Post by Freydis The Valkyrie on Aug 2, 2009 15:42:40 GMT -5
Seriously, the guy needs some mockage. He is a raving Young Earth Creationist, fundie Christian, and fundie conservatard.
From the RHJunior Forums
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I only acknowledge that it is hard not to hate someone who levels hatred at you.
And yes, I'm sure that there are rightwingers and conservatives who have treated you poorly. First-- the fact that they treated you poorly is because they're jerks, not because they're conservative. And second-- did you have any other evidence that they were conservative, or did you just simply assume they were conservative because they made an anti-semitic remark to you?
The difference between the two is that a conservative who acts hatefully is not doing so as part of his political doctrine-- just as part of his PERSONAL one.
Liberalism, on the other hand, is hatefulness and evil as a political ideology.
It is the liberal, not the conservative, who goes out and incites class envy and spitefulness as an excuse to rob people through taxes.
It is the liberal, not the conservative, who institutes political correctness, "affirmative action" and racial quotas-- whereby it becomes racism to treat all people equally.
It is the liberal who beats constantly on old graves.
It is the liberal, not the conservative, who at one end of the scale legislates the common man to death, while at the other end coddles the violent criminal class--- to the point where you are punished more extravagantly for crushing a buzzard's egg than you are for killing a human being, and fined more brutally for swapping MP3 files than you are for robbing a record store at gunpoint.
It is the liberal, not the conservative, who treats trees as more precious than people.
It is the liberal, not the conservative, who turns and runs like a coward from this nation's enemies.
It is the liberal, not the conservative, who demands that we tolerate an onrushing flood of illegal immigrants--- criminals all, with no respect for our nation's laws, exploiting our nation's costly civil services, cheating its tax codes and flooding our electoral system with fraud votes.
It is the liberal, not the conservative, who insists that the government has more rights than a parent does.
It is the liberal, not the conservative, who grants protection to creatures such as the KKK and NAMBLA for their unspeakable evils, who protects loathsome human toads like Larry Flynt and his vile industry, all under the name of "freedom of speech/press..." Yet it is the liberal who introduces speech codes, "fairness/equal time" doctrines, the McCain-Feingold abomination, and other corruptions of free speech.
There is not a single doctrine of liberalism that isn't evil.... painted with pretty symbolism and bright colors, and rotten to the core underneath.
And yes, I'm sure that there are rightwingers and conservatives who have treated you poorly. First-- the fact that they treated you poorly is because they're jerks, not because they're conservative. And second-- did you have any other evidence that they were conservative, or did you just simply assume they were conservative because they made an anti-semitic remark to you?
The difference between the two is that a conservative who acts hatefully is not doing so as part of his political doctrine-- just as part of his PERSONAL one.
Liberalism, on the other hand, is hatefulness and evil as a political ideology.
It is the liberal, not the conservative, who goes out and incites class envy and spitefulness as an excuse to rob people through taxes.
It is the liberal, not the conservative, who institutes political correctness, "affirmative action" and racial quotas-- whereby it becomes racism to treat all people equally.
It is the liberal who beats constantly on old graves.
It is the liberal, not the conservative, who at one end of the scale legislates the common man to death, while at the other end coddles the violent criminal class--- to the point where you are punished more extravagantly for crushing a buzzard's egg than you are for killing a human being, and fined more brutally for swapping MP3 files than you are for robbing a record store at gunpoint.
It is the liberal, not the conservative, who treats trees as more precious than people.
It is the liberal, not the conservative, who turns and runs like a coward from this nation's enemies.
It is the liberal, not the conservative, who demands that we tolerate an onrushing flood of illegal immigrants--- criminals all, with no respect for our nation's laws, exploiting our nation's costly civil services, cheating its tax codes and flooding our electoral system with fraud votes.
It is the liberal, not the conservative, who insists that the government has more rights than a parent does.
It is the liberal, not the conservative, who grants protection to creatures such as the KKK and NAMBLA for their unspeakable evils, who protects loathsome human toads like Larry Flynt and his vile industry, all under the name of "freedom of speech/press..." Yet it is the liberal who introduces speech codes, "fairness/equal time" doctrines, the McCain-Feingold abomination, and other corruptions of free speech.
There is not a single doctrine of liberalism that isn't evil.... painted with pretty symbolism and bright colors, and rotten to the core underneath.
From the RHJunior Forums
You claim "insufficient proof" for the existence of God.
In light of the fact that the overwhelming majority of the human race believes in some form of supreme Being, and a large percentage of that number not only consider the evidence for His existence to be overwhelmingly persuasive but openly testify to a personal encounter and experience with Him, I think that the problem here is that the body of evidence presented is only insufficient for you.
And in light of your biases, it is doubtful that anything short of the Second Coming would constitute "sufficient evidence" for you.
You have too much invested in NOT believing to ever contemplate the alternative with any seriousness.
First, your ego. Bull us no crap, but every single atheist on earth, yourself included, clings, openly or secretly, to his atheism like it was an olympic medal... proof of his or her not-so-secret superiority to the rest of us superstitious ignorants.
This isn't an "attack," it's a self-evident fact. When you think we're not paying attention we catch you out at it, too.
Some few atheists may give lip service to "respecting beliefs," but their unguarded dialogue (Yes, we read your columns and editorials from time to time. Little suggestion: Try not to act so surprised when people accuse you of believing what you write down) and visible actions make it clear that they regard deists as inferior, primitive, and even as a sort of barbarian at the gates threat to "human progress and enlightenment." They gain a sense of superiority from regarding all of us as no better than the Boonga Boonga drum-pounding tribal witch doctor. (Yes, we've seen the slogans and logos, too. Darwin fish, Flying Spaghetti Monster, "Imaginary Friends," etc. Another little suggestion: you want us to believe you respect our beliefs, try cutting back on the T-shirt and bumper sticker slogans.)
Second, your denial. Even contemplating God as a possibility puts you in the VERY unpleasant position of having to consider what, if any, relationship you have to this Supreme Being. Because even if God is nothing more than some vast, distant, uninterested entity, the very awareness of His existence would obligate you to seek him out. The same as a scientist is driven to plumb the depths of space or the inner mechanisms of the atom; the same as an abandoned, adopted child is driven to seek his birth-parents.
But you won't have that. So you fall back on the atheist catechism: "religion != science, God=religion, therefore God isn't scientific. In conclusion, that means no scientific proof of God exists...." Voila! you made all the naughty evidence go away. (And for your next trick, you'll prove black=white just in time to get trampled in a zebra stampede.)
As another Christian noted: Why is it that someone viewing the evidence and becoming an evolutionist/atheist considered proof of their intellectual superiority..... while someone else viewing all the evidence and being persuaded to believe in God is proof of their ignorance?
Bias.
In light of the fact that the overwhelming majority of the human race believes in some form of supreme Being, and a large percentage of that number not only consider the evidence for His existence to be overwhelmingly persuasive but openly testify to a personal encounter and experience with Him, I think that the problem here is that the body of evidence presented is only insufficient for you.
And in light of your biases, it is doubtful that anything short of the Second Coming would constitute "sufficient evidence" for you.
You have too much invested in NOT believing to ever contemplate the alternative with any seriousness.
First, your ego. Bull us no crap, but every single atheist on earth, yourself included, clings, openly or secretly, to his atheism like it was an olympic medal... proof of his or her not-so-secret superiority to the rest of us superstitious ignorants.
This isn't an "attack," it's a self-evident fact. When you think we're not paying attention we catch you out at it, too.
Some few atheists may give lip service to "respecting beliefs," but their unguarded dialogue (Yes, we read your columns and editorials from time to time. Little suggestion: Try not to act so surprised when people accuse you of believing what you write down) and visible actions make it clear that they regard deists as inferior, primitive, and even as a sort of barbarian at the gates threat to "human progress and enlightenment." They gain a sense of superiority from regarding all of us as no better than the Boonga Boonga drum-pounding tribal witch doctor. (Yes, we've seen the slogans and logos, too. Darwin fish, Flying Spaghetti Monster, "Imaginary Friends," etc. Another little suggestion: you want us to believe you respect our beliefs, try cutting back on the T-shirt and bumper sticker slogans.)
Second, your denial. Even contemplating God as a possibility puts you in the VERY unpleasant position of having to consider what, if any, relationship you have to this Supreme Being. Because even if God is nothing more than some vast, distant, uninterested entity, the very awareness of His existence would obligate you to seek him out. The same as a scientist is driven to plumb the depths of space or the inner mechanisms of the atom; the same as an abandoned, adopted child is driven to seek his birth-parents.
But you won't have that. So you fall back on the atheist catechism: "religion != science, God=religion, therefore God isn't scientific. In conclusion, that means no scientific proof of God exists...." Voila! you made all the naughty evidence go away. (And for your next trick, you'll prove black=white just in time to get trampled in a zebra stampede.)
As another Christian noted: Why is it that someone viewing the evidence and becoming an evolutionist/atheist considered proof of their intellectual superiority..... while someone else viewing all the evidence and being persuaded to believe in God is proof of their ignorance?
Bias.
Source
No, I'll just call you both reality-impaired ninnies for plexing over the "suffering" of homicidal killers who withhold information.... information that means life or death for innocent civilians.
You are not morally superior for demanding soldiers and civilians be sacrificed for a questionable ethical abstract. You are just washing your consciences clean in the blood of innocents.
You are not morally superior for demanding soldiers and civilians be sacrificed for a questionable ethical abstract. You are just washing your consciences clean in the blood of innocents.
Original Post
My main issue with it is that all the justifications for it are simply not true.
Saving the planet? Short answer, no you're not. All the environmentalist brickbats flung at the meat industry--- Land use, water table pollution, ozone damage/global warming from cow flatulence--- fall apart with even a cursory examination.
Healthy? Short answer, No it isn't. Vegetarians and especially Vegans have to resort to all sorts of dietary hoop-jumping to avoid serious health problems--- tricks that are only feasible in a civilization supported by a "barbaric" agricultural system that supplements its population's diet with animal flesh.
Kind to animals? Morally superior? Short answer----
Given the choice between living in the wild in constant cold, wind, rain, hunger, and fear, and dying either in slow agony from disease or injury or in agonizing terror as wild animals rip you apart.... or living warm, dry, safe, and well fed in a barn, with a swift and near instantaneous death at the end, which would YOU choose?
Vegetarians never give much reflection to what an end to meat consumption would do to the quality of life of the average cow.
"Showing stewardship?" No, you're not. If a vegetarian lifestyle were truly more feasible and "resource conserving," it wouldn't solely be the domain of 21st century Western civilizations.
A VEGETARIAN DIET IS A LUXURY, AND THE PRODUCT OF WESTERN EXCESS. In case noone noticed, not everyone can afford the luxury of bypassing two entire food groups. People who live on a purely vegetarian diet who DON'T live in a Western country are typically small, sickly, and "blessed" with a lifespan half your own. The only reason anyone can even CONSIDER being a Vegetarian or even a Vegan is because America and its fellow free countries are prosperous enough that they can spare resources to pander to even the silliest of pretensions.
And THAT is why vegetarianism irritates me--- PRETENTIOUSNESS. The person who says "Oh, I'm a vegetarian" has told me a tremendous number of things about themselves, none of them particularly flattering.
They have told me that they have made a sweeping dietary change that is totally unnecessary, scientifically and nutritionally shaky, excessively expensive, inconveniencing for everyone else, and they have made this choice based solely on how much it makes them feel like a BETTER PERSON, even though they are NOT a better person for it in any way, shape, form or fashion known to God or Man. Vegetarianism is the granola-crunchie version of a fortysomething accountant buying a toupee and a cherry-red corvette.... a vapid, vain, attention-mongering gesture by someone with too much money and too little interest in the objective facts.
Vegetarians want to feel superior to you and me because THEY have chosen to eat like a COW. That, in a nutshell, is what gets on my nerves.
VEGETARIANISM IS A VANITY ITEM. There is nothing "superior" about it, and its detriments assure that it doesn't even qualify as an equal tradeoff.
Saving the planet? Short answer, no you're not. All the environmentalist brickbats flung at the meat industry--- Land use, water table pollution, ozone damage/global warming from cow flatulence--- fall apart with even a cursory examination.
Healthy? Short answer, No it isn't. Vegetarians and especially Vegans have to resort to all sorts of dietary hoop-jumping to avoid serious health problems--- tricks that are only feasible in a civilization supported by a "barbaric" agricultural system that supplements its population's diet with animal flesh.
Kind to animals? Morally superior? Short answer----
Given the choice between living in the wild in constant cold, wind, rain, hunger, and fear, and dying either in slow agony from disease or injury or in agonizing terror as wild animals rip you apart.... or living warm, dry, safe, and well fed in a barn, with a swift and near instantaneous death at the end, which would YOU choose?
Vegetarians never give much reflection to what an end to meat consumption would do to the quality of life of the average cow.
"Showing stewardship?" No, you're not. If a vegetarian lifestyle were truly more feasible and "resource conserving," it wouldn't solely be the domain of 21st century Western civilizations.
A VEGETARIAN DIET IS A LUXURY, AND THE PRODUCT OF WESTERN EXCESS. In case noone noticed, not everyone can afford the luxury of bypassing two entire food groups. People who live on a purely vegetarian diet who DON'T live in a Western country are typically small, sickly, and "blessed" with a lifespan half your own. The only reason anyone can even CONSIDER being a Vegetarian or even a Vegan is because America and its fellow free countries are prosperous enough that they can spare resources to pander to even the silliest of pretensions.
And THAT is why vegetarianism irritates me--- PRETENTIOUSNESS. The person who says "Oh, I'm a vegetarian" has told me a tremendous number of things about themselves, none of them particularly flattering.
They have told me that they have made a sweeping dietary change that is totally unnecessary, scientifically and nutritionally shaky, excessively expensive, inconveniencing for everyone else, and they have made this choice based solely on how much it makes them feel like a BETTER PERSON, even though they are NOT a better person for it in any way, shape, form or fashion known to God or Man. Vegetarianism is the granola-crunchie version of a fortysomething accountant buying a toupee and a cherry-red corvette.... a vapid, vain, attention-mongering gesture by someone with too much money and too little interest in the objective facts.
Vegetarians want to feel superior to you and me because THEY have chosen to eat like a COW. That, in a nutshell, is what gets on my nerves.
VEGETARIANISM IS A VANITY ITEM. There is nothing "superior" about it, and its detriments assure that it doesn't even qualify as an equal tradeoff.
Original
The point, gentle readers, is that Christians DO have some legitimate concerns about some of the harmless and not-so-harmless things that go on around them. If you don't think mainstream society's obsession with ghosts, demons, witches and the like during Halloween doesn't at the least smack of something disturbing, then that's some mighty strong rope you're smoking there, kiddo. There are those of us who DO find it wrong how parents will gas up little kids on Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy-- and then express shock when the little tykes grow up expressing contempt and disbelief in anything ELSE taught them. And yes, Christians do believe that nonChristians are going to hell. It's called "believing what you preach," WE preach irrevocable salvation solely by Grace. The Catholic church preaches conditional salvation based upon works. We'd have to be not only hypocritical but addlepated to preach as we do, then turn around and say that people who preach the exact opposite doctrine of salvation are "just as saved" as we are.
Yes, they call themselves "Christian." So did the Branch Davidians. So did Jim Jones. I could call myself Elvis, but it won't get me through the front gates of Graceland.
That said, Jack Chick is a disgrace.
Jack Chick's general approach is to take a popular prejudice, legitimate nascent concern, or outright urban myth and, if it matches up with his religious theme or agenda, run with it just as far and hard as he can. (I've seen a few of his tracts that incorporated some of the more popular environmentalist dogmas, for example...) He speaks the truth in much the same way a riot hose hits its target.... by pointing in the general direction and sweeping back and forth in wild, uncontrolled arcs. Unfortunately the small bit of truth gets swept away in the deluge.
The disgrace of Jack Chick is not just that he uses exaggerations, urban myths and outright lies, but that he tries to use exaggeration, urban myth, and outright lies to promote the truth. He's like Dan Rather--- such an avid true believer in his doctrine that he'll swallow even the most outrageous forgeries and regurgitate them for public consumption.
This is what makes dealing with such Christian religious hysteria so painful and troublesome. At the center of all the flailing tomfoolery is a tiny little sliver of truth. And a half-truth, or even a tenth of a truth, is harder to refute than an entire lie.
Yes, they call themselves "Christian." So did the Branch Davidians. So did Jim Jones. I could call myself Elvis, but it won't get me through the front gates of Graceland.
That said, Jack Chick is a disgrace.
Jack Chick's general approach is to take a popular prejudice, legitimate nascent concern, or outright urban myth and, if it matches up with his religious theme or agenda, run with it just as far and hard as he can. (I've seen a few of his tracts that incorporated some of the more popular environmentalist dogmas, for example...) He speaks the truth in much the same way a riot hose hits its target.... by pointing in the general direction and sweeping back and forth in wild, uncontrolled arcs. Unfortunately the small bit of truth gets swept away in the deluge.
The disgrace of Jack Chick is not just that he uses exaggerations, urban myths and outright lies, but that he tries to use exaggeration, urban myth, and outright lies to promote the truth. He's like Dan Rather--- such an avid true believer in his doctrine that he'll swallow even the most outrageous forgeries and regurgitate them for public consumption.
This is what makes dealing with such Christian religious hysteria so painful and troublesome. At the center of all the flailing tomfoolery is a tiny little sliver of truth. And a half-truth, or even a tenth of a truth, is harder to refute than an entire lie.
Original
Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that a good portion of society still finds sodomy and same-sex relationships to be 1) immoral 2)gross and disgusting?
Even then, if you buy the overinflated estimate of 1 in 10 people being gay (it's more like 2%, by the stats), that still means that gay movies are still marketed to only one tenth of the moviegoing population. Even those that "don't mind" homosexuality are not going to be particularly interested in a movie about a gay relationship. Just because you have no particular disapproval of something doesn't mean you want to watch it. I have no particular moral objection to chick flicks, for instance, but I am spectacularly uninterested in watching them.
So, with a "gay" movie, you are driving away
1)The portion of the population that is morally opposed to homosexuality
2)The portion of the population that is just grossed out by homosexuality
3)The portion of the population that is annoyed by or disinterested in "relationship" movies, regardless of their stance
4)The portion of the population that is irritated by being preached at about "homophobia" all the time, regardless of their stance,
5)People tired of having "gay" shoved in their faces
6)People who hate "social issues" movies
Even then, if you buy the overinflated estimate of 1 in 10 people being gay (it's more like 2%, by the stats), that still means that gay movies are still marketed to only one tenth of the moviegoing population. Even those that "don't mind" homosexuality are not going to be particularly interested in a movie about a gay relationship. Just because you have no particular disapproval of something doesn't mean you want to watch it. I have no particular moral objection to chick flicks, for instance, but I am spectacularly uninterested in watching them.
So, with a "gay" movie, you are driving away
1)The portion of the population that is morally opposed to homosexuality
2)The portion of the population that is just grossed out by homosexuality
3)The portion of the population that is annoyed by or disinterested in "relationship" movies, regardless of their stance
4)The portion of the population that is irritated by being preached at about "homophobia" all the time, regardless of their stance,
5)People tired of having "gay" shoved in their faces
6)People who hate "social issues" movies
Original
Indeed I am insulting the podling. I also happen to be speaking the unvarnished truth. That these two things are mutually compatible when addressed to a subject should be a source of distress--- for the subject; instead it is usually regarded as justification for the subject and his pitiers to swell up in puff-toad outrage. How dare anyone, indeed, speak the truth to your ennobled self!
People who claim to want "tact" these days are almost uniformly people who are grossly lacking in it, and have themselves never exercised it for a moment. You complain of a lack of tact and empathy? Well, my fine fluffy friend, perhaps you should reflect that
THERE IS NO MORE GROSS AND VULGAR AN INSULT YOU CAN INFLICT ON SOMEONE THAN TO PROPAGATE A LIE ABOUT THEM.
Trowe posted a scurrilous series of lies and distortions about the Vice President of the United States, accusing him of malfeasance, nefarious manipulation, and criminal deeds.... then stepped back, apparently expecting to be not only agreed with, but congratulated for the imagined wittiness of his gutter-snipe invective and dull-witted, unimaginitive libel. He has now been called, in no uncertain terms, precisely what he is--- a childish provocateur.
But this of course is INSULTING.
Leftists, liberals, progressives--- whatever you care to name them, the pompous progressive Self-Anointed (who are NEVER leftist of course; they're all MODERATES when questioned)--- all operate under a virtually classic double standard. They expect to be granted the right to bawl profanity and perjoratives like a harbor whore, then have everyone else address them as if they were genteel high society ladies. And God help anyone who openly names them according to their behavior and their trade!
Am I crude, crass, insulting, bad tempered, wont to verbally attack people at the slightest provocation? Yes. Am I violently insulting to my sociopolitical opposition? Yes indeed. The fact that I am crude and unsophisticated is not a point of pride.
On the other hand, never once in any of my vicious little tirades have I ever had to LIE about a liberal to insult them.
People who claim to want "tact" these days are almost uniformly people who are grossly lacking in it, and have themselves never exercised it for a moment. You complain of a lack of tact and empathy? Well, my fine fluffy friend, perhaps you should reflect that
THERE IS NO MORE GROSS AND VULGAR AN INSULT YOU CAN INFLICT ON SOMEONE THAN TO PROPAGATE A LIE ABOUT THEM.
Trowe posted a scurrilous series of lies and distortions about the Vice President of the United States, accusing him of malfeasance, nefarious manipulation, and criminal deeds.... then stepped back, apparently expecting to be not only agreed with, but congratulated for the imagined wittiness of his gutter-snipe invective and dull-witted, unimaginitive libel. He has now been called, in no uncertain terms, precisely what he is--- a childish provocateur.
But this of course is INSULTING.
Leftists, liberals, progressives--- whatever you care to name them, the pompous progressive Self-Anointed (who are NEVER leftist of course; they're all MODERATES when questioned)--- all operate under a virtually classic double standard. They expect to be granted the right to bawl profanity and perjoratives like a harbor whore, then have everyone else address them as if they were genteel high society ladies. And God help anyone who openly names them according to their behavior and their trade!
Am I crude, crass, insulting, bad tempered, wont to verbally attack people at the slightest provocation? Yes. Am I violently insulting to my sociopolitical opposition? Yes indeed. The fact that I am crude and unsophisticated is not a point of pride.
On the other hand, never once in any of my vicious little tirades have I ever had to LIE about a liberal to insult them.
Original
Those who kill and torture and slaughter in the name of Christ are in explicit violation of the clear teachings of Christ.
Those who kill and torture and slaughter in the name of Mohammed and Allah, on the other hand, are not only in accordance with Mohammed's teachings but are following his very vivid personal example.
Those who kill and torture and slaughter in the name of Mohammed and Allah, on the other hand, are not only in accordance with Mohammed's teachings but are following his very vivid personal example.
Original
Catholicism was a faction that splintered away from the original new testament church. As such, there have been non-catholic Christians around since before the first pope. The catholic sect rose to dominance on the coattails of Constantine and held sway over Europe for centuries, but that does not make it the "original" church.
original
thereligionofpeace.com gives explicit details of every single terrorist attack they have listed. All anyone here has to do is read through the archived stats and data to see who is orchestrating these vicious attacks.
I'll give you a hint. They're not being committed by Hare Krishnas.
They do not "redefine" anyone, nor do they "inflate" their numbers. They don't have to. In fact their stats are lowballed, because they leave out many violent and deadly attacks that are disputably "military" in purpose and target.
But its much more comforting to believe that there's a conspiracy by Jews and Infidels to slander Islam, than to accept the evidence of your own eyes--- the testimony of the eyewitnesses, the commands of the Koran, the record of Muhammed's jihad, the centuries of history, the tape recorded "sermons," the archived record of "holy" killings, the honor-killings, the stonings, the recorded footage of beheadings--- that Islam is a religion of genocide and murder.
Isn't it.
People this infantile.... Good Lord, they're like that hollywood idiot in "State of Fear" who refused to believe in cannibals--- right up to the point that the leader of the tribe sliced a chunk out of his face and ate it.
I'll give you a hint. They're not being committed by Hare Krishnas.
They do not "redefine" anyone, nor do they "inflate" their numbers. They don't have to. In fact their stats are lowballed, because they leave out many violent and deadly attacks that are disputably "military" in purpose and target.
But its much more comforting to believe that there's a conspiracy by Jews and Infidels to slander Islam, than to accept the evidence of your own eyes--- the testimony of the eyewitnesses, the commands of the Koran, the record of Muhammed's jihad, the centuries of history, the tape recorded "sermons," the archived record of "holy" killings, the honor-killings, the stonings, the recorded footage of beheadings--- that Islam is a religion of genocide and murder.
Isn't it.
People this infantile.... Good Lord, they're like that hollywood idiot in "State of Fear" who refused to believe in cannibals--- right up to the point that the leader of the tribe sliced a chunk out of his face and ate it.
Original
To start off with, to assume a creator of the universe is to assume that they are, de facto, outside the normal parameters of the universe. So the first five of those "leaps" in fact constitutes one.
Second, to assume that there is NOT a Creator is to assume that every single person throughout all of humanity and all of history who have claimed to have an encounter with this entity are all either crazy, or lying.
And third--- leaps of faith, or steps of reasoning?
We conclude from observation that order only arises from chaos by the application of intelligence.
We conclude from observation that the Universe is a little too darned orderly to be one big accident.
We conclude, by reason, that the Creator of the Universe must be greater than, and therefore outside of, the boundaries and limitations of the Universe He created.
WE conclude, by reason, that anyone powerful enough to do THAT is darned well going to be more than capable of tinkering under the hood after the fact.
And even before any of this, we conclude, by observation, that the advancement of our knowledge as a species has only served to reveal how much vaster the field of the unknown is. We have climbed to the edge of our little tidal pool to gaze out at an endless ocean. To believe in a supernatural realm--- in short, to conclude that far more lies beyond the range of our vision or the scope of our reason than lies within it--- is far more rational than to conclude that reality only reaches to where we can see, then cuts off at the edge with a snap.
Second, to assume that there is NOT a Creator is to assume that every single person throughout all of humanity and all of history who have claimed to have an encounter with this entity are all either crazy, or lying.
And third--- leaps of faith, or steps of reasoning?
We conclude from observation that order only arises from chaos by the application of intelligence.
We conclude from observation that the Universe is a little too darned orderly to be one big accident.
We conclude, by reason, that the Creator of the Universe must be greater than, and therefore outside of, the boundaries and limitations of the Universe He created.
WE conclude, by reason, that anyone powerful enough to do THAT is darned well going to be more than capable of tinkering under the hood after the fact.
And even before any of this, we conclude, by observation, that the advancement of our knowledge as a species has only served to reveal how much vaster the field of the unknown is. We have climbed to the edge of our little tidal pool to gaze out at an endless ocean. To believe in a supernatural realm--- in short, to conclude that far more lies beyond the range of our vision or the scope of our reason than lies within it--- is far more rational than to conclude that reality only reaches to where we can see, then cuts off at the edge with a snap.
Original
I repeat the self-evident observation, it only gets rated as "middle ground" when the Christians have been shoved off the field entirely, and the whole has been declared a Jesus-free zone.
Equally observable is that anything less than this is treated as a temporary stopoff. Nothing less than a completely secular, atheist, religion-excluding environment is to be embraced.
We stopped praying in public, and you called a "moment of silence" a compromise..... Then you demanded that the moment of silence be removed, too. We stopped putting up nativities.... and now you have the noose out for Saint Nick. First it was organized prayer that was banned from school. Then any student caught praying, even silently, was in trouble. Then students were getting disciplinary action for wearing crucifixes, carrying a bible, or wearing wwjd bracelets....
The presence of a creche, a cross, a bible, a christian "fish" symbol, or a list of the ten commandments anywhere in a nation founded, settled, populated, led, and defended by practicing Christians is too much for you to tolerate. You're out there knocking down world war I memorials or picking at the state seal with your fingernails because they have a cross on them, and you tell use you're "compromising?"
Bull. Exercise is not establishment. You're not fighting establishment, you're attacking other people's right to exercise their faith.
Apparently noone taught you this in grade school, but It's not compromise or neutrality when 2% of the population is dictating terms to the other 98.
If it's so utterly TOXIC to you that the rest of us exercise our faith out in public (as if we weren't ashamed of it at all, imagine!), you can just sit in your dank, cheerless little religion-free homes and sulk, instead of expecting the rest of us to cater to your desire not to have your conscience pricked when you're out in the village square. Or sit there in the square and Not-Believe with all your bitter little heart, just like you did BEFORE you got a ring through the government's nose.
Equally observable is that anything less than this is treated as a temporary stopoff. Nothing less than a completely secular, atheist, religion-excluding environment is to be embraced.
We stopped praying in public, and you called a "moment of silence" a compromise..... Then you demanded that the moment of silence be removed, too. We stopped putting up nativities.... and now you have the noose out for Saint Nick. First it was organized prayer that was banned from school. Then any student caught praying, even silently, was in trouble. Then students were getting disciplinary action for wearing crucifixes, carrying a bible, or wearing wwjd bracelets....
The presence of a creche, a cross, a bible, a christian "fish" symbol, or a list of the ten commandments anywhere in a nation founded, settled, populated, led, and defended by practicing Christians is too much for you to tolerate. You're out there knocking down world war I memorials or picking at the state seal with your fingernails because they have a cross on them, and you tell use you're "compromising?"
Bull. Exercise is not establishment. You're not fighting establishment, you're attacking other people's right to exercise their faith.
Apparently noone taught you this in grade school, but It's not compromise or neutrality when 2% of the population is dictating terms to the other 98.
If it's so utterly TOXIC to you that the rest of us exercise our faith out in public (as if we weren't ashamed of it at all, imagine!), you can just sit in your dank, cheerless little religion-free homes and sulk, instead of expecting the rest of us to cater to your desire not to have your conscience pricked when you're out in the village square. Or sit there in the square and Not-Believe with all your bitter little heart, just like you did BEFORE you got a ring through the government's nose.
Original
1 "slightly worse?" Wanderer, they have footage, taken by the torturers themselves, of the things they did to people.
Like dripping acid on them.
Or cutting out their tongues.
Or dragging their daughters and wives into the room and raping and killing them in front of the prisoner.
In at least one instance they dragged a man's pregnant wife into the room, slit open her belly, pulled out her intestines and her unborn baby, and left her to die there on the floor while he watched.
We have footage. the Pentagon tried to show it to the press (what few reporters didn't yawn in their faces, that is.)
Listen carefully, Wanderer, you might experience a brief moment of enlightenment: the footage was so gruesome and violent and sickening that no news channel in America would be allowed to air it.
Does this stir you from your mental slumber? Does it prod any of your synapses to something resembling consciousness? Networks that air things like "SAW III" could not put this stuff out where people could see it.
You and Takeru's arguments demonstrate more clearly than anything else the actual point being made here--- not that "they done it first, and mostest,".....but that spoiled, whining, petulant little western pukes, pampered from birth in the most liberalized society on earth, where the most worthless people on earth, professional tantrum throwers, can send the entire federal government scrambling by threatening to throw a fit, where spending the night in jail for rioting and being fed a stale peanut butter sandwich is considered grounds for suing for "police brutality," don't even have the smallest crumb of a beginning of a clue what 'torture' actually is.
They have ZERO perspective--- demonstrated by the fact that they can sit with their nose in the air and proclaim that scaring a prisoner with a faceful of water is almost (almost, o EVER so close!) to running electrical current through their genitals or hacking off parts of their bodies. They don't even have a clue how fekking stupid they look voluntarily administering this so called torture on themselves to try and outrage and shock people. (Nor, for that matter, how many of us would happily keep pouring the water till the bubbles stopped...)People who have gone through torture, REAL torture, who spent days on the floor of a cell in a puddle of their own blood and puke and shit, must be delighted to see these clueless western twats belittling their agony for the sake of some spoiled-infant political street-theatre.
The US military is using waterboarding and other tactics of interrogation--- ones that get the best results with the least amount of actual physical harm--- to get information of of, and here's the point now, my little snotlings, to get information out of
EVIL HUMAN BEINGS
who committed unspeakable atrocities on a daily basis--- and we're not talking water boarding--- on men, women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere not merely without blinking but with slavering unholy ululating glee... They record themselves doing it, and post it on the web for the world to admire.
A red-hot nail through the tongue of the prattling fools who would compare the former with the latter.
Here's a proposition, Wanderer. We'll set up two rooms for you. One has a couple of American interrogators in it, with all the accoutrements they use, including a water-boarding setup.
The other, we'll just use the Al Qaeda torture room the troops uncovered in Iraq last week, and turn it over to a couple of experienced fedayeen to use.
You get to pick in which one you spend the weekend.
Like dripping acid on them.
Or cutting out their tongues.
Or dragging their daughters and wives into the room and raping and killing them in front of the prisoner.
In at least one instance they dragged a man's pregnant wife into the room, slit open her belly, pulled out her intestines and her unborn baby, and left her to die there on the floor while he watched.
We have footage. the Pentagon tried to show it to the press (what few reporters didn't yawn in their faces, that is.)
Listen carefully, Wanderer, you might experience a brief moment of enlightenment: the footage was so gruesome and violent and sickening that no news channel in America would be allowed to air it.
Does this stir you from your mental slumber? Does it prod any of your synapses to something resembling consciousness? Networks that air things like "SAW III" could not put this stuff out where people could see it.
You and Takeru's arguments demonstrate more clearly than anything else the actual point being made here--- not that "they done it first, and mostest,".....but that spoiled, whining, petulant little western pukes, pampered from birth in the most liberalized society on earth, where the most worthless people on earth, professional tantrum throwers, can send the entire federal government scrambling by threatening to throw a fit, where spending the night in jail for rioting and being fed a stale peanut butter sandwich is considered grounds for suing for "police brutality," don't even have the smallest crumb of a beginning of a clue what 'torture' actually is.
They have ZERO perspective--- demonstrated by the fact that they can sit with their nose in the air and proclaim that scaring a prisoner with a faceful of water is almost (almost, o EVER so close!) to running electrical current through their genitals or hacking off parts of their bodies. They don't even have a clue how fekking stupid they look voluntarily administering this so called torture on themselves to try and outrage and shock people. (Nor, for that matter, how many of us would happily keep pouring the water till the bubbles stopped...)People who have gone through torture, REAL torture, who spent days on the floor of a cell in a puddle of their own blood and puke and shit, must be delighted to see these clueless western twats belittling their agony for the sake of some spoiled-infant political street-theatre.
The US military is using waterboarding and other tactics of interrogation--- ones that get the best results with the least amount of actual physical harm--- to get information of of, and here's the point now, my little snotlings, to get information out of
EVIL HUMAN BEINGS
who committed unspeakable atrocities on a daily basis--- and we're not talking water boarding--- on men, women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere not merely without blinking but with slavering unholy ululating glee... They record themselves doing it, and post it on the web for the world to admire.
A red-hot nail through the tongue of the prattling fools who would compare the former with the latter.
Here's a proposition, Wanderer. We'll set up two rooms for you. One has a couple of American interrogators in it, with all the accoutrements they use, including a water-boarding setup.
The other, we'll just use the Al Qaeda torture room the troops uncovered in Iraq last week, and turn it over to a couple of experienced fedayeen to use.
You get to pick in which one you spend the weekend.
Original
Women LIVE to rip each other to shreds. It starts from the moment they hit puberty and ends with the GRAVE. From high school on, and in every place I have ever worked, I have seen it--- wherever there are at least two females together the instant a third walks into the room they will put their heads together and proceed to verbally eviscerate her, criticizing her clothes, shoes, hair, makeup, body fat index, IQ, and imagined sexual promiscuity (which is SURELY how she got that promotion....)
I watched it in my own sister, too. From the time she turned twelve she selected--- well, everything--- based not on whether it looked good, or whether she liked it, but whether it would keep her from being criticized by the other girls. I watched other teenage girls do it too... desperately aping the most powerful and influential girls in their classes, putting on makeup and clothing like armor plating against verbal barrage.
So please don't tell me it's a "theory" that women turn into vicious weasels around each other. Especially when I see them wiping blood off their lips after every meal.
I watched it in my own sister, too. From the time she turned twelve she selected--- well, everything--- based not on whether it looked good, or whether she liked it, but whether it would keep her from being criticized by the other girls. I watched other teenage girls do it too... desperately aping the most powerful and influential girls in their classes, putting on makeup and clothing like armor plating against verbal barrage.
So please don't tell me it's a "theory" that women turn into vicious weasels around each other. Especially when I see them wiping blood off their lips after every meal.
Original
More importantly, Gravity, or Relativity, or any of the other science theories that Darwin apologists like to present as an "argument," can be tested by experiment-- and were in fact presented along with methods by which they could be tested.
Evolution is not. And moreover cannot. The "proof" evolutionists present consist of observable phenomena that they have interpreted strictly by the evolutionary theory, with no alternative explanations permitted.
Evolution is not. And moreover cannot. The "proof" evolutionists present consist of observable phenomena that they have interpreted strictly by the evolutionary theory, with no alternative explanations permitted.
Original
Variation and adaptation is not evolution. That's adaptability within the species.
That, you have seen.
What you have not seen is adaptation by beneficial mutation. You never have, and never will, see one species mutate into another.
End of discussion, dead horse, beaten flat, move along.
I'd sooner spend a lifetime debating a SCIENTOLOGIST than a Darwinist. They, at least, belong to a cult that members question from time to time.
You can question Archimedes, you can question Galileo, you can question Newton, you can question Einstein, but THOU SHALT NOT QUESTION DARWIN....
That, you have seen.
What you have not seen is adaptation by beneficial mutation. You never have, and never will, see one species mutate into another.
End of discussion, dead horse, beaten flat, move along.
I'd sooner spend a lifetime debating a SCIENTOLOGIST than a Darwinist. They, at least, belong to a cult that members question from time to time.
You can question Archimedes, you can question Galileo, you can question Newton, you can question Einstein, but THOU SHALT NOT QUESTION DARWIN....
Original
And I repeat, for the thousandth time, the interesting little factoid that they only started calling variation within the species and adaption to environment "micro-evolution" fairly recently--- within the last 20 years, in fact.
Even though no introduction of new genetic data takes place within "micro evolution"--- which means it is NOT, by Darwinist's own definition, evolution at all.
Evolution is the untestable-by-definition hypothesis that lifeforms transform into new species by means of gaining new genetic material and data through random accidental mutation.
My own (atheist, evolution believing) high school biology teacher made a POINT of differentiating between the two. That means as recently as the late 1980s they were still calling "micro evolution" by its proper name.
It's a semantic shuck-and-jive, done deliberately to imply that Creation believing scientists don't believe in genetic variation within a species (an observed natural phenomenon) or natural selection (again, an observed natural phenomenon.) Much like calling someone "racist" or "sexist" if they oppose quotas--- a cowardly ploy to PREVENT debate and SILENCE dissent.
This "debate" has been brought up over and over again and the only thing that has been established is that people who believe in intelligent design could find a sign out in space made of flaming letters a thousand lightyears high that spelled out "This Universe (C) God Almighty" and Darwinists would still be calling us "ignorant and anti-science."
Even though no introduction of new genetic data takes place within "micro evolution"--- which means it is NOT, by Darwinist's own definition, evolution at all.
Evolution is the untestable-by-definition hypothesis that lifeforms transform into new species by means of gaining new genetic material and data through random accidental mutation.
My own (atheist, evolution believing) high school biology teacher made a POINT of differentiating between the two. That means as recently as the late 1980s they were still calling "micro evolution" by its proper name.
It's a semantic shuck-and-jive, done deliberately to imply that Creation believing scientists don't believe in genetic variation within a species (an observed natural phenomenon) or natural selection (again, an observed natural phenomenon.) Much like calling someone "racist" or "sexist" if they oppose quotas--- a cowardly ploy to PREVENT debate and SILENCE dissent.
This "debate" has been brought up over and over again and the only thing that has been established is that people who believe in intelligent design could find a sign out in space made of flaming letters a thousand lightyears high that spelled out "This Universe (C) God Almighty" and Darwinists would still be calling us "ignorant and anti-science."
Original
No. What is forbidden is for man to lie with man, or woman to lie with woman.
It is a testimony of the shallowness of the modern world that it's not considered love if it doesn't involve lust. Not all that long ago it was perfectly common for people to have deeply passionate, yet completely platonic, relationships with dear friends. Even in biblical times, such as the friendship between David and Jonathan. It is only the advent of the pushy, obnoxious and self-serving exhibitionism of modern licentiousness that has made such passionate relationships "suspect."
Flamboyant lasciviousness destroys so much. One cannot have or express a deeply held love for a friend of the same gender anymore, for thanks to the public lechery of the depraved, they would be accused of sodomy. You can't even have a friend of the opposite gender without people sniggering that you're "shacking up." One cannot even hug a child without serious precaution, because the openly sexualized society sees any physical contact as a prelude to fornication...
It is a testimony of the shallowness of the modern world that it's not considered love if it doesn't involve lust. Not all that long ago it was perfectly common for people to have deeply passionate, yet completely platonic, relationships with dear friends. Even in biblical times, such as the friendship between David and Jonathan. It is only the advent of the pushy, obnoxious and self-serving exhibitionism of modern licentiousness that has made such passionate relationships "suspect."
Flamboyant lasciviousness destroys so much. One cannot have or express a deeply held love for a friend of the same gender anymore, for thanks to the public lechery of the depraved, they would be accused of sodomy. You can't even have a friend of the opposite gender without people sniggering that you're "shacking up." One cannot even hug a child without serious precaution, because the openly sexualized society sees any physical contact as a prelude to fornication...
Original
The "assumption of the existence of the supernatural" is nothing more, and nothing less, than the assumption of the existence of forces that (as of yet) lie outside our current ability to observe and measure. The belief in the existence of phenomena yet to be observed.
And this assumption is "unscientific" HOW, exactly?
But that is not what we're talking about when we talk about intelligent design vs. evolution, is it.
We're talking about the dispute between those who state that the only observed situation where order, structure, complexity and coherent information arise from randomness is at the application of intelligence. That otherwise, in accordance with the known laws of thermodynamics, order, structure, complexity and coherent information always breaks down to disorder. And that therefore the universe, and especially life itself, is too high a state of structure and organization and encoded information to have arisen from randomness, even given ten or a hundred or a thousand times the evolutionist's estimated lifespan of the universe....
And the evolutionists, who claim that the universe is billions of years older than astronomical data can account for , and whose theory requires that the known laws of physics and entropy run BACKWARDS, or even be suspended entirely, in order to accommodate them.
Evolutionists not only refuse to consider alternative theories to evolution, they demand that we ignore the principles of biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics--- not to mention the very rules of the scientific method--- in favor of it!
www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/astronomy.asp
www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i2/dna.asp
www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=45
And yet we, who observe that design has always irrevocably implied a designer, and who observe the design of the universe and of life itself, to be too complex to have arisen by chance, even within tens of billions of years.... WE are the unscientific?
It takes a special kind of stupid to conclude that it is "unscientific" to observe a design and infer, by weight of reason, a designer.
And this assumption is "unscientific" HOW, exactly?
But that is not what we're talking about when we talk about intelligent design vs. evolution, is it.
We're talking about the dispute between those who state that the only observed situation where order, structure, complexity and coherent information arise from randomness is at the application of intelligence. That otherwise, in accordance with the known laws of thermodynamics, order, structure, complexity and coherent information always breaks down to disorder. And that therefore the universe, and especially life itself, is too high a state of structure and organization and encoded information to have arisen from randomness, even given ten or a hundred or a thousand times the evolutionist's estimated lifespan of the universe....
And the evolutionists, who claim that the universe is billions of years older than astronomical data can account for , and whose theory requires that the known laws of physics and entropy run BACKWARDS, or even be suspended entirely, in order to accommodate them.
Evolutionists not only refuse to consider alternative theories to evolution, they demand that we ignore the principles of biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics--- not to mention the very rules of the scientific method--- in favor of it!
www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/astronomy.asp
www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i2/dna.asp
www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=45
And yet we, who observe that design has always irrevocably implied a designer, and who observe the design of the universe and of life itself, to be too complex to have arisen by chance, even within tens of billions of years.... WE are the unscientific?
It takes a special kind of stupid to conclude that it is "unscientific" to observe a design and infer, by weight of reason, a designer.
Original
Besides which: explain to me again why the FATHER commits the unspeakable crime, yet the CHILD is subjected to summary execution?
If it's a life, it's a life. No ifs, ands, buts or excuses.
"Providing for the children." Tell you what--- my sister has three daughters. If you don't agree to pay for their upkeep for the next eighteen years, she and I will go and drown them in the bathtub.
What? That's horrible? Barbaric? Evil? Funny, you just tried to do the same thing to me--- by saying that if I won't underwrite the child you conceived, you'll kill it and blame ME for it.
Don't expect me to bribe YOU to get YOU to face your responsibilities.
If it's a life, it's a life. No ifs, ands, buts, or excuses.
"Quality of life--"
Well, you're fat, ugly, and out of shape, and probably poor to boot. I think I should shoot you and put you out of your misery.
What? That's horrible? Barbaric? Evil? Funny, you don't feel that way about devaluing someone else.
Life is SACRED--- its value was given it by the God that granted it, not by someone else's opinion of how pleasant or miserable it might be. And for that matter, the belief that a life isn't worth living if it isn't 100% free of all pain, difficulty or obstacle is the ideology of a spoiled, pampered, stupid child of privilege who thinks their life has ended if they get a pimple on prom night or get an F in chemistry.
If it's a life, it's a life. No ifs, ands, buts, or excuses.
If it's a life, it's a life. No ifs, ands, buts or excuses.
"Providing for the children." Tell you what--- my sister has three daughters. If you don't agree to pay for their upkeep for the next eighteen years, she and I will go and drown them in the bathtub.
What? That's horrible? Barbaric? Evil? Funny, you just tried to do the same thing to me--- by saying that if I won't underwrite the child you conceived, you'll kill it and blame ME for it.
Don't expect me to bribe YOU to get YOU to face your responsibilities.
If it's a life, it's a life. No ifs, ands, buts, or excuses.
"Quality of life--"
Well, you're fat, ugly, and out of shape, and probably poor to boot. I think I should shoot you and put you out of your misery.
What? That's horrible? Barbaric? Evil? Funny, you don't feel that way about devaluing someone else.
Life is SACRED--- its value was given it by the God that granted it, not by someone else's opinion of how pleasant or miserable it might be. And for that matter, the belief that a life isn't worth living if it isn't 100% free of all pain, difficulty or obstacle is the ideology of a spoiled, pampered, stupid child of privilege who thinks their life has ended if they get a pimple on prom night or get an F in chemistry.
If it's a life, it's a life. No ifs, ands, buts, or excuses.
Original
Fossils can be formed quite rapidly. There are modern examples of petrification of plants, animals, and even man-made objects that took place within years, months or even days. And tens of thousands of years isn't exactly SHORT, you know. In fact, rapid burial... in say, the sediments of a flood?.... followed by fossilization over a few thousand years is quite feasible.
The Flood model explains the well preserved state of many fossils (in nature, dead things tend to get pulled apart and eaten long before they get buried.) It also accounts for the stratification (an observed phenomenon in the deposits left by Mt. St. Helens---- literal hundreds of feet of dirt, mud, rock and ash left in layer-cake patterns over hundreds of square miles around the volcano by the flooding torrents of a volcanically disturbed lake...--- then for a topper, cut into ravines hundreds of feet deep.... canyons cut within months that evolutionists would claim took millenia), and also accounts for the anomalies (trees fossilized upright through dozens of layers, creatures in "incorrect" strata, and so forth.)
The Flood model explains the well preserved state of many fossils (in nature, dead things tend to get pulled apart and eaten long before they get buried.) It also accounts for the stratification (an observed phenomenon in the deposits left by Mt. St. Helens---- literal hundreds of feet of dirt, mud, rock and ash left in layer-cake patterns over hundreds of square miles around the volcano by the flooding torrents of a volcanically disturbed lake...--- then for a topper, cut into ravines hundreds of feet deep.... canyons cut within months that evolutionists would claim took millenia), and also accounts for the anomalies (trees fossilized upright through dozens of layers, creatures in "incorrect" strata, and so forth.)
Original
Archaeopteryx for the win, indeed.
Too bad "Archie" is found in the same strata as "complete" birds....
and a few have been found that are *further down* than archie.
Archie also had fully developed feathers, wings, and other accoutrements of his species, rather than half-developed features. He wasn't a missing link, he was an oddity on par with the platypus or the echidna.... a bird with teeth.
If you stuck a platypus in a rock, they'd be yammering about the missing link between ducks and beavers, and decorating museums with sequential paintings of dam-building rodents slowly morphing into waterfowl....
Look, you slam into the same problem no matter how glib you get: by your own stated laws of evolutionary progress, for every successful lifeform out there you should be up to your armpits, first of all, in intermediary forms--- things like Archie should be the rule, not the exception. There should be a literal cascade of intermediary forms, both living and fossilized, between reptiles and birds. Instead you have reptiles---- then a bird with teeth and wing-claws---- then "normal" birds.
And even deeper than that, you should be buried alive under a mountain of failures. The statistical odds of a random genetic mutation being beneficial or benign rather than detrimental or instantly fatal are staggering. So it took lots of trial and error over unimaginable time, you say. Fine, let's grant that. In which case for every SUCCESSFUL living creature there should be millions of disastrous failures, aborted, stillborn, badly deformed, things that died almost instantly or were killed almost instantly because their defects made them easy prey. For every archie-bird, you should have millions of his brothers, sisters, cousins, and uncles fifteen times removed who keeled over stone cold dead because their deformed limbs and innards were (and this is the important part) ALMOST put together right in a more beneficial design by their mutated DNA. Multiply this by all the successful species who ran amuck over the prehistoric earth, and the fossil record should be an abattoir of foetal failures and malformed freaks. Death from genetic misadventure should be the single most common cause of mortality in nature.
But we don't see that, do we?
No, we don't. We see creatures who were--- and are--- thriving, successful, and well adapted to their environments. In fact they were SO well adapted that the virtual disappearance of them has had scientists scratching their heads and waving their hands about giant asteroids and other fantastic calamities.
You have a great theory (see also "wild-assed tale.") All you're lacking is the material evidence it actually happened.
Too bad "Archie" is found in the same strata as "complete" birds....
and a few have been found that are *further down* than archie.
Archie also had fully developed feathers, wings, and other accoutrements of his species, rather than half-developed features. He wasn't a missing link, he was an oddity on par with the platypus or the echidna.... a bird with teeth.
If you stuck a platypus in a rock, they'd be yammering about the missing link between ducks and beavers, and decorating museums with sequential paintings of dam-building rodents slowly morphing into waterfowl....
Look, you slam into the same problem no matter how glib you get: by your own stated laws of evolutionary progress, for every successful lifeform out there you should be up to your armpits, first of all, in intermediary forms--- things like Archie should be the rule, not the exception. There should be a literal cascade of intermediary forms, both living and fossilized, between reptiles and birds. Instead you have reptiles---- then a bird with teeth and wing-claws---- then "normal" birds.
And even deeper than that, you should be buried alive under a mountain of failures. The statistical odds of a random genetic mutation being beneficial or benign rather than detrimental or instantly fatal are staggering. So it took lots of trial and error over unimaginable time, you say. Fine, let's grant that. In which case for every SUCCESSFUL living creature there should be millions of disastrous failures, aborted, stillborn, badly deformed, things that died almost instantly or were killed almost instantly because their defects made them easy prey. For every archie-bird, you should have millions of his brothers, sisters, cousins, and uncles fifteen times removed who keeled over stone cold dead because their deformed limbs and innards were (and this is the important part) ALMOST put together right in a more beneficial design by their mutated DNA. Multiply this by all the successful species who ran amuck over the prehistoric earth, and the fossil record should be an abattoir of foetal failures and malformed freaks. Death from genetic misadventure should be the single most common cause of mortality in nature.
But we don't see that, do we?
No, we don't. We see creatures who were--- and are--- thriving, successful, and well adapted to their environments. In fact they were SO well adapted that the virtual disappearance of them has had scientists scratching their heads and waving their hands about giant asteroids and other fantastic calamities.
You have a great theory (see also "wild-assed tale.") All you're lacking is the material evidence it actually happened.
Original
Irreducible complexity means that there is no way to get from point A to point B by incremental steps--- or rather that any possible increments would result in a creature that is LESS suited for survival and thus would quickly perish--- either through insufficient function or outright lethal DYSfunction.
Consider: Avians are supposed to have evolved from reptiles, with forelimbs gradually changing into feathered wings. Yet a creature with half-legs, half-wings--- at any ratio you care to name--- would be nothing but a half-arsed cripple, and ready prey. Worse, birds have tube-based lungs; reptiles, like mammals, have sac-based lungs. A half-and-half would suffocate.
The old "God of the Gaps" accusation, I see. Yes, very imaginative. Back in the 1800s, perhaps.
It is not "childish simplification" to apply Occam's Razor to the question of the origins of life and the species. Nor it is it the retreat of the ignorant--- many of the greatest scientific minds of the past and of today were and are creationists and proponents of intelligent design. A Creationist is someone who is convinced that intelligent design is the best, simplest, most consistent, and most rational explanation for the evidence presented; that the most straightforward and rational explanation for such an intelligent design is an Intelligent Designer. That does not make them "stupid" or "lazy."
Stupid and Lazy is to merely swim with the current of popular opinion-- or rather elitist opinion--- for fear of being mocked.
Consider: Avians are supposed to have evolved from reptiles, with forelimbs gradually changing into feathered wings. Yet a creature with half-legs, half-wings--- at any ratio you care to name--- would be nothing but a half-arsed cripple, and ready prey. Worse, birds have tube-based lungs; reptiles, like mammals, have sac-based lungs. A half-and-half would suffocate.
The old "God of the Gaps" accusation, I see. Yes, very imaginative. Back in the 1800s, perhaps.
It is not "childish simplification" to apply Occam's Razor to the question of the origins of life and the species. Nor it is it the retreat of the ignorant--- many of the greatest scientific minds of the past and of today were and are creationists and proponents of intelligent design. A Creationist is someone who is convinced that intelligent design is the best, simplest, most consistent, and most rational explanation for the evidence presented; that the most straightforward and rational explanation for such an intelligent design is an Intelligent Designer. That does not make them "stupid" or "lazy."
Stupid and Lazy is to merely swim with the current of popular opinion-- or rather elitist opinion--- for fear of being mocked.
Original
Maybe because the virulent enmity atheists routinely demonstrate towards the Christian history, foundation and culture of this nation make it a damned legitimate question.
Atheists will travel halfway across the country merely to stop a teenage girl from praying at her own graduation. They'll start protest marches and petitions and lawsuits to shut down churches, christian schools, creationist museums, and to scrape the engraving "in God we trust" off our money. They conspire to throw people out of public office for being religious (According to atheists, NOTHING threatened America during the aftermath of 9-11 more than the fact that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush held a prayer group.) Atheists routinely labor to re-write America's history--- trying to claim the devout Christians among the founding fathers were "Deists," and that the Deists were Agnostics, and the Agnostics Atheist.... nothing will make an Atheist historian grind his teeth in clench-jawed, tendon-popping, fist-shaking fury like reminding him that the authors of the Constitution began their arduous task at the behest of Benjamin Franklin by praying, or that one of the first things they did to the capitol building was add a CHAPEL. Or that, when working on the Federalist papers, they referenced not Man but GOD as the author of the human rights with which they consecrated the paper of the Constitution.
They despise and attack the churches we attend, the faith we aspire to, and the God whom we worship.... and yet they want us to believe they do not despise us as well? why should we believe those who at their mean average routinely assault our values, and even at their best openly puff themselves up as being superior beings to the rest of us, when they say that they do not hate our Country?
But look, if a man claimed to love a woman--- and then went out every evening and URINATED on her father's GRAVE--- wouldn't you suspect that his claims of affection for her were just a wee bit BOGUS?
Get me straight, I have observed that there are many agnostics and atheists who do love this country and do have strong conservative values.*
But quite frankly it's being a bit obtuse to openly set your lance against the deepest held values of the majority of Americans and then wonder why people think you hate America.
*(I consider the fact that they have strong conservative, objective values, yet refuse to believe in the AUTHOR of those values, to be a state of bad cognitive dissonance... It takes a profound distortion of logic to imagine that civilization and human morality could arise spontaneously from the anarchistic, selfish, and homicidal mosh-pit of a Darwinian cosmos.)
Atheists will travel halfway across the country merely to stop a teenage girl from praying at her own graduation. They'll start protest marches and petitions and lawsuits to shut down churches, christian schools, creationist museums, and to scrape the engraving "in God we trust" off our money. They conspire to throw people out of public office for being religious (According to atheists, NOTHING threatened America during the aftermath of 9-11 more than the fact that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush held a prayer group.) Atheists routinely labor to re-write America's history--- trying to claim the devout Christians among the founding fathers were "Deists," and that the Deists were Agnostics, and the Agnostics Atheist.... nothing will make an Atheist historian grind his teeth in clench-jawed, tendon-popping, fist-shaking fury like reminding him that the authors of the Constitution began their arduous task at the behest of Benjamin Franklin by praying, or that one of the first things they did to the capitol building was add a CHAPEL. Or that, when working on the Federalist papers, they referenced not Man but GOD as the author of the human rights with which they consecrated the paper of the Constitution.
They despise and attack the churches we attend, the faith we aspire to, and the God whom we worship.... and yet they want us to believe they do not despise us as well? why should we believe those who at their mean average routinely assault our values, and even at their best openly puff themselves up as being superior beings to the rest of us, when they say that they do not hate our Country?
But look, if a man claimed to love a woman--- and then went out every evening and URINATED on her father's GRAVE--- wouldn't you suspect that his claims of affection for her were just a wee bit BOGUS?
Get me straight, I have observed that there are many agnostics and atheists who do love this country and do have strong conservative values.*
But quite frankly it's being a bit obtuse to openly set your lance against the deepest held values of the majority of Americans and then wonder why people think you hate America.
*(I consider the fact that they have strong conservative, objective values, yet refuse to believe in the AUTHOR of those values, to be a state of bad cognitive dissonance... It takes a profound distortion of logic to imagine that civilization and human morality could arise spontaneously from the anarchistic, selfish, and homicidal mosh-pit of a Darwinian cosmos.)
Original
Nothing quite so martyred as an atheist who's been confronted. Immediately they're the "victims" of "religious persecution." Been buying their own hollywood-made press for too long. Sorry, but you have NOT Inherited the Wind.
You wanted to know why people in America have such animosity towards atheists. I told you. You counter-argue that this is the ACLU, not atheists in general. Of course not: you're not the ACLU....
You just indulge in the same humanist belief system that guides and motivates them.
You can't drink from the same bottle as someone else without getting some of their backwash. You apparently consider us naive, superstitious and backwards, but you had best clear your mind of the notion that we're STUPID. It doesn't take much observation to notice that every time someone raises a litigous, anti-religious uproar, the word "atheist" figures prominently somewhere in their title.
You come in proclaiming that you share the same beliefs as the persons who have been tearing down our creches and our war memorials, criminalizing public prayer and attacking our faith, and quite literally and openly blaming our religion for every single earthly ill, then you've got a lot of gall to go reaching for the perpetual victim crying towel when you find out your "faith" is about as popular as a Klansman at a Million Man March.
There's only one problem with Rain Simpson's cute little cartoon. According to the homosexual lobby, their members are dying of AIDS because of "christian persecution."
You got that down? They got that sexually transmitted, incurable, 100% lethal disease, and it's all Christians' fault because Christians are MEAN, and keep telling them that what they did to GET the disease is wrong.
Not only that, it's the Christians' fault that they have syphilis, herpes, foecal impactions, gay bowel syndrome, and bad hair day. It's Christians' fault that they just broke up with their 13th gay lover. It's Christians' fault that no culture in the history of the human race, not even ANCIENT GREECE, has ever called homosexual relationships a 'marriage;' it's Christians' fault that gays feel alienated, lonely, depressed, and suicidal even in communities, cities and states where there isn't a sermonizing Christian to be found and their lifestyle is embraced with open arms; it's Christians' fault that they aren't normal; it's Christians' fault that they aren't happy.
That's human nature, as old as Adam and Eve. Screw up your life, and then scream WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME, GOD?..... But you don't BELIEVE in God, that's right. Gotta find SOMEONE to blame for how miserable you are....
Oh, let's try blaming the people who DO believe in God. We'll call them "counterrevolutionaries." Or maybe "superstitious throwbacks."
Imagine no Religion.... if we kill all the Christians, that'd be a start. Right?
You wanted to know why people in America have such animosity towards atheists. I told you. You counter-argue that this is the ACLU, not atheists in general. Of course not: you're not the ACLU....
You just indulge in the same humanist belief system that guides and motivates them.
You can't drink from the same bottle as someone else without getting some of their backwash. You apparently consider us naive, superstitious and backwards, but you had best clear your mind of the notion that we're STUPID. It doesn't take much observation to notice that every time someone raises a litigous, anti-religious uproar, the word "atheist" figures prominently somewhere in their title.
You come in proclaiming that you share the same beliefs as the persons who have been tearing down our creches and our war memorials, criminalizing public prayer and attacking our faith, and quite literally and openly blaming our religion for every single earthly ill, then you've got a lot of gall to go reaching for the perpetual victim crying towel when you find out your "faith" is about as popular as a Klansman at a Million Man March.
There's only one problem with Rain Simpson's cute little cartoon. According to the homosexual lobby, their members are dying of AIDS because of "christian persecution."
You got that down? They got that sexually transmitted, incurable, 100% lethal disease, and it's all Christians' fault because Christians are MEAN, and keep telling them that what they did to GET the disease is wrong.
Not only that, it's the Christians' fault that they have syphilis, herpes, foecal impactions, gay bowel syndrome, and bad hair day. It's Christians' fault that they just broke up with their 13th gay lover. It's Christians' fault that no culture in the history of the human race, not even ANCIENT GREECE, has ever called homosexual relationships a 'marriage;' it's Christians' fault that gays feel alienated, lonely, depressed, and suicidal even in communities, cities and states where there isn't a sermonizing Christian to be found and their lifestyle is embraced with open arms; it's Christians' fault that they aren't normal; it's Christians' fault that they aren't happy.
That's human nature, as old as Adam and Eve. Screw up your life, and then scream WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME, GOD?..... But you don't BELIEVE in God, that's right. Gotta find SOMEONE to blame for how miserable you are....
Oh, let's try blaming the people who DO believe in God. We'll call them "counterrevolutionaries." Or maybe "superstitious throwbacks."
Imagine no Religion.... if we kill all the Christians, that'd be a start. Right?
Original
1)"Who says Evolution and God are incompatible?"
A: Noone. So long as you're talking about any God except the Christian one.
The Genesis record of Creation is not just a charming fable. It is, literally, the foundation of all Christian theology, and is referenced at every point afterwards. It gives not only the origin of all living things but the origin of SIN and DEATH in the world.... which is the whole point of Christ's birth, crucifixion, and resurrection. The Bible says that sin and death entered the world with the fall of man. Evolution, theistic or otherwise, says that billions of years of suffering and sickness and violence and death took place before the first man ever existed.
In case it isn't obvious, these are two mutually exclusive claims.
If evolution, theistic or otherwise, is to be believed, then that makes all the prophets, the apostles, and even Jesus Christ Himself eitherfools, madmen, or liars, and falsifies every single claim throughout the bible about sin, death, and humanity.
Evolution, I am quite sure, is perfectly compatible with any number of pagan or Eastern or new-age religions, but it is irrevocably incompatible with Christianity.
A theistic evolutionist may believe in a God, but barring an epic level of cognitive dissonance, he does not believe in the one described in the Bible.
2)"But isn't evolution established science/ the cornerstone of all biological science?"
A: There's a vast difference between scientifically proven and dogmatically accepted. At one point phlogiston, ether, the ptolemaic model of the solar system, and horror vacui were all "established science." It is only because those science "facts" were overturned centuries ago that we have forgotten the scorn heaped upon those that questioned the Word of Science. The belief in evolution is neither uniform nor universal. There are tens of thousands of scientists, dead and living--- including several atheists!---- who looked at the material evidence and concluded that not only was the theory of evolution flawed but it was, at root, complete unscientific garbage.
As to it being, as one writer claimed, "the cornerstone of all biological science," it is.... in two senses, it is. First in the sense that all discoveries in the biological sciences are automatically scrutinized through the tinted lens of evolutionary dogma.... much like the way all meteorological data is interpreted through the lens of Global Warming.
Consider the ancient maps of the world; how grossly distorted they are, and how the cartographers populated their work with nonexistent oceans, fanciful islands and mythical continents--- kingdoms in the middle of the atlantic and atop the North Pole and in the middle of a grossly deformed middle east, a New World continent that barely resembles the real one.... it is only in retrospect that the "scholastic knowledge" that formed the cornerstone of their work is revealed as what it was--- superstition, misinformation and bias dressed as measured fact.
Evolution is the Canon, the dogma, the yardstick and scale by which all discovery is evaluated, and only God knows how badly distorted our knowledge of the living world is made by this biased mental cartography.
In the second sense, Evolution is the basis of all biological science in that any scientific research that does not contain the proper shibboleths of the Evolutionary Doctrine is scientific research that is unfunded, unreviewed, and unaccepted.
Again, much as the only way to assure grant money keeps flowing is to make the proper mouth-sounds about environmental issues (in fact scientists nowadays are advised that the one way to almost guarantee a government grant is to somehow tie your work, no matter how arcane, to Global Warming), all biological research at some point has to make the proper mouth-sounds about "evolving" this or "evolution" that or "ancestral branch of the tree of life," or what have you. Two organisms don't have a similar structure; they have a common ancestor. You don't have two different breeds of the same species, you have an evolutionary branch-off. This isn't an internal organ for which we have not yet defined the purpose; it's a vestigial remnant.
Scientists who do not make these mouth-noises... or Agnostica Forbid, actually QUESTION them.... do not get promotions, do not get grants, do not get prestige or recognition, and if they are too adamant about refusing to burn their pinch of incense to Caesar, they do not get out of College with a diploma. You WILL use evolutionary theory, you WILL present your data as interpreted by evolutionary models, or you will spend the rest of your short career regretting it!
3)"But what about the fossil record?"
A: What of it? The fossil record consists of the remains of millions of animals and plants, buried under countless strata of sedimentary rock. The evolutionist believes this was formed over billions of years of slow accumulation of dead animals and soil. The Creationist believes it was formed rapidly, as masses of creatures were buried under the layers of sediment deposited by the Great Flood. The fossil record is not so much a piece of evidence as it is actually the phenomena in question itself.
The two sides both have a hypothesis about it; the question is which one best matches the observable evidence.
1) Both experimentation and field observation have shown that stratified sedimentation, canyon erosion, and fossilization can occur quite rapidly--- within years or even months.
2)The creationist's model accounts not only for the observed regular features but for the IRREGULARITIES that the evolutionary model can only shrug at.... such as multi-strata fossils (trees), anomalous fossils (ones in the "wrong" layers), inverted or missing strata (ladies and gents, the only place the evolutionary column exists is in the pages of a high school textbook), and physical evidence of rapid burial (entire skeletons are regularly preserved with little or no damage from scavengers; imprints of scales, feathers, footprints, etc; fossils buried with food still in their mouths--- one in particular of a fish swallowing another; entire jumbled shoals of fish and herds of beasts, many apparently writhing in death throes such as archaeopteryx....)
4)But what about carbon dating and other radio-isotope dating methods?
A: Well, they're an interesting THEORY. But in execution they're awful.
Look, all radio-isotope methods of dating, you have a radioactive element, a radioactive byproduct, and a theoretical half-life (how long it takes half the radioactive element to turn into the byproduct.) You take a sample, analyze it, and measure the ratio of the isotope to the byproduct, do a little math, and voila-- estimated age.
The only problem is that in practice it's less accurate than a broken clock. Again and again, materials and substances known to be only a few years, months, or centuries old have been dated by these methods incorrectly by at least 3 or 4 orders of magnitude, and often by thousands or millions of years.
See, it's only as strong as it's weakest assumption. The assumptions are:
1)that a given plant or animal in the fossil record absorbed the same amount of radioactive isotope as a typical plant or animal today.
2)That there was not more or less of this isotope available in the environment as today.
3)That some of the radioactive element, and/or its byproduct, did not seep in or leach out during the process of fossilization.... and in light of the fact that fossilization involves just THAT--- the leaching out of the fossils original materials, and the leaching IN of minerals to take its place--- this fact alone should throw the whole dating method right out the window.
4)that radioactive decay is 100% consistent and that there is nothing that might accelerate or decelerate it in nature.
5)That there is no observer bias. Consider: the archaeologist in the field sends a sample in to the lab-- with a tag describing what layer it was found in, and how old he EXPECTS it to be. The lab worker then tests the sample-- and discards any "erroneous" results that he gets. The accuracy of the fossil date is verified by the strata, the accuracy of the date on the strata is validated by the fossils in it, and the method for dating either is routinely grossly incorrect when tested against verifiable sources.
When it regularly chimes thirteen o'clock, the only thing you can say for certain is that it's time to get a new clock.
5)"But Creationism isn't Science!"
A:
The debate between evolution and creation is the question of whether the Universe and the Life within it were made by an intelligence which lies outside our current observation, or are merely the consequence of a spontaneous, statistically unlikely accident.... and which theory is in best accordance with the observed material evidence. At what point is this an unscientific question or process? We are not claiming to analyze the supernatural or the Creator: we are presenting the supposition that the structure, organization and harmony of Nature is evidence that a Creator outside of nature exists. But evolutionists have creatively re-written the rules according to the standard Vision of the Anointed.
"We are morally/intellectually superior, for we are progressive/evolutionist(agnostic-atheist-skeptic), which makes us more compassionate/scientific than others. Therefore anyone who disagrees with evolution is morally/intellectually inferior, and their arguments are dismissable as nonprogressive/unscientific."
"Creationism isn't science!"
Um, according to WHOM, exactly?
That's right. According to the very people who're going to be out of a lot of very cushy jobs if any theory other than evolution gains scientific acceptance. Under any other circumstances, your Bullshit detector would be going off like a klaxon. But evolution, like most other confidence games, is largely embraced because it panders to the some of the worst in human nature--- particularly the desperate desire to feel intellectually and morally superior to other people, especially any deeply resented moral authority figures.
There isn't a persona alive who doesn't gain some perverse and base satisfaction out of "proving" the priest, minister, or rabbi "wrong;" out of gaining intellectual authority to tell their fuddy-duddy parents or preacher how STUPID and BACKWARD they are; out of sneering up their sleeves at the gullible and ignorant plebes.
So instead of questioning the fact that the assertions---that Evolution is the One True Science, ALL HAIL DARWIN! and that the only competition to their dogma are non-scientists--- are being made by the very people whose bank accounts and backsides are padded by it, they go along with it it... gladly. Cheerfully. Lock, stock, and barrel. And they will RUIN anyone who, by questioning Darwin (ALL HAIL DARWIN! PBUH!) threatens their elite big-boy chair status, their government gravy-train, or their sense of smug self satisfaction.
A: Noone. So long as you're talking about any God except the Christian one.
The Genesis record of Creation is not just a charming fable. It is, literally, the foundation of all Christian theology, and is referenced at every point afterwards. It gives not only the origin of all living things but the origin of SIN and DEATH in the world.... which is the whole point of Christ's birth, crucifixion, and resurrection. The Bible says that sin and death entered the world with the fall of man. Evolution, theistic or otherwise, says that billions of years of suffering and sickness and violence and death took place before the first man ever existed.
In case it isn't obvious, these are two mutually exclusive claims.
If evolution, theistic or otherwise, is to be believed, then that makes all the prophets, the apostles, and even Jesus Christ Himself eitherfools, madmen, or liars, and falsifies every single claim throughout the bible about sin, death, and humanity.
Evolution, I am quite sure, is perfectly compatible with any number of pagan or Eastern or new-age religions, but it is irrevocably incompatible with Christianity.
A theistic evolutionist may believe in a God, but barring an epic level of cognitive dissonance, he does not believe in the one described in the Bible.
2)"But isn't evolution established science/ the cornerstone of all biological science?"
A: There's a vast difference between scientifically proven and dogmatically accepted. At one point phlogiston, ether, the ptolemaic model of the solar system, and horror vacui were all "established science." It is only because those science "facts" were overturned centuries ago that we have forgotten the scorn heaped upon those that questioned the Word of Science. The belief in evolution is neither uniform nor universal. There are tens of thousands of scientists, dead and living--- including several atheists!---- who looked at the material evidence and concluded that not only was the theory of evolution flawed but it was, at root, complete unscientific garbage.
As to it being, as one writer claimed, "the cornerstone of all biological science," it is.... in two senses, it is. First in the sense that all discoveries in the biological sciences are automatically scrutinized through the tinted lens of evolutionary dogma.... much like the way all meteorological data is interpreted through the lens of Global Warming.
Consider the ancient maps of the world; how grossly distorted they are, and how the cartographers populated their work with nonexistent oceans, fanciful islands and mythical continents--- kingdoms in the middle of the atlantic and atop the North Pole and in the middle of a grossly deformed middle east, a New World continent that barely resembles the real one.... it is only in retrospect that the "scholastic knowledge" that formed the cornerstone of their work is revealed as what it was--- superstition, misinformation and bias dressed as measured fact.
Evolution is the Canon, the dogma, the yardstick and scale by which all discovery is evaluated, and only God knows how badly distorted our knowledge of the living world is made by this biased mental cartography.
In the second sense, Evolution is the basis of all biological science in that any scientific research that does not contain the proper shibboleths of the Evolutionary Doctrine is scientific research that is unfunded, unreviewed, and unaccepted.
Again, much as the only way to assure grant money keeps flowing is to make the proper mouth-sounds about environmental issues (in fact scientists nowadays are advised that the one way to almost guarantee a government grant is to somehow tie your work, no matter how arcane, to Global Warming), all biological research at some point has to make the proper mouth-sounds about "evolving" this or "evolution" that or "ancestral branch of the tree of life," or what have you. Two organisms don't have a similar structure; they have a common ancestor. You don't have two different breeds of the same species, you have an evolutionary branch-off. This isn't an internal organ for which we have not yet defined the purpose; it's a vestigial remnant.
Scientists who do not make these mouth-noises... or Agnostica Forbid, actually QUESTION them.... do not get promotions, do not get grants, do not get prestige or recognition, and if they are too adamant about refusing to burn their pinch of incense to Caesar, they do not get out of College with a diploma. You WILL use evolutionary theory, you WILL present your data as interpreted by evolutionary models, or you will spend the rest of your short career regretting it!
3)"But what about the fossil record?"
A: What of it? The fossil record consists of the remains of millions of animals and plants, buried under countless strata of sedimentary rock. The evolutionist believes this was formed over billions of years of slow accumulation of dead animals and soil. The Creationist believes it was formed rapidly, as masses of creatures were buried under the layers of sediment deposited by the Great Flood. The fossil record is not so much a piece of evidence as it is actually the phenomena in question itself.
The two sides both have a hypothesis about it; the question is which one best matches the observable evidence.
1) Both experimentation and field observation have shown that stratified sedimentation, canyon erosion, and fossilization can occur quite rapidly--- within years or even months.
2)The creationist's model accounts not only for the observed regular features but for the IRREGULARITIES that the evolutionary model can only shrug at.... such as multi-strata fossils (trees), anomalous fossils (ones in the "wrong" layers), inverted or missing strata (ladies and gents, the only place the evolutionary column exists is in the pages of a high school textbook), and physical evidence of rapid burial (entire skeletons are regularly preserved with little or no damage from scavengers; imprints of scales, feathers, footprints, etc; fossils buried with food still in their mouths--- one in particular of a fish swallowing another; entire jumbled shoals of fish and herds of beasts, many apparently writhing in death throes such as archaeopteryx....)
4)But what about carbon dating and other radio-isotope dating methods?
A: Well, they're an interesting THEORY. But in execution they're awful.
Look, all radio-isotope methods of dating, you have a radioactive element, a radioactive byproduct, and a theoretical half-life (how long it takes half the radioactive element to turn into the byproduct.) You take a sample, analyze it, and measure the ratio of the isotope to the byproduct, do a little math, and voila-- estimated age.
The only problem is that in practice it's less accurate than a broken clock. Again and again, materials and substances known to be only a few years, months, or centuries old have been dated by these methods incorrectly by at least 3 or 4 orders of magnitude, and often by thousands or millions of years.
See, it's only as strong as it's weakest assumption. The assumptions are:
1)that a given plant or animal in the fossil record absorbed the same amount of radioactive isotope as a typical plant or animal today.
2)That there was not more or less of this isotope available in the environment as today.
3)That some of the radioactive element, and/or its byproduct, did not seep in or leach out during the process of fossilization.... and in light of the fact that fossilization involves just THAT--- the leaching out of the fossils original materials, and the leaching IN of minerals to take its place--- this fact alone should throw the whole dating method right out the window.
4)that radioactive decay is 100% consistent and that there is nothing that might accelerate or decelerate it in nature.
5)That there is no observer bias. Consider: the archaeologist in the field sends a sample in to the lab-- with a tag describing what layer it was found in, and how old he EXPECTS it to be. The lab worker then tests the sample-- and discards any "erroneous" results that he gets. The accuracy of the fossil date is verified by the strata, the accuracy of the date on the strata is validated by the fossils in it, and the method for dating either is routinely grossly incorrect when tested against verifiable sources.
When it regularly chimes thirteen o'clock, the only thing you can say for certain is that it's time to get a new clock.
5)"But Creationism isn't Science!"
A:
The debate between evolution and creation is the question of whether the Universe and the Life within it were made by an intelligence which lies outside our current observation, or are merely the consequence of a spontaneous, statistically unlikely accident.... and which theory is in best accordance with the observed material evidence. At what point is this an unscientific question or process? We are not claiming to analyze the supernatural or the Creator: we are presenting the supposition that the structure, organization and harmony of Nature is evidence that a Creator outside of nature exists. But evolutionists have creatively re-written the rules according to the standard Vision of the Anointed.
"We are morally/intellectually superior, for we are progressive/evolutionist(agnostic-atheist-skeptic), which makes us more compassionate/scientific than others. Therefore anyone who disagrees with evolution is morally/intellectually inferior, and their arguments are dismissable as nonprogressive/unscientific."
"Creationism isn't science!"
Um, according to WHOM, exactly?
That's right. According to the very people who're going to be out of a lot of very cushy jobs if any theory other than evolution gains scientific acceptance. Under any other circumstances, your Bullshit detector would be going off like a klaxon. But evolution, like most other confidence games, is largely embraced because it panders to the some of the worst in human nature--- particularly the desperate desire to feel intellectually and morally superior to other people, especially any deeply resented moral authority figures.
There isn't a persona alive who doesn't gain some perverse and base satisfaction out of "proving" the priest, minister, or rabbi "wrong;" out of gaining intellectual authority to tell their fuddy-duddy parents or preacher how STUPID and BACKWARD they are; out of sneering up their sleeves at the gullible and ignorant plebes.
So instead of questioning the fact that the assertions---that Evolution is the One True Science, ALL HAIL DARWIN! and that the only competition to their dogma are non-scientists--- are being made by the very people whose bank accounts and backsides are padded by it, they go along with it it... gladly. Cheerfully. Lock, stock, and barrel. And they will RUIN anyone who, by questioning Darwin (ALL HAIL DARWIN! PBUH!) threatens their elite big-boy chair status, their government gravy-train, or their sense of smug self satisfaction.
Original
"And that'd be another thing, coming in from the other direction this time. Evil = sexually revealing, good = chaste. Not good press for the lot of us."
Uhhh, your point?
Huff and sniff all you wish, but chastity is still a virtue, regardless of how little it's valued among Our Liberated Betters.
And a slut is a slut, and ain't nothin' but. If you want respect your clothing should not be bought at "Why No, I'm not a Teenage Hooker."
I have less than ZERO use for the "Women In Refrigerators" women. Excuse me? These are the same women--- militant, bitter feminists--- who ripped the standards of chastity, modesty, and feminine self-respect to shreds. And now they're standing in the middle of the wreckage wailing and whining about how women aren't respected anymore.... They spent DECADES telling young girls that they had a "right" to be sexually provocative, that flaunting their sexuality was "empowering," that promiscuity was "liberating..." And OH GOD FORBID, THE PEOPLE IN THE MEDIA TOOK THEM AT THEIR WORD. And now that they've trampled the Miss America tiara under their combat boots and replaced it with a Hooter's T-Shirt, they wanna whine and cry about the results.
Feminist: A woman who demands the right to go topless in public, and then slaps any man she catches looking at her breasts.
Uhhh, your point?
Huff and sniff all you wish, but chastity is still a virtue, regardless of how little it's valued among Our Liberated Betters.
And a slut is a slut, and ain't nothin' but. If you want respect your clothing should not be bought at "Why No, I'm not a Teenage Hooker."
I have less than ZERO use for the "Women In Refrigerators" women. Excuse me? These are the same women--- militant, bitter feminists--- who ripped the standards of chastity, modesty, and feminine self-respect to shreds. And now they're standing in the middle of the wreckage wailing and whining about how women aren't respected anymore.... They spent DECADES telling young girls that they had a "right" to be sexually provocative, that flaunting their sexuality was "empowering," that promiscuity was "liberating..." And OH GOD FORBID, THE PEOPLE IN THE MEDIA TOOK THEM AT THEIR WORD. And now that they've trampled the Miss America tiara under their combat boots and replaced it with a Hooter's T-Shirt, they wanna whine and cry about the results.
Feminist: A woman who demands the right to go topless in public, and then slaps any man she catches looking at her breasts.
Original