How the GW myth is perpetuated

Walter

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Science by intimidation


REX MURPHY
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
June 27, 2008 at 6:46 PM EDT

Truth may enter the world by many doors, but she is never escorted by force. I thought that was a lesson learned long ago, and learned by none more tellingly than scientists. Real scientists, actually, have learned it. A new amalgam has emerged however, the scientist-activist, and for that specimen it's a lesson passed by.
In the dawn of the Enlightenment, it was scientists who were hauled before tribunals and inquisitions. Galileo is the arch example, the pioneer empiricist who rejected the ancient Earth-centric model of the (then known) universe, and for his pains earned the attention and wrath of the distinctly unscientific Inquisition.
I am drawn to these thoughts, and to the long-decayed example of the Inquisition, by a most curious outburst this week by James Hansen, the principal voice of NASA on the subject of global warming, a man who played – as it were – John the Baptist to Al Gore's messianic teachings on the subject. Dr. Hansen is largely credited with “sounding the alarm” on man-made global warming, and he has been a persistent, high-profile and very aggressive proponent of the cause for over two decades now. Dr. Hansen doesn't take kindly to those who dispute his apocalyptic scenarios. I choose the term, apocalyptic, deliberately. According to Dr. Hansen, mankind may have reached the tipping point with global warming. Should that be the case, wide-scale calamity and catastrophe are inevitable. And should we not have reached the point of absolute crisis, should there be a minuscule interval for the human species to act and avert the very worst, according to Dr. Hansen, what yet remains to be faced is still horrible enough indeed.
Not all the world shares Dr. Hansen's vision of imminent ecological Armageddon. Serious minds, seriously disinterested in the subject, throw up caveats all the time. They question the models of climatological speculation; they question the peculiar mix of man-made and other likely sources of climate dynamics; they question some of the data gathering and some of its interpretation; and they question the very maturity of the highly complex, and experimentally deficient science of global warming itself.
They seriously question, too, the massive policy prescriptions that are being insisted upon as necessary in response to the scientific determinations of man-made global warming. There is lots of room for different, honest opinion on questions so large and complex, questions at the terribly complicated intersection of science, politics and economics.
But, to Dr. Hansen's agitated mind, those who raise such questions, who inject skepticism into the global warming debate, are “deniers.” The word here is becoming commonplace, but it remains a singular slur. A clutch of the global warming believers like to cast all who would argue with them into the polemical pit, the pit being that dissent from orthodox opinion on global warming as the equivalent of Holocaust denial. It is a shameless and vicious tactic, and hardly accords with the nobility that is suppose to drive the conscience of those out to save the planet. Dr. Hansen is overfond of the specious and chilling analogy: He has written of the “crashing glaciers serv(ing) as a Krystal Nacht” and, although he later repented of the metaphor, compared coal trains to “death trains – no less gruesome than if they were boxcars headed to crematoria, loaded with uncountable irreplaceable species.” This week, Dr. Hansen went a step even more noxiously forward.
He called for a tribunal, or as I prefer to call it, an Inquisition, to put on trial for crimes against nature and humanity, the CEOs of the big oil companies who, according to Dr. Hansen's frantic view of things, feed the public “misinformation” about the climate crisis. Again the implicit model is to Nuremberg, as the man attempts to put concern for a future – let us call it a probability – on a moral and factual par with the unquestioned, historical, shattering enormity of the Nazi Holocaust.
Is this a scientist speaking? If so, it is more than curious that in the 21st century it is the scientist calling for the secular equivalent of an Inquisition. More to the point, are these the words of a man really certain of his truth, or one who – with the anxiety of the fanatic – is trying to shield it from all rigour of skepticism and inquiry? In either case, I do not question at all the assertion that it is the voice of a man who is neither a friend to reason or science. This is the voice of the scientist-activist consumed with his own virtue and fearful of all dispute.
Science has no need of tribunals or trials, no need of Nuremberg justice, or analogies with the Holocaust. James Hansen's words this week were an offence, an offence against inquiry, against science, against moral seriousness. They were a piece of insolence against the idea of debate itself.
 

L Gilbert

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Yup. So? There are folks on both sides of the issue with too much ego to be taken very seriously. The facts, however, should be taken seriously. Even if a scientist's ego causes him to be biased, if many other scientists back him up with their own evidence, then his ego is irrelevant. If there is other evidence that conflicts with his/theirs, then there needs to be further investigation and politics and the newsmedia's penchant for sensationalism is irrelevant to the investigation.
Why leap to one side or the other until all the investigations have found enough evidence for the issue to be clear?
 

Walter

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[COLOR=#999999! important]By Penn Jillette
July 3, 2008

My partner, Teller, and I are professional skeptics. We do magic tricks in our live show in Las Vegas, and we have a passion for trying to use what we've learned about fooling people to possibly get a little closer to the truth. Our series on Showtime tries to question everything -- even things we hold dear.

James Randi is our inspiration, our hero, our mentor and our friend. Randi taught us to use our fake magic powers for good. Psychics use tricks to lie to people; Randi uses tricks to tell the truth. Every year, in Vegas, the James Randi Educational Foundation gathers together for a conference as many like-thinking participants as you can get from people who question whenever people think alike. There are smart, famous and groovy speakers such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. There's lots of real science stuff with real scientists questioning things that a lot of people take for granted, like ESP, UFOs, faith healing and creationism. It's a party.

Teller and I are always honored to be invited. We don't wear our usual matching gray suits, and Teller doesn't stay in his silent character. Teller chats up a storm. It's not a gig; it's hanging out with friends. During our loose Q&A period this year, someone asked us about global warming, or climate change, or however they're branding it now. Teller and I were both silent on stage for a bit too long, and then I said I didn't know.

I elaborated on "I don't know" quite a bit. I said that Al Gore was so annoying (that's scientifically provable, right?) that I really wanted to doubt anything he was hyping, but I just didn't know. I also emphasized that really smart friends, who knew a lot more than me, were convinced of global warming. I ended my long-winded rambling (I most often have a silent partner) very clearly with "I don't know." I did that because ... I don't know. Teller chimed in with something about Gore's selling of "indulgences" being BS, and then said he didn't know either. Penn & Teller don't know jack about global warming ... next question.

The next day, I heard that one of the non-famous, non-groovy, non-scientist speakers had used me as an example of someone who let his emotions make him believe things that are wrong. OK. People who aren't used to public speaking get excited and go off half-cocked. I'm used to public speaking and I go off half-cocked. I live half-cocked. Cut her some slack.

Later, I was asked about a Newsweek blog she wrote. Reading it bugged me more than hearing about it. She ends with: "But here was Penn, a great friend to the skeptic community, basically saying, 'Don't bother me with scientific evidence, I'm going to make up my mind about global warming based on my disdain for Al Gore.' ... Which just goes to show, not even the most hard-nosed empiricists and skeptics are immune from the power of emotion to make us believe stupid things."

Is there no ignorance allowed on this one subject? I took my children to see the film "Wall-E." This wonderful family entertainment opens with the given that mankind destroyed Earth. You can't turn on the TV without seeing someone hating ourselves for what we've done to the planet and preaching the end of the world. Maybe they're right, but is there no room for "maybe"? There's a lot of evidence, but global warming encompasses a lot of complicated points: Is it happening? Did we cause it? Is it bad? Can we fix it? Is government-forced conservation the only way to fix it?

To be fair (and it's always important to be fair when one is being mean-spirited, sanctimonious and self-righteous), "I don't know" can be a very bad answer when it is disingenuous. You can't answer "I don't know if that happened" about the Holocaust.

But the climate of the whole world is more complicated. I'm not a scientist, and I haven't spent my life studying weather. I'm trying to learn what I can, and while I'm working on it, isn't it OK to say "I don't know"?

I mean, at least in front of a bunch of friendly skeptics?

Penn Jillette is the louder, bigger half of the magic/comedy team of Penn & Teller.
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typingrandomstuff

Duration_Improvate
Who is saying what

All these words are wrong; but the truth is: the earth is not flat; tomato is not poisonous and the universe was not created in 7 days.
  • The earth is not flat: it is spherical according to "the Quran 39: 5
خَلَقَ السّماواتِ و الأرْضَ بِالحَقِّ يُكَوِّرُ اللّيْلَ عَلى النّهارِ و يُكَوِّرُ النَّهارَ عَلَى اللّيْلِ و سَخَّرَ الشّمْسَ و القَمَرَ كُلٌّ يَجْرِي لأجَلٍ مُسَمّىً ألا هُوَ العَزِيزُ الغَفّارُ
The explanation: (He created the heavens and the earth with the true [promise]*; He makes the night spherical on the day, and makes the day spherical on the night; and He subjected the sun and the moon: each running on for an appointed term; surely, He is the All-Mighty, the All-Forgiving!)
[* i.e. with the true promise of destruction and ruining on Doomsday.]
The interpretation:
The word يُكَوِّرُ i.e. (makes spherical)
Now, dear reader, look carefully to the eloquence and clear language of the Quran. Look carefully and think how the Glorious God has declared the sphericity of the Earth, its rotation around itself, the transferring of sunrays upon it and the formation of the day and night, by His saying -be exalted
يُكَوِّرُ اللّيْلَ عَلى النّهارِ و يُكَوِّرُ النَّهارَ عَلَى اللّيْلِ
i.e. (He makes the night spherical on the day, and makes the day spherical on the night.)
The Glorious God said يُكَوِّرُ i.e. (makes spherical) because the earth is spherical in shape, so the sunrays will spread on half of the sphere so that the day will be on its lightened side, while the night will be in the dark side, then the sunrays will transfer to the other side because of the rotation of the Earth, so that the position of the night will become day, and the position of the day will become night. Therefore, the sunrays get a spherical shape around the Earth, and give it light and heat, and the day and night will result from that.
Then again look carefully, dear reader, to this word and think about its meaning. Can any human being be able to give a synonym of it? Or can he express in such [few] words all this information and knowledge?
This word, alone, suffices as a proof of the truthfulness of Mohammed –peace be on him – and a proof of the existence of a Creator for the universe; because the sphericity of the Earth was unknown to people until the present time[ the Quran was revealed more than 1400 years ago], and this knowledge and statement have not been discovered and become a reality except in these present days."
  • Tomatoes are not poisonous; unless they are touched by an atheist or associater or idolater or disbeliever; because his sweat is filth, and such tomatoes will be filth unless cleaned with water with mentioning God's name.

  • The universe was not created in 7 days; the earth and the rest of the solar system planets together with their gaseous layers of their atmospheres; all this was created :) transformed from one state to another) in 6 days.
This is in the Quran 32: 4
اللهُ الّذي خَلَقَ السماواتِ والأرضَ و ما بينَهُما في ستّةِ أيّامٍ ثُمّ اسْتَوَى على العرشِ ...
The explanation: (It is God Who created the heavens and the earth and that which is between them in six [of the] days [of the Hereafter.] Then He mounted the throne …)
‘The heavens and the earth’ means the planets. And "that which is between them" means the moons. And six days means six thousand years, during which the planets were transformed into earths after being one flaming sun, and during this period: the gaseous layers of the atmosphere were created.
http://universeandquran.site.io/#Formation_of_the_Earth
http://universeandquran.site.io/#The_Gaseous_Heavens


eanassir

Oh geez. He doesn't mean it that way. Of course the earth isn't flat. It just means that people are arguing by using emotional manipulation. Yes. People say a lot of things. Out of many things people say, only a few are true.
 

eanassir

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Oh geez. He doesn't mean it that way. Of course the earth isn't flat. It just means that people are arguing by using emotional manipulation. Yes. People say a lot of things. Out of many things people say, only a few are true.

What's this "geez" you are accustomed to say; is it something related to Jesus and you mock it (or it may be some of the "non-sense" that you manytimes speak?

"Out of many things people say, only a few are true", and your words are not of these few.
 

Stretch

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Two Peer-Reviewed Scientific Papers Debunk CO2 Myth
Three top scientists have once again contradicted the claim that a "consensus" exists about man-made global warming with research that indicates CO2 emissions actually cool the atmosphere, in addition to another peer-reviewed paper that documents how the IPCC overstated CO2's effect on temperature by as much as 2000 per cent.
Posted Jul 16, 2008 02:31 PM PST
Category:
SCIENCE/HEALTH


"No, no, no, no, no, NO! CO2 is cooking the planet and YOU are to blame and the only way you can atone is to buy and sell carbon tax credits through my brokerage, dammit!" -- Saint Al of the Bore
http://www.prisonplanet.com/two-peer-reviewed-scientific-papers-debunk-co2-myth.html
 

typingrandomstuff

Duration_Improvate
I hope you are happy eanassir. First you offend some voodoo people. Now you are planning a fight by confusing people with your voodoos and false references to religious text. I never will understand your type eanassir. It's a discussion. If I did lie, I don't care. What is important for me is to explain the common occurences in this 3-D universe.
 

Stretch

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Global Warming Conclusively Debunked As Gore Calls For CO2 Tax
The world is cooling, sea levels are falling, ice is spreading, there are fewer extreme weather events, and it was hotter 1000 years ago, yet the myth of global warming is providing governments the excuse to micromanage every aspect of our lives, with Al Gore now openly calling for a carbon tax on the energy we use. But such figures won't deter the agenda of control freaks like Al Gore, who last night publicly called for a carbon tax to be imposed on the use of fossil fuels at a time when even middle class families are struggling to pay the bills as a result of a crippled economy, soaring oil prices and inflation.

Posted Jul 18, 2008 12:24 PM PST
Category: SCIENCE/HEALTH
http://www.prisonplanet.com/global-...alls-for-co2-tax.html?GLOBAL-WARMING-IS-A-LIE
 

eanassir

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I hope you are happy eanassir. First you offend some voodoo people. Now you are planning a fight by confusing people with your voodoos and false references to religious text. I never will understand your type eanassir. It's a discussion. If I did lie, I don't care. What is important for me is to explain the common occurences in this 3-D universe.


I don't intend to offend you or anyone else; I have nothing to do with ? voodoo people.
 
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eanassir

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Sure. Geez means don't be so judgemental. Sure. I can lie. Am I really lying? Did you really do research?

No, I did not really make any research, but I might have made some search, and contemplations in addition to studying the book The Universe and the Quran, by Mohammed-Ali Hassan Al-Hilly, the late interpreter of the Quran and Bible, which I have put at:
http://universeandquran.site.io

About the GW, I don't think it is a lie; it might have been exploited for some purposes, but it is true; there are many practical indications of the accumulation of heat on Earth; the Russian expedition to the North Pole has been recently withdrawn; because their region has molten.

There are many regions in the world that have severe drought, that the mountain tops of the north of Iraq, as I heard the ice has molten early and more than every past year. As I remember, the coldest year was 1963, when there was some freezing that lasted some few weeks in the winter, then the temperature started to rise up gradually, so that summer has become hotter and winter warmer than before. This year, it is hot and dry, so that it blows dust more than we have ever noticed.

Therefore, generally in our location, we see it has become hotter and warmer than before; but this is not according to data, but it is only a general impression.
The Recent Global Heat Wave

Moreover, there are many other causes, other than the Greenhouse effect; there may be the earth getting nearer by some miles to the sun.
The earth approaches the sun



 
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typingrandomstuff

Duration_Improvate
Sorry about that. Your name is eanassir, eanassir, and eanassir. Studying one religious text is not amazing. People studied more than 12 volumes of religious text. Each volume contain about more than 900 pages. Each volume is a different religious studies. Those people became famous. They never brag about what they do know. I hope you are happy. I hope you are happy, eanassir.
 

Walter

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Do as Al says, not as Al does

Lorne Gunter, National Post Published: Monday, July 21, 2008

On Thursday, former U. S. vice-president Al Gore delivered a major address calling on his country to abandon all fossil fuels within 10 years. By 2018, U. S. electricity and fuel should come entirely from "renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources," he said. Tickets to the event encouraged attendees to "please use public transit, bicycling or other climate-friendly means" to reach the lecture hall.
So how did Mr. Gore and his retinue arrive? In two Lincoln Town Cars and a full-sized SUV that sat idling with the air conditioners blasting while the Gore party was inside.
It was 34 C in Washington. Al Gore can't be expected to get into an overheated vehicle after he's worked up a sweat telling others how to save the planet.
Remember, too, the Nobel prizewinning environmentalist lives in a Tennessee mansion that produces a carbon footprint 20 times that of the average American home. A sizeable chunk of his personal fortune comes from royalties on a zinc mine which had to be temporarily closed five years ago in part because the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency ruled it one of the worst-polluting mine sites in America. Illegal toxins were frequently discharged into nearby rivers.
Mr. Gore's Live Earth benefit concert last summer flew scores of rock bands to stages around the world in carbon-spewing private jets. To cover the emissions from his own frequent use of private jets, Mr. Gore set up a company that buys carbon offsets, so that in effect he is paying himself for his carbon indulgences, writing off the expense on one hand, while pocketing the proceeds on the other.
Apparently if the world is ever to reach the carbon-free future Mr. Gore dreams of, it will have to get there without Al's help.
But take heart, there is increasing evidence that man-made carbon dioxide may not be causing global warming. Indeed, there is increasing debate in the scientific community whether there is even any warming occurring at all. Mr. Gore might just be able to keep going from jet to limo to estate guilt-free (if not carbon-free) for as long as he wishes.
On Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that seven mountain glaciers in northern California were advancing. They joined glaciers in southern Norway, Sweden, the New Zealand Alps and the Hindu Kush mountains of Pakistan. Indeed, worldwide, there are nearly half as many glaciers advancing as retreating.
How did the AP explain this? Well, all the shrinking glaciers it mentioned in its story were melting due to global warming, while the growing ones were "benefitting from changing weather patterns." Glacier melt is proof of a climate crisis, while--on the same planet, under the same global conditions --glacier melt is chalked up as a mere natural phenomenon.
Facts that don't fit the global-warming dogma -- call them inconvenient truths -- are to be dismissed as unimportant. Only those that feed the environmental hysteria are proof of something ominous.
So I'm sure they're entirely inconsequential, but here, anyway, are some anecdotes that cast doubt on the notion that emissions from our SUVs and power plants are dangerously harming the climate.
Greenland isn't melting. And while Arctic sea ice may have thinned in the past three decades by about 3% per decade, according to the U. S. National Snow and Ice Date Center, Antarctic ice (which is about 20 times as voluminous as the Arctic kind) has grown by 1% per decade,
Also, after last summer's record melt in the Arctic, this summer's melt in Antarctica was the smallest on record. And NASA satellites have found that Arctic Sea ice coverage this year is more than one million square kilo-metres greater than last year's, greater than the average of the last three years and 10-20 centmetres thicker than in 2007. According to observations by the Danish Meteorological Institute, we "have to go back 15 years to find ice expansion so far south."
Snow coverage in North America this winter was greater than at any time in recorded history. China had its worst winter in a century, and the southern hemisphere its worst in the past 50 years.
And while global temperatures increased slightly in June, through the end of May, the nine-month decline in temperatures beginning in September was greater (0.8C) than all the warming of the 20th century (0.6C).
All of this may prove nothing (although if these signals pointed toward warming, you can bet they'd be billed as proof a coming climate catastrophe). But they should at least give Mr. Gore comfort that he need not sacrifice his high-carbon lifestyle just to prove he can walk the walk.
 

Tonington

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How did the AP explain this? Well, all the shrinking glaciers it mentioned in its story were melting due to global warming, while the growing ones were "benefitting from changing weather patterns." Glacier melt is proof of a climate crisis, while--on the same planet, under the same global conditions --glacier melt is chalked up as a mere natural phenomenon.

The National Post should fire their editors. It should read as:

Glacier melt is proof of a climate crisis, while--on the same planet, under different regional conditions--glacier growth is chalked up as a response to changing weather patterns.

Is that too hard for people to understand?
 

Walter

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Al Gore's Doomsday Clock
July 22, 2008; Page A17


Al Gore gave a speech last week "challenging" America to run "on 100% zero-carbon electricity in 10 years" -- though that's just the first step on his road to "ending our reliance on carbon-based fuels." Serious people understand this is absurd. Maybe other people will start drawing the same conclusion about the man proposing it.
The former vice president has also recently disavowed any intention of returning to politics. This is wise. As America's leading peddler of both doom and salvation, Mr. Gore has moved beyond the constraints and obligations of reality. His job is to serve as a Prophet of Truth.
Ken Fallin
In Mr. Gore's prophesy, a transition to carbon-free electricity generation in a decade is "achievable, affordable and transformative." He believes that the goal can be achieved almost entirely through the use of "renewables" alone, meaning solar, geothermal, wind power and biofuels.
And he doesn't think we really have any other good options: "The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk," he says, with his usual gift for understatement. "And even more -- if more should be required -- the future of human civilization is at stake."
What manner the catastrophe might take isn't yet clear, but the scenarios are grim: The climate crisis is getting worse faster than anticipated; global warming will cause refugee crises and destabilize entire nations; an "energy tsunami" is headed our way. And so on.
Here, however, is an inconvenient fact. In 1995, the U.S. got about 2.2% of its net electricity generation from "renewable" sources, according to the Energy Information Administration. By 2000, the last full year of the Clinton administration, that percentage had dropped to 2.1%. By contrast, the combined share of coal, petroleum and natural gas rose to 70% from 68% during the same time frame.
Now the share of renewables is up slightly, to about 2.3% as of 2006 (the latest year for which the EIA provides figures). The EIA thinks the use of renewables (minus hydropower) could rise to 201 billion kilowatt hours per year in 2018 from the current 65 billion. But the EIA also projects total net generation in 2018 to be 4.4 trillion kilowatt hours per year. That would put the total share of renewables at just over four percent of our electricity needs.
Mr. Gore's argument would be helped if he were also willing to propose huge investments in nuclear power, which emits no carbon dioxide and currently supplies about one-fifth of U.S. electricity needs, and about three-quarters of France's. Britain has just approved eight new nuclear plants, and the German government of Angela Merkel is working to do away with a plan by the previous government to go nuclear-free.
But Mr. Gore makes no mention of nuclear power in his speech, nor of the equally carbon-free hydroelectric power. These are proven technologies -- and useful reminders of what happens when environmentalists get what they wished for.
Mr. Gore's case would also be helped if our experience of renewable sources were a positive one. It isn't. In his useful book "Gusher of Lies," Robert Bryce notes that "in July 2006, wind turbines in California produced power at only about 10% of their capacity; in Texas, one of the most promising states for wind energy, the windmills produced electricity at about 17% of their rated capacity." Like wind power, solar power also suffers from the problem of intermittency, which means that it has to be backed up by conventional sources in order to avoid disruptions. This is especially true of hot summers when the wind doesn't blow and cold winters when the sun doesn't shine.
And then there are biofuels, whose recent vogue, the World Bank believes, may have been responsible for up to 75% of the recent rise in world food prices. Save the planet; starve the poor.
None of this seems to trouble Mr. Gore. He thinks that simply by declaring an emergency he can help achieve Stakhanovite results. He might recall what the Stakhanovite myth (about the man who mined 14 times his quota of coal in six hours) actually did to the Soviet economy.
A more interesting question is why Mr. Gore remains believable. Perhaps people think that facts ought not to count against a man whose task is to raise our sights, or play Cassandra to unbelieving mortals.
Or maybe he is believed simply because people want something in which to believe. "The readiness for self-sacrifice," wrote Eric Hoffer in "The True Believer," "is contingent on an imperviousness to the realities of life. . . . All active mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it. . . . To rely on the evidence of the senses and of reason is heresy and treason. It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible."