Bishop solves mystery of climate change...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/01/nflood201.xml

Its official, the “right reverend” Graham Dow (aka the Bishop of Carlisle) knows the actual mind of God.

This extraordinary revelation means that Dow now knows how God wants us all to behave, what we should do in our bedrooms and with whom, what constitutes “good” behaviour, what constitutes “bad” behaviour and how God would like us to treat Planet Earth. Dow has also been informed by God what the punishments for indiscretions to these rules are and to whom those punishments are currently being administered, in fact he is so sure about all of this that he is willing to spill the beans in a national newspaper. Of course, the precise details of how this "revelation" process actually works are scarce, but clearly any man that dresses in a frock and walks around with a bent stick has a certain gravitas that demands ultimate respect, so who are we to question him?

Now then, this good ol’boy of the Anglican Church calmly and confidently brushes aside the combined life time’s work of hundreds of climatologists, meteorologists, environmentalists and countless scientists from dozens of disciplines to pronounce that the reason for the recent flooding in northern parts of the UK is that (wait for it) his "God" is displeased with us for being nasty to the planet and tolerating gay people. (Thank goodness I don't live in Brighton, so much water and so much "life-style" in close proximity, that's just got to be asking for trouble!)

Well I'm glad that's all clear for everyone now, so it's, bollocks to the weak Atlantic jet stream, bugger the increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere; screw the gulf stream, the man with the bent stick and the frock has the answer, "God did it", wow, how compelling, this is all the evidence anyone could ever need. Clearly, we should just form a militia, round up a few queers (or maybe just men that wear frocks?), pass a few discriminatory laws and then all of our SUV, holiday home, BBQ fantasies will be realised.

Genuinely ignorant people find stupid reasons for phenomenon that they don't understand or can't explain, this basic human behaviour is common to us all, we crave explanation and would rather make something up than have none. In atheist circles this kind of reasoning is generally known as the "argument from incredulity", i.e. I have no clue how this works so therefore "God did it"; but this is worse, this is institutionalised ignorance. In Dow's case, he has the privilege of a first class education and a public platform provided to him by two millennia of persecution, extortion and tyranny by various Christian religions, more worryingly he is supposed to be a "leader" to quite a few C of E faithful, and yet clearly the man doesn't even know what he doesn't know!

Great job Graham, really insightful, but next time, before you try and explain an act of nature, try reading a few books first (preferably ones that are less than 2000 years old) then you might actually start to discover why climatic or natural events like floods, hurricanes, tsunami, tornadoes and the like really happen. Guess what, your "God" turns out not to be involved at all.