Global warming

What does an atheist believe people ask? Well, I can only tell you what I believe, divided into categories, like questions and answers.

21 lessons for the 21st century by Yuval Noah Harari. A great book by a brilliant guy. It touches on every important topic, like migration, global warming, fake news, artificial intelligence and analyses them very carefully from all sides.

I really and truly believe that “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History” by Elizabeth Kolbert has indeed earned the Pulitzer Prize in the General Nonfiction category. As it was really written for a general audience, everyone can appreciate the wonderful work that is this book.

The world is in turmoil. The US has its own problems and exports them all over the world in the form of far-right. Russia, it seems has found a perfect weapon against democracy and liberal values – trolls and fake news. China is doing its own thing. In Brazil, far right is in power. Some historians have even begun to draw parallels between what is now in the US and the beginnings of Nazi Germany. Even if they’re wrong, I personally do not recall seeing these kinds of comparisons during the nineties or 2000s. Some might say that I have not been looking at the right places and that this has been festering for a long time. That is certainly possible. The internet and social media have brought these kinds of ideas and persons from the margins into the full view and now you barely can escape them. They are everywhere, infecting everything, no doubt inspired by the people of the similar calibre being in the positions of power as well.

We are at the end of 2018. It has been a difficult and turbulent year. All in all, I believe the world did go backwards. I think it cannot be said that it’s the media’s fault that we all think that. If you take an objective look, human rights have diminished, authoritarian regimes are on the rise, LGBT rights have been reduced. I think it’s safe to say that the year wasn’t that good.

We humans are a curious species, really. As far as we know we’re the only species capable of thinking about ourselves as existing through time, of planning the future, of thinking about what is to come. Yet, despite that, not only through history, but even today we are often in peculiar position of rushing head-first into something, then realizing that was not such a good idea, then trying to pass legislation to undo the effects that have occurred because of that recklessness and forbid others from repeating our mistakes.

While religion might be a problem in the world, it is politics and divisions it creates in our world that in my opinion currently might just be the world’s biggest problem. When being on the ‘winning side’ in politics is more important than scientific truth, the consequences for our world might be dire indeed. Don’t believe me? Look at the climate change.