Secularism Saves, Religion Destroys?

There's a common falsehood that is popular among many atheists and secular speakers out there that secularism is the answer to a harmonious civilization whereas religion inevitably leads to extremism, holy wars, murder and oppression (even hatred) in the name of god and kingdom. Such thinking is entirely inaccurate, as are other beliefs that tend to go along with such an idea.

Secularism is by no means any better than mainstream (or otherwise) religious or spiritual belief systems that exist throughout the world. Somehow these atheists and secularists have gotten it in their heads that secularism and atheism are NOT belief systems akin or comparable to religion. This is absurd because secularism and atheism are very much belief systems that shape an individual's life and viewpoint of the universe, the world, mankind, and the individual within it all. So to pretend that there's a gross difference between secularism and religion is to wear very thick blinders. Both are philosophical ideologies at their core and how they effect a person stems directly from that foundation. Secularism is humanism, a "religion" based on the idea that naturalism is all there is and mankind is an accident of nature and little more than a highly evolved animal. Secularism also wishes to eliminate religion from places of education, public discussion, government (and other authority), even entertainment. For a group that loves to preach about tolerance and diversity, they are actually quite intolerant to ideas that do not jive with their own.

Much is said these days in secular circles about religious extremism. The biggest culprit of religiously motivated or inspired terrorism is found within certain sects of Islam, and this has been true for more than two decades now. However non-religious (or vaguely spiritual) people see this and pin the terrorist (or ticking time bomb) on ALL organized religion. They'll point to historic tragedies such as the Crusades and the Inquisition, both taking place during cultures heavily dominated and invested in either Roman Catholic Christianity or Islam. Clearly religion and belief in god is a great inspiration of horror and evil in the world, right? And so non-religion, such as secular atheism or humanism, must then be the salvation of mankind and the end of human on human violence!... Such a belief or statement could not be more wrong.

The problem of extremism or ideologically motivated violence is by no means restricted to religion. It broaches all kinds of belief systems, all stripes of political bents and ALL viewpoints. Christians can easily understand this because we understand that the broken human condition that causes all of this is sin, which permeates and infects EVERYONE no matter who they are. Sin is like a poison. Left unchecked, it is catastrophically destructive and cruel. Secularism and atheism do not even believe in the existence of sin, believing that morality is in large part a social construct and little else. So who is better prepared to address the corrupted human soul? The ones who reject the existence of both soul and sin, or the ones that know it for what it is?

Is secularism the answer to moderating and regulating religion to prevent catastrophic violence between human beings? No. At best it's no better than religion in this matter. However, it might actually be even worse, because it holds no solid moral foundation or absolute truth. The atheist likes to point to tragedies in history connected (loosely or closely) to religion, things like the Crusades and Inquisition. In the secularist mindset, theocracy (government and power held by organized religion) is inherently corrupt or easily corrupted, mere steps from extremist evil. Yes, those particular horrors of history were awful, but religion is by no means the only factor for such occurrences. Neither is theocracies, or political conservatism. Most wars are not religiously inspired or motivated, merely using religion as an excuse for the real reasons for the war, such as greed and power.

Secularism and atheism have a human death count in the multiple hundreds of millions in just the last 100 years alone. The crusades and inquisitions were centuries ago and killed far fewer people on the whole. The inquisitions for instance may have killed a few thousand in all. Secular communism, however, is a very modern social and governmental construct, and it's slaughtered hundreds of millions in far shorter a time period than all religions combined for all of history. Stalin and communist Russia, communist China, and Germany's Hitler and the Nazis in World War 2 were all heavily influenced and inspired by humanism, secularism and naturalistic Darwinism (evolution). In this way you could almost say that communism is the secular version of a theocracy. Germany was the breadbasket of Darwinist thought and evolution inspired eugenics were the heart and soul of much of the Nazi mentality. They rounded up Jews, people of colour, and the physically and mentally disabled for death because they were considered inferior humans, a detriment to the betterment of more highly evolved mankind. These people were relegated to a sub-human status, and murdered and brutalized because of it. Communist Russia and China killed hundreds of millions in the name of preserving their government control and destroying all opposition and alternate belief systems, especially against Christianity. These were and are heavily atheistic and secular driven belief systems and mentalities that dominate in these large scale modern death camps. Secularism and atheism is in no way harmony and innocence. It's hands are as bloody or worse than mankind's biggest and longest lasting religions, and it's happening today right along side Islamic terrorism. The only difference is that it's institutionalized and government sanctioned. The only difference is that all this genocide is done in the name of man and at the cost and eradication of freedom (freedom that Christianity has been a strong supporter and creator of the world over).


The Real Problem

The problem is not religion, or even politics. The problem is mankind's heart in general. The problem is our eagerness and easily corruptible fallen sinful nature. Secularism and atheism don't even have a "higher power" to answer to or provide them direction, instruction, correction or meaning. To them, we're evolved animals, a cosmic accident of chemistry and physics.

True Christianity is based upon salvation, mercy, love, repentance, and compassion. Jesus Christ came and died on the cross when the Jews wanted him to rise up and become a holy warrior king and save them from the Romans. He refused. He came to save our lost souls, to show us a better way, to lead us back to God through love and mercy. The value of a human life and compassionate love are two monumental core tenets in Christianity. Yes, Christians or people who have claimed to be Christian or do things in the name of God have done terrible things in the past and even the present. But so have secularists, humanists, atheists and Darwinists. Examples of this are the Columbine school shooting in the USA (the two young men considered themselves to be cleansing society of religion and being an instrument of natural selection, one even wore a shirt that said exactly that as he shot his fellow classmates dead) and the murder spree a couple years ago in Norway where an avowed evolutionist shot dead 100 teenagers and government workers in the name of attacking Islam and the tolerance of it. The problem is NOT religion. The problem is strong over the top ideology combined with a lack of loving merciful compassion and the heartfelt knowledge that every life is exquisitely valuable.

Secularism is not salvation for the ills of society. It could be better described as oblivious unintended suicide. To eliminate the God given value of human life, of the soul, and to reduce us all to cosmic accidents and lucky-to-have evolved and survived animals in an entirely cold and callous universe is to beg for the de-humanization of all mankind. Human history both ancient and modern paints us a large scale picture of the evil and cruelty that mankind is capable of. Atheism and humanist secularism are at best no better than religions when it comes to these large scale sins. It's because the problem is not religion, or God, or faith, holy scripture, or even politics. The problem is mankind's ability to twist and warp any and all ideologies and philosophies into dark and destructive tendencies for fortune, fame and power. The problem is sin, something we are all guilty of to one extent or another.

Thankfully there's a means of redemption, forgiveness and salvation found through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are all His and He loves each and every one of us. That's a heck of a lot more positive and inspiring than, "We're stuff that stars burped out and that chemistry and physics accidentally patched together into complex animals." In Christianity there's a true possible solution. There's an understanding of the existence and potential of evil and wrong in all of us. Compassion, love, and deeply valuing all human life is the only cure. Those principles go hand in hand with salvation through Jesus Christ.


UPDATE

Added links to a few articles giving more detail and information on the topic.

Whitewashing Darwinism's Ongoing Moral Legacy  (EvolutionNews, Darwinism's influence taboo to discuss)

Slouching Toward Columbine: Darwin’s Tree of Death  (http://blog.beliefnet.com)

James J. Lee, Hostage-taker and Darwinist  (EvolutionNews, Discovery Channel shooting in Maryland, plus a summary of other similar incidents)

From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany  (Amazon.com)

Debate Fog Into Empty Victory (Intelligent Design vs Neo-Darwinism)

Here's a lesson in the political-style writing and speech that can often get in the way of good solid debate between Intelligent Design advocates and those who support Neo-Darwin Evolution.

The past couple of weeks I've been reading blog posts and write ups about a heated discussion/debate between supporters of Intelligent Design and Neo-Darwinist Evolution with regards to a newly published book "Science And Human Origins". The book is by Intelligent Design scientists and discusses all sorts of scientific studies, data and evidence that shows that the major questions about whether or not humans actually evolved from apes is still full of giant holes and doubts. However, when reading these blog posts, though the Intelligent Design supporters have made a number of good points, there's one particular point that they're making a big deal about that though valid, isn't nearly as big of a deal as they believe or say it is.

To see the latest post from ID supporters (and one of the authors of the book), and related articles, check out this link (at Evolution News).

Both sides of the debate are shouting their victory over the other, each claiming to have trounced their competition in the origins debate, but the reality is that neither side has done so as strongly as they believe (or want others to believe).


Chromosome 2: Apes and Humans

One of the key points of this particular piece of the debate is connected to chromosome 2 in humans. Chromosome 2 looks a lot like a pair of chromosomes found in apes that may have fused together in humans. Evolutionists surmise that if we really did evolve from apes, then a long time ago we too had two distinct chromosomes just like apes but that somewhere along the long timeline of very ancient pre-history these chromosomes joined together in humans but not apes.

There are many issues here, but one of the big points that both sides actually agree on is that in the grand scheme of things, this possible fusion event doesn't actually prove that humans came from apes, because humans could have originally had the two chromosomes separate just like apes, with the fusion happening relatively recently in the human genetic past. In other words, it's quite plausible that both humans (fully human) and apes (fully ape) had these highly similar chromosomes as two seperate chromosomes and that in recent human history, only in humans, they combined. That means there's no direct connection between the fusion event and supposed evolution from apes. The key point from the evolutionist is that the similarity in this particular chromosome to two chromosomes in apes indicates common ancestry. The Intelligent Design advocate says that this similarity simply means similar functional genetic code that works as intended, as designed by an Intelligent Creator, and that humans did not evolve from monkeys but that they were made as two unique kinds of living organism. So in the end, the fusion event doesn't really mean a whole lot, though it's interesting to study. Yet even while the evolutionist admits that the apparent fusion of chromosomes doesn't have to mean we came from apes, they still argue that it's good evidence for this belief.


"Victory" In Misdirection

Unfortunately both sides are arguing that they've defeated their opponents in the argument based on the idea of misdirection (clouding the real debate), while they themselves are actually throwing up misdirection themselves! It's a case of the pot calling the kettle black. They're BOTH misdirecting readers and BOTH accusing the other of doing it in order to try and win a point.

The Intelligent Design side of the argument has made a number of good points, some of which have tied directly to the fact that the evolutionists have focused on just the issue of chromosome 2. "Science And Human Origins" is a big book with multiple chapters, each addressing different areas of science and data that show just how weak the evidence for human-ape common ancestry is. Chromosome 2 is only a couple paragraphs in the big book, but it's where a couple evolutionists have focused. Remarkably, the evolutionists admitted that they had not read the book itself, had not even read the chapter in question, and would NOT be reading it because they knew (believe) it would be garbage anyway. Win for the Intelligent Design group here! The evolution scientist won't even READ the detailed debate points and all the scientific articles cited by the Intelligent Design writers!

But as great of a point as this revelation is in favor of the Intelligent Design group, they then take the ball and run with it well beyond the winning goal. They started crowing about how the evolutionists haven't read their points (which is valid), and that to make matters even worse, the evolutionist refuses to even enter the arena of the greater debate itself. The evolutionist has focused on a couple paragraphs in a book he hasn't even read, and that's all. Win for Intelligent Design!... Yes, true, but also no. Let me explain.

This is misdirection on the part of the Intelligent Design writers. It's a good point, but to make such a big deal out of it is to warp it into being more than it is. The evolutionist has decided to focus on the issue of Chromosome 2 and not bother with the rest. He's focusing on Chromosome 2 specifically. Not reading the book in question is a dumb move and it certainly hurts his case, but focusing only on Chromosome 2 instead of all the rest as well is NOT an explosive victory for Intelligent Design scientists like they claim it is. A person can adequately debate or dispute a particular point without having to address all connected or related points (which can be a huge enormous undertaking)


Not A Nail In The Coffin

So the Intelligent Design scientists are saying, "We win because you're not addressing all the other information in the book, only focusing on Chromosome 2." While the evolutionist basically sits there and says, "I never meant to address the whole book at large, only this specific point about Chromosome 2. But because you're trying to drag me into discussion of all the other stuff, you're clouding the issues I'm bringing up." These quotes are not actual quotes, they're just paraphrases of the general points being made.

The evolution scientists are ALSO guilty of misdirection in that they've argued that the points made against common ancestry from the direction of Chromosome 2 indicates that the whole rest of the book must be garbage (a book they haven't read). They disagree about some interpretations of the scientific data regarding Chromosome 2, and by connection, ALL the points made by the Intelligent Design group must be wrong as well. That's their cloud of fog hanging over the debate.

So BOTH sides are arguing largely from one standpoint (ID the greater whole and evolution the one specific point), and both claiming victory over the other because the opposing side is trying to drag the other side "over the line" they've drawn in the sand like an old fashioned tug of war. BOTH sides cloud the debate, and then both sides accuse the other of doing exactly that, and by connection claiming victory over the other. Oi!

It's like both teams are playing with different sets of rules and neither one will compromise or agree to work in the same realm and so neither side can ultimately hold any kind of solid victory over the other. It means that many of the GOOD points and jabs are lost in the air amidst the fog. Essentially it's a case of both sides claiming the exact same victory podium based on the concept of debate itself, rather than the points within that debate. That's an empty win.

Fun In Oblivion

I just upgraded to a fast new computer this last week and am currently enjoying the wonders of a fast multi-core processor, a 2 Gigabyte NVidia graphics card, and 10 Gigabytes of RAM. It's been years since I bought a new computer so it was definitely time, and the improvements all around are great. Programs load so fast! But to really put my hardware to the test, I needed to play a high graphics intense game. And so, after much frustration installing probably a hundred user made modifications to the 2006 (I think) game Oblivion (which was notoerious for stomping flat computers of its day, even really good ones, on low graphics settings), I ventured into the fun and beauty...

I'm the king of the world!... Don't mind my rusty set of armour. I'm only Level 1.

After installing the best graphics mods (modifications) for Oblivion that are out there, I jumped into the game and was in awe. It is truly breath taking to behold... Well, the scenery is beautiful anyway. The people on the other hand, even with the best available mods installed...

"Hello Rona! Wait... You're a woman?"

Yes, sadly, no amount of exceptional talent and time contributed by Oblivion mod makers are able to improve the typical character in Oblivion beyond this. Their clothes can look awesome. The people in the clothes... Not so much.

And how can we forget the many pleasures (and frustrations) of Oblivion's numerous glitches and unusual oddities!

No 3D goat should have to suffer the indignity of consuming its own head.

Poor wild mountain goat. It was mindlessly chomping grass and suddenly was set upon by a traveling city guard. After coming across this unusual battle of life and death, the soldier mercilessly pummeling the helpless goat into submission, the goat finally succumbed to its injuries, and swallowed its own head. Note the horn sticking out of the top. That's where it's head is hiding. The goat probably couldn't stand the endless taunts from the armour clad soldier as the warrior shouted, "You're pathetic! Is that the best you've got!?" and so it did the only thing it could to escape. Mutate.


But the fun doesn't stop there!

Bring it on wolfy!

This wolf was an easy kill when it attacked me in the wild. However, the not so easy part was getting the wolf's pelt off the body as it tumbled endlessly down the mountain and refused to stop even as I went barreling down the hill after it. This is when I learned to be below a monster on a hill when you kill it, that way it lands on top of you and you break its fall so that gravity can't laugh in your face as your hard earned trophy falls down the mountainside for the next twenty minutes with you chasing after it like a desperate idiot. :-) Live and learn.


Meanwhile, something has gone very wrong with the sky...

Shhhh. Don't tell NASA. The sky is really made of giant triangles.

And I don't seem to be the only one that's noticed... Though this person was standing in the same spot for three days without moving. Maybe he knew the shattered sky was coming and was waiting in breathless anticipation.

I don't think it's supposed to do that...

When the sky decides to do crazy things like this, it's probably a good idea to save your game, because chances are that Oblivion is going to realize it's done something bad and will fix itself by ending it's existence completely and crashing you back to your Windows Desktop. "You want the sky fixed? Do ya? Really? *crash*"

Despite the many bugs (some major and many not so major), the game is beautiful with all the great mods added to it by talented people around the world who have too much time on their hands making a good looking game look incredible. It's a lot of effort to get it working right, but it sure is pretty.

Energy Conundrum - Political Fog

Last weekend I announced on Facebook that I was planning to write a few blog posts about energy and power plants to give people an idea of the issues involved in the debates over energy production over the next century. Great idea, right!? Everyone needs energy and has to pay for it, and with things like climate change and the burning of fossil fuels being considered such a big deal, understanding the costs to your wallet and the environment can only be a good thing...

But there’s a VERY big problem trying to put together a study like this. Politics!

I’m maybe half way done researching this stuff (power planets, cost of energy production, etc.), but thanks to the massive amount of politics and government interference (for better or worse) in the energy markets, this study has been an absolute nightmare to put together. None of the studies I’ve done so far (on my blog or otherwise, and I’ve done some seriously political studies in the past) have ever been so full of misdirection, dramatically different statistics and a huge amount of information “masking”. Pretty much everywhere you look the information is overflowing with politically motivated deception and bias. It’s very sad to see and very frustrating to try and get any sort of straight answers.

Government Subsidies, Fines And Taxes

One huge pain in trying to figure out the costs of various types of energy production (power plants) is that cost can change dramatically depending on how much and in what way the government has its fingers in the mix. “Green Alternative Energy”, instead of carbon fuel, is the supposed saviour of the planet because it severely reduces Carbon Dioxide emissions, as well as other expelled gas pollutants. Because of environmental lobbyists pushing hard for green energy to be the way of the future, there are MANY high subsidies on green energy and heavy fines and taxes (which seem to grow with each passing year) on fossil fuels.

Subsidies are massive government hand outs (from collected taxes) that are given to companies that promise to “go green”. It’s an incentive to push this technology forward, because otherwise this technology and source of energy production would be mostly ignored, being far too expensive. The extremely high cost of building such alternative energy power plants makes the business largely unviable, unless the government hands out money to push the industry along.

To give you an example of how this system works, imagine two different companies competing for business. Company A sells chocolate bars and Company B sells health bars. Now let’s imagine that chocolate bars are cheap to make and cheap to sell, and a ton of people gleefully buy and consume them (not caring much that they’re unhealthy). Health bars, on the other hand (in this hypothetical example), are quite expensive to make, and so Company B must charge a lot of money for the health bars or else they can’t make any kind of profit. Unfortunately, the taste comparison between the two bars (chocolate vs health) and the cost to buy either of the bars means that there is very little competition between the two since most people consider the chocolate bar to be a much better value for their money.

The government decides to step in and fix this disparity between the two companies because clearly basic consumer-based capitalism is going to crush the healthy bars into non-existence. To solve this problem the government enacts subsidies and tax incentives because it considers the continued sales of health bars by Company B to be very important (it’s healthy!).

The government gives Company B millions of dollars to help build up its business in any way it can (advertising, stores, production, expansion, research, tax write offs, expenses, etc.) in order to make the business more profitable to keep Company B running. The chocolate bar company, Company A, complains that this isn’t fair because it doesn’t get “hand outs” from the government. The government argues that Company A doesn’t need the hand outs because they make money fine without needing government assistance. Then, to make matters worse for Company A, and to further “level the playing field” between Company A and Company B, the government hits Company A (the chocolate bar company) with fines and extra taxes for selling unhealthy junk food.

Is this fair? No. The idea is that the government knows best (it might, or it might not) and is looking out for everyone’s best interest (in this case, our health). To get what it wants, the government and the people behind the government manipulate the playing field.

These sorts of practices are very common in financial, investment, and government circles. Government often tries to influence how business operates. Sometimes it’s through giving tax breaks to certain types of business. Sometimes it’s done by passing laws and regulations that make it more difficult for businesses to operate as they wish. And sometimes the government hands out loans or even gifts of money to help increase the incentive for people to get into a business that the government deems to be beneficial to society. This can be a bad thing, but it can also be a very good thing. The outcome really depends on what the reasons for these measures are all about.

For example, governments often give tax breaks and money to farmers because the farming industry is crucial to society (producing food). Without these incentives and tax breaks, many farms could not turn any kind of profit, and would thus shut down, depriving us of much needed food. The alternative is for farmers to charge huge sums of money for the food they produce, making the cost of food far too high for most of the population to afford. To prevent that from happening, the government subsidizes the farming industry to help make sure the cost of food stays down.

Because energy is such an essential need and because environmental studies and lobbyists speak of dire consequences if we keep burning fossil fuels for energy, governments all over the world are playing a very difficult balancing act. They want to encourage long term energy security, affordable energy, and environmental care, but it’s not at all a simple matter of black and white or good and bad. It’s a lot more complicated and the politics surrounding the topic makes it that much worse.

What’s The Reality?

When trying to calculate the costs energy, all of the political and government interference contaminates and dramatically alters the picture. The information that’s out there is all over the map and hard to pin down. You might find one place that says that energy provided by coal power plants costs $50 per Megawatt per hour and somewhere else you might find a study that says it costs $300 per Megawatt per hour. Who’s telling the truth?

In their own way, everyone is telling the truth, and no one is. Most of these studies seem to be heavily biased for or against fossil fuels depending on who put the studies together. The more accurate and helpful studies will explain their methodology for calculating costs and expenses, while others will often ignore or gloss over very serious issues so that they can push and promote their political stance at the cost of factual accuracy or clarity.

What’s the lesson in all this? Take all the information, the studies, the research, the projections, the cost analysis and everything else with a massive helping of bitter salt instead of sweet tasting sugar. Don’t just swallow it blindly. Don’t trust the information until you test and really examine it because chances are good that what’s being presented is not entirely honest. Everyone has bias and personal opinion and it very easily clouds a person’s viewpoint on debatable topics. Read between the lines, analyze the sources, compare arguments and data sets, and try to put together the most accurate truthful picture of reality that you can.

Hopefully this week I’ll have it figured out enough to write a helpful blog post or two about power plants and energy so that you (the reader) can have an accurate and truthful understanding of how fossil fuels and green energy compare against each other. This is a very important topic as the costs of energy continue to rise and the debates over man-made climate change and pollution continue to rage.

Energy In The 21st Century (Part 1): Carbon And Energy Are Life

Energy. We all need it. We use it to power our modern technology, our transportation, give us light and heat our homes. Without it we’d be back to horse drawn carriages, candles as light sources, and wood burning stoves. Without it, we’d be back to the dark ages. In fact, without energy, no life on our planet would even be possible.

With electricity being such a crucial aspect of modern life, it’s critically important to know where all this energy is coming from, what it costs to produce, and the consequences around using it. Whether or not you believe that mankind is drastically altering the planet’s climate by burning fossil fuels, pretty much everyone can agree that heavy pollution is not a good thing for any environment. But is there a way to produce energy without harming the environment?

Understanding what energy is, how it works, and how it is used must be at the start of all such discussions because without this foundation it is impossible to have a truthful and realistic perspective.

Energy In All Things

Energy is all about physics and chemistry. All matter is made up of and built by energy, but not all the energy contained within matter is easily accessed or unleashed. Essentially, if the cost of tapping a source of energy requires more energy and effort than is produced, then the effort is a waste because it creates an energy negative. There is no such thing as “creating energy”, only storing energy, releasing energy, and making use of the released energy.

The sun, a burning ball of gas far away in space, produces all kinds of energy in many different forms and sends that energy hurtling out into space. The intense gravity of the huge star crushes and rips apart various gas molecules, destroying and burning them up. This energy passes over our planet and gives us natural heat and light, allowing for the existence of life itself. All the excess "pollution" (unwanted "left overs") that also belches out of the sun disappears into space. This “pollution” in the form of harmful energy (gamma rays, x-rays, ultraviolet light, etc.) is mostly blocked from reaching us thanks to our planet’s atmosphere and magnetic field (think of them like our planet’s invisible shield).

Life itself (ALL life), is constantly harnessing, storing and using up energy in order to survive and power itself. Life uses sugar as its main energy source. You may have heard that carbon-based fuels are “evil” because they cause pollution, but the reality is that carbon-based energy is at the heart of all life on earth. Without it, nothing could live or survive. Plants suck in carbon dioxide and with it (as well as other materials) create glucose, a complex sugar (a carbon-based fuel/energy source). Plants then spit out the left over oxygen that was produced in the conversion. Humans breath in oxygen, to help chop apart glucose (sugar) that we digest by eating those plants, and this powers all the cells in our bodies. Then we breath out the left overs of the chemical reactions involved, carbon dioxide, which plants breath in to help them form glucose… And so on.

It is ESSENTIAL that you understand this simple fact. ALL life requires and uses energy! Most life uses a combination of carbon and oxygen to help harvest, store and utilize energy. Life then burns this energy (stored in sugars) to power itself. Life uses special enzymes (and acids) to split sugar, ripping it apart and burning it up to generate our required heat and electricity.

Energy is a result of a usually destructive chemical reaction. The easier it is to release that energy (as well as store it safely for later), the better and more effective the energy-use system will be.

Harnessing Energy For Technology

Our technology requires energy to function just like our bodies and all life requires energy to live. Because of this constant need for energy, mankind has to have a way of generating or harnessing vast amounts of energy to power our cities.

There are generally two main ways of producing electrical energy in large enough quantities for people to use.

Releasing Energy From Fossil Fuels: Ever since the industrial revolution, energy produced (released) by the burning of materials such as fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas, etc.) have been the mainstays of modern energy. This is how our cars run, our planes fly, and how most of our power plants/stations work. They burn up carbon-based fossil fuels because the vast amounts of easily accessible energy released when these materials are heated up is exactly what our technology needs to work. Note that these carbon-based fuels are usually made by life as a means of storing energy for later. When a living organism dies, the energy it stored up in its body gets left behind, to be used by other living organisms (such as us).

Harnessing Already Active Energy: More advanced methods of harnessing energy attempt to do away with the requirement of burning fossil fuels, since burning fossil fuels tend to cause a lot of pollution. Instead, these other methods try to capture and use some of the naturally occurring energy in the environment around us (heat, light, the sun, weather, wind, rivers, moving objects, etc.). For instance, wind turbines generate their electricity by strong winds turning propeller-like blades, hydro dams generate electricity by the movement of water, and solar panels collect the heat and light from the sun.

Carbon Dioxide Is Not A Pollutant

If you know anything at all about physics and chemistry, you’ll know that energy always costs something. Energy requires the destruction and ripping apart of molecules. There’s no way around that, no escaping that hard fact. This means that there will ALWAYS be left over by-products produced by such molecule-sized violence no matter what anyone does. It’s part of the very laws built into our universe, and part of life itself.

Carbon Dioxide is not an evil pollutant. Carbon dioxide is plant food, and it’s what humans and other creatures exhale from our lungs as a by-product of the energy we use in the form of sugar. Carbon dioxide is not only entirely natural, it’s essential! To label Carbon Dioxide a pollutant would by like labeling water a pollutant. However, too much of anything, even a good thing, can be harmful. THAT is what everyone needs to understand, and keep in mind.

The trick is to meet our energy needs without costing us an arm and a leg and without severely damaging the planet beyond repair in the process.

Conclusion

All energy is born of violent chemical reactions somewhere, whether way out in space (as is the case with our sun), within our own bodies (sugar), or the burning of fossil fuels in a power station or fireplace. Active energy can be generated by heating materials that easily and consistently release energy or it can be harnessed from the environment around us in the forms of heat, light, and motion (wind, rivers, tides, etc.). But no matter what your energy source, it always comes from the destruction of molecules somewhere. It’s simple physics and chemistry, the laws at the heart of our universe.

Energy is essential, and it’s messy. The trick is to use it as efficiently and make it as clean as possible, while also making it affordable and stable.

Stay tuned for my next article about…

Power Stations we use to generate heat and electricity for our modern civilization. The costs and energy output of these necessary services are crucial to the future of mankind and our technology as we push forward into the 21^st century.