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Fighting Climate Change, Stopping the Spread and Other Modern Day Towers of Babel

Paul Attaway • Mar 31, 2022

In the first nine verses of the 11th chapter of the Book of Genesis, the reader is treated to the story of the Tower of Babel. The story goes like this:

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in zthe land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, aand bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower bwith its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” 5 And cthe LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6 And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, dlet us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So ethe LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called fBabel, because there the LORD confused1 the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

(ESV)


The arrogance of man knows no limits and that scares me. But man’s arrogance is nothing new and it worries God too, as is evidenced by this passage about what we call “The Tower of Babel”. Simply stated, God feared mankind’s hubris were man allowed to complete construction of the tower. 


Verse 6 reads: 6 And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. (Italics are mine.)


God did not fear that He would be rendered unnecessary were man to complete the tower.  On the contrary, God feared what would happen when man, based upon having built the tower, concluded he no longer needed God. But I do love the irony and God’s sense of humor in the statement that God “came down to see the city and the tower”, a tower that supposedly reached up into the heavens.

When man builds his world on a foundation of anything other than a relationship with God, disaster follows. It’s no wonder that the first of the Ten Commandments is that we are to have no other gods before Him. Throughout history though, we have, and in every case, when all else is stripped away, that god is us. Adam and Eve were deceived by Satan into believing that if they ate fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil then they would be like god. Every political and philosophical ism ultimately boils down to a worldview in which man is the center. That’s why, as far as I am concerned there are only two worldviews: A Judeo-Christian worldview in which the God of the Old Testament is the center of our world and humanism. In the Oxford Dictionary, humanism is defined as: an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems.


There are plenty of examples today of mankind operating out of arrogance and an irrational belief that science and government bureaucracy administered by an elite corps of like-minded people can fix everything. I’ll highlight two – Stopping the Spread and Fighting Climate Change.


After two years of living with Covid we have information from which we can draw conclusions. 

First, there is nothing we can do to stop its spread. Wearing masks, vaccines with continual boosters, lockdowns, closing schools, quarantining, etc… all have one thing in common, they don’t stop the virus from spreading. The numbers (total cases, mortality rates, etc…) in states like California and New York, states that vigorously pursued these tactics, are not markedly different from the numbers in states like Florida and Texas which did not. 


Secondly, the doctor-patient relationship was disrupted, and personal medical decisions were taken out of the hands of those making them and replaced with a top down, one size-fits-all dictate from bureaucrats. For instance, treatments doctors were developing were discouraged if they hadn’t been peer-reviewed or signed off on by the CDC. Vaccines have been forced on everyone even those who recovered from Covid and are comfortable with natural immunity. Simply stated, the benefits of vaccines were oversold while the effectiveness of various treatments and natural immunity were not merely ignored but, in some circles, denigrated.


Finally, the lockdowns, forced mask-wearing, etc…, did incalculable harm to the fabric of our nation. Lives were horribly disrupted, businesses closed, children were kept out of school for over a year, etc.. As a nation, we’re at each other’s throats. We’ve been turned against each other. 


What should we have done differently? Just about everything. First, trust God that he designed us to fight viruses and that He has a plan. Secondly, take care of those at the greatest risk. Covid presents a real threat to life for those at risk, the elderly and those with pre-existing comorbidities. Instead, we spent extraordinary amounts of time, energy and resources trying to protect those who were not at risk of serious illness or death. The virus has a near 99% survival rate. We should have focused on treatments and hospital capacity. Instead, we told everyone to go home and quarantine and only go to the hospital once you were really sick. 


Loneliness and feelings of isolation skyrocketed over the last two years. Suicides and drug overdoses have as well. We were barred from hospitals and nursing homes leaving loved ones to suffer and die alone. We were told it was selfish to want to live our lives because we might infect someone and that the Christian-thing to do, the selfless thing to do, was to mask-up, quarantine when you tested positive and get the vaccine. This is a lie. This lie was spread to control people and coerce them into behaving a certain way and to remaining quiet.


The selfless thing to do would have been to care for each other without regard to ourselves. 


Our nations’ Covid policies were developed and touted by people who believe they can do anything and that because they see themselves as the smartest people in thew room they should not be challenged. There actions have needlessly led to more deaths and have weakened this country.


In November, leaders and experts from around the globe met in Glasgow, Scotland for the UN Glasgow Climate Change Conference. The theory of climate change is that (1) human activity drives changes in the average weather around the globe measured in terms of temperature, rainfall, wind patterns, storm patterns, ice cap melting and formation, for instance, (2) that these changes outstrip the earth’s ability to adapt, (3) that unless steps are taken by our nations’ leaders now to alter the current track the world’s climate is on that disastrous things will happen to the earth and mankind, and finally (4) that by controlling human behavior the climate change we are experiencing can be slowed or halted and mankind can be saved. 


At this Conference, the attendees voted on and affirmed the following in the Glasgow Climate Pact:


15. Reaffirms the long-term global goal to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change; 16. Recognizes that the impacts of climate change will be much lower at the temperature increase of 1.5 °C compared with 2 °C, and resolves to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C; 17. Also recognizes that limiting global warming to 1.5 °C requires rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, including reducing global carbon dioxide emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 relative to the 2010 level and to net zero around mid-century, as well as deep reductions in other greenhouse gases; [1]


I’m a little concerned though that the attendees believe we have until 2030 given that in 2006, Former Vice President Al Gore said that we were facing a “true Planetary emergency” and that unless we took drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gasses the world would reach a “point of no return” in a mere ten years. Yes, it’s hard not life but sadly, many of these leaders have the ability to tax and regulate to achieve their goals. 


The greatest threat to the world we live in are lies, lies that become the foundation upon which we are to live our lives. God made us stewards of his creation and directed us to multiply and exercise dominion over His creation.  Do I think that man’s footprint on the Lord’s creation has been entirely benign? Of course not, but pollution as a byproduct of economic expansion and opportunity should be addressed in a reasonable manner and through the lens of stewardship and not one that sees man as a blight. Many of the ‘experts’ that espouse global warming fears also promote zero population growth as the answer to the threats they see facing mother earth.


The only certainty coming out of these types of conferences is that if the measures these international bodies propose to fight climate change will do a great deal of damage and primarily to the world’s poorest nations. The measures yearned for, abandoning fossil fuels, for instance, would severely retard economic growth dooming millions in the third world to continued poverty and starvation. The wicked irony is that part of these accords calls for money transfers from the first world nations to the third world nations, money transfers that most likely will end up in the bank accounts of the well-positioned governing class.

Fighting climate change is arrogant and is an abomination of the proper role of stewardship which recognizes that we are God’s supreme creation, not a blight, and that through proper execution of the Lord’s directive to subdue the world, we would do the most good for the most people.


God was right to be concerned when humanist gather and think they can play god. It never works out.




[1] https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cop26_auv_2f_cover_decision.pdf

Is There such a thing as Nostalgic Fiction?

By Paul Attaway • 28 Jul, 2022
We all know what fiction is and we have a general understanding of what historical fiction is – narratives that take place in the past and involve an imaginative reconstruction of events and/or characters, real or imagined. But what do we call a story set in the not-so-distant past? Before considering a definition, let’s look more closely at historical fiction.

Research When Writing A Book

By Paul Attaway • 28 Jul, 2022
A Lesson From Lewis Carroll: RESEARCH IS THE ESSENTIAL RABBIT HOLE FOR ANY WRITER

For the Love of the Game

By Paul Attaway • 16 Jun, 2022
This week the U.S. Open returns to The Country Club in Baseline, Massachusetts, and it seems fitting as recent events in the world of professional golf have highlighted what it means to be a professional golfer and launched conversations as to why we love and play the game. It seems fitting because in 1913, twenty-year old amateur Francis Ouimet [1] , shocked the world beating the best in the game at The Country Club to become the first amateur and only the second American to win the US Open, a tournament that had been played since 1895, and in the process wrote chapter one of the story in this country of what it means to be a professional athlete. Last week, the upstart tour, LIV, hosted its first tournament. The tour is underwritten by the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund which means the players are being paid by Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, MBS to his friends, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. This blog post is not about the propriety of accepting pay from the ruler of an authoritarian nation, not that the questions surrounding the payor and his motives aren’t important or worthy of discussion, but because that’s not what I want to write about today. No, today, I’ve been thinking about the essence of competition, what we love about it and how it plays out in the game of golf specifically. The Spirit of Competition From the game’s inception, money has been wagered on the outcome and the primary form of competition is what we call match play. The winner is the player who wins the most holes regardless of the total score at the end of the round. In match play there’s only one winner. Match play is still the most popular form of competition. At public and private courses around the country today amateurs playing weekend golf are likely to wager with friends using a match play format. Even today, a Scottish town may have one public golf course, but it could have had multiple private golf clubs all sharing the same course, and from the earliest days, these clubs would host tournaments, each club putting up their best players against the other clubs’ best. Further, it was not uncommon for the members of a club to send their best to a neighboring town to play a match or series of matches against a team sponsored by another club. The winner might receive a jacket, a cup, trophy, or medal of some sort. In some cases, a small cash prize would be paid, the money for which had been collected from the club’s membership. Membership in these clubs was typically reserved for the wealthiest, people who could spend the time required to master the game. Often, the club would send their head pro to compete for the club. In those cases, the membership would cover the player’s travel expenses. The point being, though, there was only winner; no second place. The Spirit of the Game and the Professional Golfer In the late 1800s and early 1900s, many of the world’s top golfers were amateurs and the professional golfer was the club pro who made his living as the head professional at a private club. His duties would have included making clubs and giving lessons. When Francis Ouimet won the US Open in 1913, nearly every golf professional was an employee of a private club and frankly they were looked down on as second-class citizens. As the game of golf exploded in this country following Francis Ouimet’s victory and the prospects of someone making a living playing tournament materialized, much was written about the beauty and purity of the amateur playing for the love of the game as contrasted with the professional who plays for money. Buried in these words is a fair amount of class-based elitism. Amateurs competing on the world stage at the time were wealthy men who could afford to join private clubs and take hours off to play the game each week. Simply stated, they looked down on working-class people and that’s what a professional was, working class. That’s all the more reason why Francis Ouimet’s victory was so shocking; he was an amateur for sure, but he was poor and from a working-class family. He was not your traditional, wealthy amateur. The arrogance of the guardians of the game was on full display when in 1916 the USGA stripped Francis Ouimet of his amateur status because they concluded he was profiting off his fame by using it to promote the success of his sporting goods store. A few years later, in response to an outpouring of support for Ouimet, the USGA quietly reversed its decision. (Francis Ouimet continued to compete as an Amateur and won the US Amateur Championship in 1931.) While elitism still exists today throughout our culture, in the game of golf, the professional reigns supreme. The attitude towards the professional golfer began to change in the 1930s and 1940s and the great amateur Bobby Jones was instrumental in that change. Around this time, a yearlong tournament schedule was developed, and it became possible for a player to make a living travelling the country playing tournament golf. Match play gave way to stroke play as the dominant form of competition as TV became a larger presence and it was deemed that stroke play was an easier format around which to develop a television audience. For the tour to survive, however, players must have a realistic chance of making enough money even if they don’t win. So, today, a purse is divided up amongst the top finishers at a tournament. But still, the better you play, the more you make. So, while you no longer need to place first to win money, the spirit of the competition was still there. Furthermore, there was no guaranteed money. Often, you had to qualify on a Monday to play in the tournament and then if you did, you had to make the cut after the first two days if you were to make any money. Yes, the spirit of competition survived. Now don’t get me wrong. I know how much money the top players make today; they’re not struggling to survive, but they had to work hard, and they earned their money by winning regularly. Nevertheless, the tour can be grueling because if you don’t make the cut after the Thursday and Friday rounds, you don’t get paid and then you move on to the next tournament, often the very next week. The PGA Tour does provide a pension for its members. However, your payout is a function of what you put in: the number of tournaments you play, the number of cuts you make, the number of Wednesday Pro-Ams you play, and how well you do in the tournaments, for instance. In other words, the better you perform, the more you make. I haven’t even touched on what it takes to become a PGA Tour Member. The competition is intense. Playing for more than just money But the PGA Tour and European Tour player is also playing for more than just money. They are playing for their place in history. Great tradition surrounds many of the stops on these tours. And then there are the Majors: The Open, The US Open, the PGA Championship and The Masters. Finally, two of the most pressure packed events are the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup, biannual tournaments played between the best players from the United States against the best European players and the best players from the rest of the world, respectively. There are no cash prizes at these two events. Just pride, national pride. Although golf is a solitary game – you against the course or you against another player or the field – and it might appear as if you are only playing for yourself, I don’t think that’s the case. From the earliest days, golfers played for their town or their club. Today, weekend golfers put together bets by which your foursome is playing another foursome. Professional golfers today compete for their country in the Olympics, the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup. Even PGA Members who when tournaments seemingly for themselves are elevating the stature of the PGA Tour which benefits not just themselves but their fellow Tour members. The LIV Tour So, what to make of the LIV Tour? Last weekend, the LIV hosted its first tournament and the field of 48 players included a few big names such as Dustin Johnson and a host of names that only the most ardent golf fan would have recognized. The players were paid to join the tour and last place at the event earned $120,000. At the Canadian Open being played at the same time, five players tied for 48 th place and each one took home $22,567. If you missed the cut that week then you made nothing. The Canadian Open has been played since 1904 and former winners include: Walter Hagen, Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Nick price, Jim Furyk, and Tiger Woods. Jack Nicklaus has seven runner-up finishes at The Canadian Open. On the LIV Tour, you get paid to show up, win or lose. Who cares? I guess we’re supposed to be impressed by the great play. I love golf but am the first to admit that I rarely watch it on TV beyond the majors, which, by the way, are acknowledged as minor national holidays in our household. I watch the majors because of the tradition, the history, and the stakes other than the money. Yes, I watch because they are the best players in the world but also because they are putting themselves out there. They eat what they kill. And simply stated, some tournaments just mean more than others. The competition on the PGA Tour and the European Tour is real. The nerves are real. Especially at the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup. How can I get excited about watching folks play golf when they can finish dead last and still get paid and would have already been paid just for foregoing another tour? Independent Contractors, they say The players that have fled the PGA and European Tours for the safety of the LIV Tour make a lot of noise about being independent contractors and claim that means they should be able to do what they want. Yes, members of the PGA Tour are independent contractors and, yes, they are contractually obligated to enter a minimum number of tournaments each year, but I wonder if Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson are independent contractors anymore. We’ve read that Mickelson was paid $200 million to join LIV. Was he wired this money in one lump sum a few weeks ago or will it be paid out over time? I have a feeling it will be paid out over time and that he is obligated to play in the tournaments and promote the LIV Tour. Sounds to me more like he’s an employee of Mohammad bin Salman. The PGA has suspended Phil. I wonder what MBS will do if Phil decides to stop playing in his tournaments? For the love of the game In 1913, an amateur shocked the golf world. The romance of playing purely for the love of the game gave way to the reality that only a handful of people could spend their lives playing golf without a financial care in the world and room for the professional was accommodated. With the ascendency of the professional, an amateur hasn’t challenged the top players since the days of Bobby Jones but that’s okay. When I watch the world’s best golfers competing to win a trophy on a famous course that was previously won by Walter Hagen, Jack Nicklaus, or Ben Hogan for instance, I see players playing not just for the money but for the love of the game and for their place in history. I’m heading to the driving range now. I’m playing tomorrow, and in my foursome, we will throw balls up on the first tee to determine teams and then compete in a $20 Nassau. Second place gets nothing! [1] The story was immortalized by Mark Frost in his book, The Greatest Game Ever Played: Harry Vardon, Francis Ouimet, and the Birth of Modern Golf and popularized by the movie The Greatest Game Ever Played, based on the book.
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