellites over the span of millions of miles to within feet (if not inches) of where we want them to be, all based on something Kepler couldn't have experienced himself. I've never experienced standing on the surface of the sun, but I know it's going to be hot. I don't have to shoot myself in the head to know it will leave a hole. Is this just my imagination at work?

I love the existentialist approach you have here as much as the next guy (probably more), but it usually loses when it clashes with science. :)

Edit to add a link on the Alaskan tsunami I mentioned.
http://geology.com/records/biggest-tsunami.shtml

[MattBaggins]

35. You just said it

Everything else is imaginary.

I'll stick with what we comprehend and finding out the answers to the rest of it without the need to say "here is where I give up and call it some female force".

[MattBaggins]

32. You having doubts does nothing to change the fact that these forces are comprehended.

[sufrommich]

23. Mother Nature doesn't give a shit whether you respect her or not.

She's gonna do what she's gonna do.

[KoKo]

30. I've been wondering when those "End of Dayer's" might wonder if Bombing Other Countries

into Oblivion might not strike up some sense of them that "What we Do to Others...Will be Done in Turn to the Rest of Us." As we Cause Destruction...So Will We REAP the DESTRUCTION? Somehow in my weird past life a Sunday School teacher cautioned about that in my Protestant Background.

But...Religion Sucks except for some...so it's just a faint memory from my childhood.

STILL... the "Far Right" just is waiting for Jesus to Appear on a Cloud.

Sort of strange how that all works out...

(Just my Weird Observation)

[Adam Notsmith]

33. Packs quite a kick, doesn't she?

Seems as though every time we're gettin' too big for our britches, she administers a smackdown.

[roguevalley]

36. I think Earth has a spirit that I can feel sometimes. The wind when

she blows is a bitch. I feel such horror for all the areas affected. Gaia is telling us to stop. We better listen. 1200 missing people in Joplin? I can't comprehend it. I wish hope for all who are affected. I just wish hope.