Subtitles for "God's Will" in Bulgarian

Back to Translation Index

Note: Please read the editing guidelines before you begin editing.

01:00:04:00 , 01:00:09:00 , This video is titled "God's Will" and is part of the expansion pack accompanying the video "How It All Ends."
01:00:09:00 , 01:00:12:16 , Let me start by saying I know little of theology or hermeneutics.
01:00:12:16 , 01:00:15:16 , But the subject of God has come up enough times in my discussions with people
01:00:15:16 , 01:00:18:16 , about global climate change that I want to address it briefly here,
01:00:18:16 , 01:00:20:29 , without delving into the fundamental questions of faith.
01:00:20:29 , 01:00:23:29 , I certainly have no answers, but only questions,
01:00:23:29 , 01:00:29:00 , which might have some bearing on how you feel about climate change and your personal relationship to it.
01:00:29:00 , 01:00:32:18 , I recently had a very interesting converation with an optometrist about climate change.
01:00:32:18 , 01:00:34:24 , We were sincerely asking what the other thought about it,
01:00:34:24 , 01:00:37:22 , since she knows I teach science and she hasn't looked into it too much,
01:00:37:22 , 01:00:41:07 , and I'm always curious about the process by which people arrive at the opinions they hold.
01:00:41:07 , 01:00:43:22 , Particularly because she is technically trained.
01:00:43:22 , 01:00:45:22 , She's devoutly religious—Christian,
01:00:45:22 , 01:00:49:01 , and it turns out that she feels that global climate change is probably God's will,
01:00:49:01 , 01:00:51:08 , perhaps in punishment for the sins of mankind.
01:00:51:08 , 01:00:54:02 , I don't share that conviction, but it seemed fair enough to me.
01:00:54:02 , 01:00:57:09 , When I asked why she thought that, it sparked a question in my mind though.
01:00:57:09 , 01:01:02:26 , She said that the issues was so big, so—well global—that it seemed beyond the purview of humankind,
01:01:02:26 , 01:01:05:05 , and could only be the realm of a higher being.
01:01:05:05 , 01:01:07:16 , I wanted to understand better how she made that judgement.
01:01:07:16 , 01:01:12:01 , So I asked her a hypothetical question, to try to illicit the principles underlying her belief.
01:01:12:01 , 01:01:15:29 , I said suppose you live on a river, and you catch and eat the fish from the river.
01:01:15:29 , 01:01:18:13 , If you eventually noticed that there were fewer and fewer fish,
01:01:18:13 , 01:01:21:19 , and then that the water started to smell, and then dead fish turned up,
01:01:21:19 , 01:01:23:08 , you might go looking upstream.
01:01:23:08 , 01:01:28:20 , And say you found someone had installed a pipeline that is dumping foul-smelling stuff into the river.
01:01:28:20 , 01:01:31:19 , You wouldn't call the dead fish God's will and ignore it.
01:01:31:19 , 01:01:33:19 , You'd tell the guy upstream to knock it off.
01:01:33:19 , 01:01:34:28 , She agreed with that.
01:01:34:28 , 01:01:38:06 , If he assured you that it's not his stuff that's causing the fish to die,
01:01:38:06 , 01:01:41:13 , you might even hire a water-quality expert to come out and analyze the water,
01:01:41:13 , 01:01:46:03 , and you'd probably weight his statements about the foul-smelling stuff more heavily than those from the guy with the pipeline.
01:01:46:03 , 01:01:47:14 , She agreed with that, too.
01:01:47:14 , 01:01:51:28 , So I asked, what's the difference between this situation, and global climate change?
01:01:51:28 , 01:01:54:09 , Her answer was again, that it's just so big.
01:01:54:09 , 01:01:58:09 , It's hard to imagine it in the hands of humans, and quite easy to imagine it in the hands of God.
01:01:58:09 , 01:02:01:08 , She agreed that she wouldn't consider the dead fish to be God's will—
01:02:01:08 , 01:02:04:08 , or at least, not in the sense that she wouldn't take action to change the situation.
01:02:04:08 , 01:02:08:17 , I mean, you don't have to be a strict Calvinist to believe that in a certain sense, everything is God's will.
01:02:08:17 , 01:02:11:05 , So I gave a larger version of the fish scenario—
01:02:11:05 , 01:02:15:02 , say instead of it being a local river, it's an entire region that's affected,
01:02:15:02 , 01:02:18:22 , like the acid rain caused by industrial emissions in the Northeastern US.
01:02:18:22 , 01:02:22:02 , She agreed again that she'd do something to get the emitters to stop,
01:02:22:02 , 01:02:25:05 , because the phenomenon was clearly the direct result of human action,
01:02:25:05 , 01:02:27:27 , and it was harming people both directly and indirectly.
01:02:27:27 , 01:02:32:26 , So I asked: if we keep scaling the issue up, where is the line where it goes from being of humans
01:02:32:26 , 01:02:35:14 , and therefore subject to our judgement and our actions,
01:02:35:14 , 01:02:38:12 , to being of God, and therefore subject to only prayer?
01:02:38:12 , 01:02:41:13 , She hadn't really thought about it like that before, and didn't have a ready answer,
01:02:41:13 , 01:02:43:07 , and that's where the conversation ended.
01:02:43:07 , 01:02:48:25 , Since then, I've thought about it a lot, and I think perhaps what might be causing the blurring is that with the fish,
01:02:48:25 , 01:02:51:27 , it's clear to our intuition that the problem is caused by humans.
01:02:51:27 , 01:02:55:14 , And when you jump straight to the globe, your intuition now opposes the idea
01:02:55:14 , 01:02:58:29 , that the problem could be caused by humans—it's just so big, and we are so small.
01:02:58:29 , 01:03:02:07 , As my dad put it—intellectually, he believes the scientists and all—
01:03:02:07 , 01:03:06:12 , but at a gut level he still doesn't believe that we can change the planet just by driving cars around.
01:03:06:12 , 01:03:07:27 , We're just too small.
01:03:07:27 , 01:03:10:21 , Which is why I scaled the same problem up gradually,
01:03:10:21 , 01:03:14:16 , starting with the fish in the river, which or intuition could solve,
01:03:14:16 , 01:03:19:17 , and going all the way up to the globe, looking for at what point does the issue cross the line.
01:03:19:17 , 01:03:22:21 , from being of humans to being of god.
01:03:22:21 , 01:03:26:09 , And that's also why I introduced the idea of the water quality expert.
01:03:26:09 , 01:03:29:25 , He represents someone whose judgement about the physical situation you trust,
01:03:29:25 , 01:03:32:28 , because he's studied long and hard, and he has lots of experience.
01:03:32:28 , 01:03:36:05 , Well, with climate change, that's exactly the role that the scientists play.
01:03:36:05 , 01:03:39:16 , And the statements of AAAS and NAS really leave no question
01:03:39:16 , 01:03:43:17 ,  as to their judgement of whether humans are playing a role or not in global climate change.
01:03:43:17 , 01:03:48:06 , It is of course correct to say that the climate has changed often, without us ever playing a part.
01:03:48:06 , 01:03:50:15 , But that doesn't mean we're not the ones doing it now.
01:03:50:15 , 01:03:55:29 , If you watch the videos "How It All Ends: The Mechanics of Climate Change" and "Scare Tactics,"
01:03:55:29 , 01:04:00:17 , you may see that it's not too hard to upgrade your intuition,
01:04:00:17 , 01:04:03:25 , so that it no longer opposes the conclusions of scientists when they say that
01:04:03:25 , 01:04:09:09 , it is "highly likely" that the observed warming of the globe is driven primarily by human activities.
01:04:09:09 , 01:04:13:14 , It worked for my dad to see those statements, and when I explained the mechanics of it to him—
01:04:13:14 , 01:04:16:20 , now his guts agree with his head, and all's well at the home.
01:04:16:20 , 01:04:19:23 , So if you've thought in the past that global warming might be God's will,
01:04:19:23 , 01:04:23:11 , or even perhaps the start of End Times, I don't have any answers for you.
01:04:23:11 , 01:04:26:06 , But, I would respectfully request—for the benefit of all—
01:04:26:06 , 01:04:28:27 , that you ask yourself the question about the fish in the river.
01:04:28:27 , 01:04:31:15 , Would you consider it God's will and continue fishing,
01:04:31:15 , 01:04:35:11 , or would you ask your upstream neighbor to stop putting those things in the river that you both share?
01:04:35:11 , 01:04:39:01 , And then make the scenario slightly larger and ask the question again.
01:04:39:01 , 01:04:43:07 , And as you keep making it larger watch, and ask your self where in that progression
01:04:43:07 , 01:04:47:12 , does the issue go from being a human-caused problem that we can and want to address,
01:04:47:12 , 01:04:49:25 , to being the Will of God, which we can't?
01:04:49:25 , 01:04:55:04 , Because with six billion amazingly varied people, we may not share the same faith,
01:04:55:04 , 01:04:57:22 , but we definitely share the same planet.
 

 

Back to Translation Index