"I can't help but scratch my head over people who deride the faith-based spritual idealism of others- which is inherently ultimately an individual and subjective decision affecting personal consciousness, a realm where people ought to be allowed a wide latitude in their own ideas- while professing their own dire certainties about future prospects for the planet, and covering it with a gloss of 'scientific objectivity.'"

After a lifetime of trying, I've reached a point where I can't honor most allegations of faith. Certainly, if a person lives in a fine house and asserts faith, I can't, for even if they read the Bible, there's not sufficient comprehension. I have met a few true Christians. They're not physically close to me, for they're afar, serving the poor. They don't jibber-jabber about their faith. They live it. They follow in the footsteps of Jesus. And they suffer for it.

Cabdriver again:

"I'm particularly bemused when the certainties take the form of pessimistic nihilism. Great...you're a rational humanist materialist; concommitantly, humanity is all doomed, a pox on the planet."

Oh, don't be bemused. My conceding that this planet would be better balanced without us isn't a happy concession.

Cabdriver again:

"But human-caused global warming cannot be said to be "scientifically proven." We're still in the midst of the "experiment", after all. Neither can the catastrophic consequences that being forecast be said to be inevitabilities."

Sure, that's so. Our bodies often surpass the understanding of docs. The Earth is a guhzillion times more complex. Still, predictions were made and not only are they coming true, but at much faster rates than expected. I think it's going to be worse than expected...for us. However, in the long run, the Earth will do just fine. I think, if Jesus is the Son of God, given what Jesus said about the very few who would reach Heaven, that it's going to be much worse for most alleged Christians than they expect.

Cabdriver again:

"If you view those consequences as a certainty- well, as yet, you're simply entering another belief system."

Yep. I'm believing in cause and effect. It's a pretty good belief system.

than to have participated in the damning of America by sitting in a Bush-voting congregation.

Listen up, Bush voters. You've crippled America with debt, war, and failing to adapt to the end of oil. Now, you're demonstrating that you've learned nothing by voting for McCain. You are and will always be Bush voters and you'll always likely lack the courage to admit to your country-crippling errors.

Yours is a great, great post. Thanks ever so much.

"In my experience, when delivered in person, such rants are generally followed by a careful perusal of the dessert counter at the coffeehouse, or a flip of the phone to check where the party is, that evening.

That's what's called being a poser."

"Poser"?

Father, forgive him, he knows not what he says.

And why would I bother with a dessert counter? Dessert grows in my backyard. Silly cabdriver! As far as a cell phone, I've never owned one and I likely never will, but I used one once. Does that make me a poser?

cabdriver also wrote:

"I'm not bemused by your professed unhappiness, bigguns."

I'm not unhappy. I live with joy. Whatever globally happens, my time is finite and I breathe and move accordingly.

cabdriver also wrote:

"What bemuses me is, more generally, the unspoken undertone in ALL of the misanthropic laments of this nature that I've ever heard: "humankind is a pox on the Earth (myself and present company exempted, of course!)"

Silly, silly cabdriver! Of course I'm part of the problem. My choice to use this toxic, fossil fuel burning computer is proof.

cabdriver again:

"I've never observed an emotional cast of genuinely doomstruck misery and self-loathing from anyone who has ever expressed such sentiments. And I've spent a lot of time observing people in mild-to-severe states of emotional distress."

And your smug assurance that you've witnessed a sufficient sampling is your undoing. Still, I wish you well and even more, I wish your grandchildren well as they begin their climate-induced migration. Maybe one or more will survive. If that happened, that would be the only cool thing on their hot trek.

Am I breezily forecasting or am I doom and gloom? You remind me of OJ's lawyers, who simultaneously asserted that the LAPD was incompetent and capable of complex conspiracy.

And then you compare me to Ted?

Say, what's your address, cabdriver?

I'm kidding, I'm kidding!

However, for an optimist, you're sure full of ad homs.

You wrote, "....it shallows the deep."

And that verbs the noun. Again, it's another ad hom. I'm shallow. I'm a killa. I'm gloomy, when I'm not breezily forecasting.

I just wish you were more fun and you could start by putting the ad homs down.

In the end, I hope you're right. I hope we can burn all the fuels we want with no consequences, even though it's too late for that, for our modern lifestyle has exterminated many species. Nevertheless, I hope our species isn't driven north and south and into extinction. I hope I'm wrong. I hope the thousands of scientists are wrong. I hope you're right. I hope you get to live long and prosper and dance your dance on my grave and pee on it too. And I hope your grandchildren don't have to suffer for our failings and greed.

As far as not knowing what real trouble is and how to face it, well, you're firing your salvos from your ass. Call me names. I can take it. However, assert that I don't know trouble and I'm done with you, silly man.

I get what you just wrote. If you really want to meet Jesus, you'll avoid hospitals. You'll embrace risk.

But alleged believers love hospitals. They avoid risk. Many live in gated communities because they don't want to meet Jesus, until they absolutely must.