A cheap shot from Barney Frank:
“It is, of course, further indication that a fundamentalist right has really taken over much of the Republican Party,” said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a leading liberal lawmaker. Noting Bush’s Ivy League education, Frank said, “People might cite George Bush as proof that you can be totally impervious to the effects of Harvard and Yale education.”
Although I should point out that I am in no position to judge cheap shots, since I called him a jackass for his remarks. But on to the more important reactions from Bush’s words:
With the president endorsing it, at the very least it makes Americans who have that position more respectable, for lack of a better phrase,” said Gary L. Bauer, a Christian conservative leader who ran for president against Bush in the 2000 Republican primaries. “It’s not some backwater view. It’s a view held by the majority of Americans.”
While some are continuing to give the President the benefit of the doubt on his statement, it is clear how the ID proponents received his remarks. Very positively:
John G. West, an executive with the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank supporting intelligent design, issued a written statement welcoming Bush’s remarks. “President Bush is to be commended for defending free speech on evolution, and supporting the right of students to hear about different scientific views about evolution,” he said.
Ahh, the Discovery Institute. Home of the Center for Science and Culture. Now, without the hysterics that have been attached to the ‘Wedge Document,’ (full document here, Discovery Institute’s response here), it is fair to point out the stated goals of the most vocal ID proponents:
Governing Goals
– To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
– To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God.Five Year Goals
– To see intelligent design theory as an accepted alternative in the sciences and scientific research being done from the perspective of design theory.
– To see the beginning of the influence of design theory in spheres other than natural science.
– To see major new debates in education, life issues, legal and personal responsibility pushed to the front of the national agenda.Twenty Year Goals
– To see intelligent design theory as the dominant perspective in science.
– To see design theory application in specific fields, including molecular biology, biochemistry, paleontology, physics and cosmology in the natural sciences, psychology, ethics, politics, theology and philosophy in the humanities; to see its innuence in the fine arts.
– To see design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life
It is no secret their intentions- it is not a debate on the issues. A debate on the issues is fine- that is what science wants. But placing ascientific theories at the forefront of science is the goal, and it is not for scientific benefit, but to advance a cultural agenda. And again, for those of you pushing the notion that the ‘designer’ can be anyone, including the Giant Spaghetti Monster, the Center for Science and Culture would disagree:
We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.
I am not trying to carry the water for materialists or for secularists, but this is a battle of the creationist’s choosing, and I am not going to help them. And Bush should know better.
*** Update ***
It is nice to find someone pissier than me.
Grotesqueticle
Hey, you invited these idiots to the party. Too bad we all gotta dance with them.
Marcus Wellby
Bush is THE master of pandering to his base. He makes his comment, the Dark-Ages Fan Club goes all giddy, and then, to appease the non-bathsit-crazy republicans, we get:
So, what do you think Bush is doing down in Crawford? Laughing his ass off at the rubes waiting for rapture, or counting how many angels fit on the head of a needle?
neil
For those who haven’t seen it, Kevin Drum ponders about why Republicans didn’t notice these things when Bush said them in 1999.
I can think of all kinds of snarky reasons, but I am curious what John’s answer is.
Blue Neponset
I don’t think that was a cheapshot by Barney Frank.
Ask yourself, would we be talking about Intelligent Design if Ronald Reagan were President?
The Gingrich Repub revolution got in bed with the Christian Fundies and a dozen years later this is the result, a Repub President talking about teaching ID in biology class.
Mike S
All plans after that involve finding a way to return to being the dominant country for science and technology.
ppGaz
It wasn’t. It was a very well aimed shot, and well deserved.
A president who pimps superstition as an education goal. Not a target for scorn and riducle? Only in Blogville could you find that suggestion … followed by examples of why Frank is exactly right.
The mind boggles.
Rightwingsparkle
You are right. It is not secret they want to advance a “perspective of design theory.”
And one can look at their perspective and accept or reject it.
What Barney Frank is saying (as with many of your commenters)is that despite being educated these idiots believe in God and that God created the universe. It smacks of elitism. Everyone here should know better.
If God did not, then there isn’t much to be afraid of. If nothing can be proven scientifically, then it remains what it is…a perspective.
We don’t have all the answers, is it so wrong to seek other answers?
ppGaz
No, it isn’t. That right wing lie is tiresome and destructive.
What Frank is saying is that non-science does not belong in science classes. Period.
Which is the core of the beef now in three threads here in the last two days.
Trying to deflect from this by manufacturing a strawman “attack on people who believe in God” is dishonest and manipulative.
John Cole
I was in grad school in 1999, working an assistantship, and working another part time job. I don’t know what I was thinking about anything. I certainly wasn’t thinking abuot anything relating to Bush’s views on creationism.
StupidityRules
Religious weirdos with nukes is never a good idea. Doesn’t matter if they sit in Teheran or if they occupy the White House.
Blue Neponset
We don’t have all the answers, is it so wrong to seek other answers?
Ignoring evidence in order to support a religious based theory is not seeking other answers. It is an example of advancing a religious agenda.
Otto Man
Not at all. But it’s wrong to present creationism, the seeking other answers, as somehow being a science that has found those answers. Creationism can be taught in religion class, in philosophy, whatever. But in no way can it be presented as “science.” It’s pure speculation, and that has no place in a science classroom.
Another Jeff
I don’t agree with a lot of Barney Frank’s politics, but I don’t think that was a cheapshot either. Barney Frank is pretty much known as one of the sharpest, most acerbic members of congress. His candor is actually refreshing, most of the time.
Now, if i were to say that Barney Frank is just mad because Bush didn’t introduce him to Jeff Gannon, that would be a cheapshot.
albedo
How any intelligent, educated person can still self-identify as a republican is beyond me. Yes, the democrats suck too, but having your party’s leader promulgate this nonsense should be the proverbial back-breaking straw. Is there no intellectual line the GOP leadership could cross that would make a RINO jump ship? What if Bush says the moon may be made of green cheese and that green cheese theory should be given equal time? Unbelievable.
ppGaz
Beliefs, and inattention to them, have consequences.
Now we see the ever-popular GOP “old news” strategy at work.
Bush had these views in 1999? Old news!
There were no WMD? Old news.
The country is being run by a bunch lying, conniving potatoheads who will let fairy tales be taught as valid ideas so as to pander to a narrow-minded base? …. Old news!
Relax, drink the Kool-Aid.
Pretty soon the USA will be old news.
Rightwingsparkle
ppGaz, read albedo’s statement.
I rest my case.
Nathan Lanier
Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy blog is pissed.
John Cole
Albedo asks:
.
How? Gee. When asked why I didn’t notice Bush’s views on creationism 7 years ago, I respond:
To which, PPGAZ states:
Maybe if Democrats would stop being such assholes (yes, Andrei, I am breaking my own rule), more Republicans would think there is another viable party. That answer your question, Albedo?
Rightwingsparkle
And let’s not forget Marcus up there callin us “the dark age fan club” and “rubes,waiting on the rapture.”
that’s not “attacking people who believe in God” at all.
Right.
Stormy70
I don’t like to discuss this issue because the anti-christian bigotry starts to rear its ugly head. There is no way to discuss this issue without someone calling everyone who disagrees with them stupid, and or dangerous. This is such a stupid argument to begin with since I don’t see evolution being stripped from the classroom anytime soon. I don’t think creationism should be taught in school, but you guys equate ID with creationism, and start sliming anyone who says the origin of LIFE has not been proven. It hasn’t and it probably never will be. So don’t teach it at all in Science class. Teach the other aspects of evolution, which seems to be the actual consensus here.
Leave the discussion for the origins of life to the humanities dept.
DougJ
“We don’t have all the answers, is it so wrong to seek other answers?”
Because the liberal scientists think the DO have all the answers. That’s what this is all about, the arrogance of the liberal elite and their neverending quest to shove their beliefs down the throats of the american people.
John S.
Of course, I am sure you don’t mean to imply that the inverse is true (that Republicans aren’t assholes).
As an Art Director for an Ad Agency, I have to say that your rationale for remaining a Republican (as you stated it) is merely a case of brand loyalty.
You prefer the Republican brand based on your past feelings associated with the product they were selling. But clearly, you no longer like the product that they are selling, yet you remain devoted to the brand because you don’t like the packaging that the Democrats sell their product in.
If you want to keep buying an inferior product simply based on the packaging, then that it is entirely your perrogative. But at some point, every consumer should question whether their brand loyalty is worth more than the quality of the product they are buying.
albedo
Wait, is it ppGaz or me that’s being the asshole? Anyway, are you saying you don’t see becoming a democrat as a viable option because we’re asshole elitists? If so, you probably partially have a point, but personally, I’d rather be on the asshole side of the fence than the “world is flat” side.
Mark
John,
If “being such assholes” is your lithmus test, then you may have to sit out of politics altogether.
As IF the Dems corner the market on assholiness.
I assume the real reason you don’t bolt the GOP is that while you hate the fundies and their growing influence, you hate paying taxes even more. It can’t be civil liberties, the Dems are more libertarian than the GOP these days, unless we’re talking person = corporation, I suppose.
Greed. It’s what really keeps ’em coming back for more GOP!
ppGaz
I did. What is your case? Seriously.
DougJ
Comparisons between the mullahs and Iran and our leaders here are grossly unjust. The mullahs in Iran have taken a noble and proud religion — Islam — and used it as tool to enslave their people and justify atrocities. What our leaders here have done with Christianity here could hardly be more different: they invoke Christianity to bolster values and promote the value of life.
ppGaz
Oh, let it be me, please. I need the credits for a class I’m taking.
But seriously, in John’s view, apparently, anyone who claims the emperor not only has no clothes, but is pandering to nudists, and does so in a way that doesn’t sound exactly like John, is an asshole. Or, if he does sound exactly like John, he’s as asshole anyway. Or something.
Because, you know, “asshole” is one of the those “play nice” words that John lives by.
DougJ
The RINOs are trying to have it both ways here: they’re calling us idiots and then trying to say they’re more reasonable than Barney Frank who is also calling us idiots. I don’t get it. Whose side are you guys on anyway?
Steve
I do think some people tend to attack the concept of ID with a hostility that doesn’t serve one well in trying to win a public debate. The issue is whether ID should be taught in schools, after all, not whether ID is right or wrong.
I think a majority of Americans believe that God played some role in the evolution of humanity, including those who believe that God created humans as-is. I don’t think it’s a good idea to attack the beliefs of a majority of Americans as “silly superstition,” nor do I think it’s necessary to disprove ID in order to make the case that it wouldn’t be appropriate to teach it in schools.
Blue Neponset
That’s what this is all about, the arrogance of the liberal elite and their neverending quest to shove their beliefs down the throats of the american people.
I think you are mistaken as to who is doing the belief shoving.
You should do some research on Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge if you want to better understand the consequences of demonizing ‘liberal elitists’.
John Cole
Dougj- I am on the side of anyone who calls you an idiot.
:)
albedo
Ding ding. My point exactly.
Mike S
OT, but I just want to thank John for putting the names of the posters at the top of the comment. It makes it so much easier to scroll on past certain clowns.
Back on topic. I think people that belittle religious people are pretty lame. Personally I am agnostic, leaning atheist, but have seen first hand the ability of religion to soothe people in the most horrific of times. I’m happy that they were and are able to find comfort. If you consider that an “opiate” for the masses, fine, so be it. But why do you bgrudge that to them?
The issue here though is different. They are trying to slide this into actual science classes and that is just flat out wrong. The danger is twofold. One is that it destroys what science is at it’s core. The other is that we will be producing entire generations of students who are less than educated in all sciences, especially if the 20 year goal is realised.
Whether anyone wants to admit it or not that is a great danger to our future.
John Cole
When PPGAZ dismisses my claim that I had no idea what Bush’s thoughts were because I was too busy in the late 90’s with hundreds of other things as nothing more than an ‘old news’ strategy, he is being an asshole. And he knows it.
Cue victim music.
ppGaz
Doug, you magnificent bastard(s)!!!
You are exactly right on this one. The blog puts out these inflammatory declarations about a touchy subject, and then is shocked — shocked! — when strong language and contentiousness break out! Oh, the humanity! Jesus wept, etc.
But, uh, Barney didn’t call anyone an idiot. I realize that facts are irrelevant to (all of you who are) you. But that’s a fact.
Of course RINOS are trying to have it both ways, Doug. What do you think “party member in name only” means???
Defense Guy
So you are expecting to be rounded up soon then? Clearly your ideas do not follow the ‘party line’ so you must be eradicated or re-edicated, no?
I believe that G-d is the first cause of life on earth. I believe that evolution is a naturally occuring phenominon that was worked into the system, and I do not believe that there is any reason why these 2 ideas must be either hidden or shunned by anyone.
To those who reject the idea of the creation of life by an intelligent designer, how do you reconcile it with the idea that all man is created equally?
albedo
Totally agreed, although I think part of the hostility is kind of involuntary and comes from an incredulousness that teaching ID in science class is even up for debate (let alone being endorsed by the President of the United States). But yeah, shrillness rarely helps an argument.
Nathan Lanier
John S. Said:
I come to this site because I appreciate John’s brutally honest opinions on a number of issues; he wears his political heart on his sleeve.
I think you’re right that John clings on to what ‘used to be’ Republican philosophies (ie low taxes, small government) when maybe he shouldn’t, as the so called Republicans currently in power have made a joke of the platform.
I’m in the same position as him. I lean Republican, but some of the fiscal policies of this administration are borderline insulting. Lately, I’ve been looking elsewhere for a party or a set of politicians to represent my views, and quite frankly, everything out of the Democrat’s mouths is just as revolting.
It’s making me distrust government completely and, sans their typically anti-war positions, I’m becoming more and more attracted to the Libertarian platform by the day.
But John’s right to assert that the Democrats and the Democratic platform is just as, if not more full of shit than the current ruling majority’s.
ppGaz
Wow, for somebody who is good at this, you really aren’t very good at this, John.
One, I didn’t “dismiss” your claim. I expanded on it. Quite a different thing, Mr. Victim.
Two, my slam is general, not specific to you, Mr. Victim. It’s a slam against the “Bush’s position is not new” argument in general. I don’t care how new or old any of his positions are, it’s the positions that count. Because, you know, he’s got all this power and everything.
Third, or C, I will never claim victim status for being called an asshole when I’m right about something. I’d rather be a right asshole than a mealy-mouthed nice guy. So would you, by the way.
Defense Guy
You are not right ppgaz and what you are more often than anything else is rude and insulting to anyone else who has an idea that differs from your own.
ppGaz
Welcome to the Lesser of Two Evils world, then?
“The world is better off without Saddam Hussein” argument?
I happen to think the world would be bettter off with George Bush. And I’m right.
Mike S
Are you referring to the word “created” or just in general? For me it’s just a matter of the fact that we are all in this boat together.
But here is a question for you. How do you reconcile it with the bible saying that the Jews are God’s “chosen” people? How can we be equal if God prefers a certain group?
ppGaz
Yes I am.
No, I’m not. And you never did answer my questions in that other thread, DefenselessGuy. I will remind you of this every time you post from now until hell freezes over.
Answer the questions.
Do you go to a medical doctor? Do you argue with her that medicine is just a bunch of theories?
Can you state my “point on evolution?” I have $5 that says you can’t.
DougJ
“The blog puts out these inflammatory declarations about a touchy subject, and then is shocked—shocked!—when strong language and contentiousness break out!”
That’s what I don’t get about this blog. Why all hand-wringing about inflammatory statements?
DougJ
Ppgaz, you are excessively rude, though, it is true. Why throw in all those “drop deads” at the end of your messages? You make pretty good points, but then you have to add in something rude. It doesn’t make your argument any stronger, I’ll tell you that.
JPS
ppgaz:
“I happen to think the world would be bettter off with George Bush. And I’m right.”
Retroactive support for the Bush campaign? From you?
Nathan Lanier
ppgaz:
I’m sick of “Lesser of Two Evils.”
I happen to think the world would be better off without humans. Maybe we should all put on some Nikes, head to a mountaintop somewhere in Utah, share some hugs, and drink the cyanide Kool Aid.
We’re stuck with George Bush. We’re stuck with Ted Kennedy, and we’re stuck with inane rhetoric that does nothing but serve personal agendas and washington aspirations.
It starts early. If you’re bred young to be a republican, such as a college republican for example, you develop a mindset that is unflinching and limbaughesque. If you want to succeed politically, you defend the platform regardless of actions. George Bush invaded New York? He had to, weeded out the fags.
It’s the same thing with liberals. Bill Clinton got sucked off in the white house? It’s no big deal, we all have flaws. George Bush fell off his bike? Dumbest son of a bitch since Johnny Knoxville.
I’m young. I try to be sensible. I try to take reasonable positions without being ‘above the fray.’ But I look at Washington, and I look at cable news, and I look at the new republic, and all I see is a bunch of self serving clowns motivated not to serve me, but to serve themselves regardless of the front they put up on Hardball.
I’ll probably vote Democrat in the next election; hell, i live in Massachusetts, it makes no difference anyway. Thing is, I’ll do so reluctantly, and because yes, right now, it’s the lesser of two evils choice.
Joe Albanese
Cheap shot? Please. Give me a break. These guys in the White House are all grown-ups aren’t they? They play hardball all the time. Vicious, mean spirited hardball, destroying people’s careers and reputations and YOU want to attack Barny Frank for a cheap shot? Wow.
ppGaz
No, I am rude to exactly the right extent. Wrong again, Doug.
So that you’ll drop dead? All three of you, or however many it is.
What? Is this the real Doug?
Yes you will, apparently. But you’d be wrong, Doug.
But hey, I’m open to new things. Teach, Dougs that you are, how to make my arguments stronger.
To quote Ross Perot, I’m all ears.
ppGaz
Please replace “with” with “without” :-)
Defense Guy
ppgaz
Ok you baby, even though you won’t answer my questions, I will answer yours to stop your whining.
Yes
No, but that does not mean that medical science is not wrong from time to time. Are eggs good for us or bad?
Now, go ahead and shred my answers to prove some sort of point that will prove just how smart you think you are.
StupidityRules
I admit being a bigot. But what I’m bigoted to isn’t christanity nor is it islam or judaism. I’m bigoted to religious fruitcakes.
ppGaz
I’m old, and I say that you are exactly right.
Rightwingsparkle
ppGaz, I think you know exactly my point and that I made it, but I will spell it out for you.
You said:
“Trying to deflect from this by manufacturing a strawman “attack on people who believe in God” is dishonest and manipulative.”
But then there is this on this very thread:
Marcus Wellby Says:
“Bush is THE master of pandering to his base. He makes his comment, the Dark-Ages Fan Club goes all giddy, and then, to appease the non-bathsit-crazy republicans, we get:
Mr. Bush’s science adviser, John H. Marburger 3rd, sought to play down the president’s remarks as common sense and old news.
So, what do you think Bush is doing down in Crawford? Laughing his ass off at the rubes waiting for rapture, or counting how many angels fit on the head of a needle?”
albedo Says:
“How any intelligent, educated person can still self-identify as a republican is beyond me. Yes, the democrats suck too, but having your party’s leader promulgate this nonsense should be the proverbial back-breaking straw. Is there no intellectual line the GOP leadership could cross that would make a RINO jump ship? What if Bush says the moon may be made of green cheese and that green cheese theory should be given equal time? Unbelievable”
ppGaz, if those aren’t “attacks on people who believe in God” I don’t know what is.
So maybe I am not so dishonest and manipulative?
Gary Farber
“A cheap shot from Barney Frank….”
The first sentence or the second? The first, while you understandably don’t like it, and speak against it, is undeniably true, is it not? When the President of the U.S. and the leader of the Party says these things? As for the second, well, President Bush did go through Yale, and Harvard Business School, and yet he says these things. Is the statement untrue?
“I was in grad school in 1999, working an assistantship, and working another part time job. I don’t know what I was thinking about anything. I certainly wasn’t thinking abuot anything relating to Bush’s views on creationism.”
Why not?
John Cole
This qualifies as an attack:
Me saying I called the president a jackass myself, and am incapable of failry assessing cheap shots is what you call an attack on Barney Frank?
Wow, indeed. And for the record, you might do a search of my comments on Frank. I think I have had some pretty nice things to say about him, if I have mentioned him at all.
ET
Cheap shot or snark? That may depend on how close you are sitting to the target.
ppGaz
I did answer your “questions”. You just don’t pay attention. I have $5 if you can tell me what my “point on evolution” is. You know, the one you were ranting against?
You have no idea how smart I might think I am, except that I think I am smarter than you are. Which is damning myself with faint praise, of course. But anyway, I put a marker out there for future reference.
Nobody on the pro-science side of the fence here, DefenselessOne, has said that science is not imperfect.
What the hell have you been arguing about for two days?
And you aren’t done yet:
I have $5 that says you can’t tell me what my “point on evolution” is. The quoted phrase is yours, you yelled at me about it, but you don’t know what it is.
Blue Neponset
So you are expecting to be rounded up soon then? Clearly your ideas do not follow the ‘party line’ so you must be eradicated or re-edicated, no?
No, I don’t expect to be rounded up soon. I just don’t appreciate hate speech directed at me, and I call people on it when I see it.
‘Liberal elitists’ are hardly the driving force behind teaching evolution in high school biology class. Singling them out, as DougJ did, is a clear attempt at furthering an ‘us v. them’ ideology and I don’t appreciate it.
If you or DougJ can make a reasonable argument about ID then make it. If you think it is OK to pretend the nefarious ‘liberal elitists’ are oppressing you, then your arguments don’t deserve to be taken seriously.
DougJ
“But hey, I’m open to new things. Teach, Dougs that you are, how to make my arguments stronger.
To quote Ross Perot, I’m all ears.”
See, ppgaz, that’s funny. Why don’t you use humor a little more and anger a little less.
albedo
I won’t speak for the other people you quoted, but you’re misrepresenting my comment. “God” and people who believe in Him are not under assault or even at issue here. What John, myself and others are attacking is the POTUS advocating teaching ID as legitimate science in public schools. ID is precisely the opposite of legitimate science. It is an unprovable hunch. And it is ignorant and/or dishonest, and certainly shameful, for the leader of the free world to compare ID to evolution as if the scientific community is divided into two camps on the subject.
ppGaz
Uh, no, that’s why I asked.
{ snipped }
I agree, you don’t know what is. In your cited material, there is no attack on “people who believe in God.”
You do not represent all “people who believe in God” any more than someone’s disparaging of such a person is an attack on all people who believe in God. What’s more, there is no stated attack on people who believe in God in your cited material.
I was right, your complaint is dishonest and manipulative, and you are wrong.
ppGaz
Because I don’t want to, Doug1 Doug2 Doug3.
DougJ
Ppgaz, there have only been those three spoofs of me, as far as I know. And they were pretty obvious. So, it’s just me here, okay?
ppGaz
Doug4?
Kidding. Being spoofed can be very frustrating, as I know from experience. It’s just one of those things that goes with this territory.
Rightwingsparkle
ppGaz,
Maybe in your world calling someone a rube waiting for the rapture and a fan of the dark ages club isn’t a slam on Christians.
But in most people’s world, it is.
albedo,
maybe I misunderstood when you said you didn’t see how any intelligent person could be a Republican. Since we seem to be discussion Republicans that believe in God and his creation, I assumed you were talking about us.
I suppose it was just an insult to Republicans in general, religious or not.
DougJ
“Kidding. Being spoofed can be very frustrating, as I know from experience. It’s just one of those things that goes with this territory.”
Thanks, ppgaz. I may not agree with you on much but I DO like reading your posts.
And I think you’re 100% right in your criticism of John on this. He’s criticizing Barney Frank for doing exactly the same thing he himself is doing. I just don’t understand the RINO mind sometimes.
ppGaz
No, the real world, it is not.
Not all Christians are rubes. Not even most Christians are rubes. Most Christians are not rubes. There are more non-rubes among Christians, than there are rubes.
I don’t know of any identifiable group that has a lock on rubes, other than fans of WWF.
ppGaz
Oh, and nice morph from “people who believe in God” to “Christians.”
What’s that about?
albedo
True.
Look, the Republican party has systematically sold their intellectual real estate to the religious right in exchange for votes for twenty years, the end result being a fundamentalist GOP POTUS that advocates junk science either because he believes it, or because it’s meat for the base.
I’m sorry, but Democrat assholishness notwithstanding, I do find it very hard to imagine being a republican of John’s ilk in 2005. Must be kind of like being married to a guy that’s slowly become an alcoholic wife-beater over the course of a long marriage. Waking up every morning with a black eye and thinking “He’ll change back one day – I just know it…”
ppGaz
You’re okay, RealDoug.
The RINO mind? Well, think of an animal that spends the day under water ……
DougJ
“I do find it very hard to imagine being a republican of John’s ilk in 2005.”
I do too. The sad thing is that I feel like the RINOs are taking over the party. I don’t know why. We won in 2004 on a conservative platform and now the likes of John want the party to liberalism lite in effect. Maybe they should leave and found their own party. Or just get it over with and become democrats already.
Marcus Wellby
No sparkle, that is not an attack on people of God. It is an attack on idiots. There are many people of God, myself included (as a Catholic) who find no comfort in moronic fundies with a painfuly simplistic view of the world.
Not everyone who finds fundies backwards and gullible is a heathen eee-leetist.
Defense Guy
I have no idea what your theory of anything is anymore ppgaz. So, take your $5 and buy yourself something nice. An ‘I hate rethuglican’ bumpersticker or ‘The religious are idiots pin’ should suit you just fine.
ppGaz
Well, since telling you directly didn’t work, we could always go to a new strategy.
You could just ask me. “ppGaz, wise person that you are, what is your point on evolution?”
And then I’d say, the only point I’ve made to my knowledge is that it comes from and is supported by science. Science is a process of discovery. ID-Creationism doesn’t.
Don’t “teach” creationism in a science class.
Don’t teach French in an auto mechanics class.
Get it?
ppGaz
You are the master of making shit up, I must say.
If I were to wear a pin, it would say something like this:
“Religious idiots are idiots. The rest of the religious people are not idiots. Non-religious idiots are also idiots. And so forth.”
and,
“DefenseGuy owes me five bucks.”
:-)
Defense Guy
It is a judgment, and because it includes a put down it falls into the category of bigotry.
No, but it is fairly elitist to use abusive language in an attempt to show that those with a different opinion, are wrong. It doesn’t sell to anyone other than those that believe it in the first place, and it is insulting to someone whose only sin is to have faith in G-d as creator.
Rodney King
Once again I wish all the Doug J Trolls would stick to the same RNC talking points.
Perhaps the REAL Doug J (if he/she actually exists) would like to see all Physics classes replaced with magic tricks such as water into wine. That should please some of the Doug J’s on BJ.
Defense Guy
You will be hard pressed, ppgaz, to find where I proposed teaching ID in science class. Do you crave being correct so much that you are so wiling to be dishonest to acheive it, even if it is only to yourself?
Rightwingsparkle
Marcus,
Being a Catholic myself I don’t agree with the fundis either. But I will certaintly not degrade their faith.
There are many Catholics who believe in ID. Just as we also believe in evolution.
Perhaps you, like many, are confusing creationism with ID.
I am assuming as a Catholic you believe that God created the universe and man. So…..?
ppGaz
Good. Then we agree?
Oh no, not at all. I crave being wrong, to see what it might feel like.
And you still owe me five bucks.
DougJ
“Perhaps the REAL Doug J (if he/she actually exists) would like to see all Physics classes replaced with magic tricks such as water into wine.”
Look, if miracles really occur — and I for one am sure that they do — SHOULDN’T that be presented in classrooms? Why should we only present convenient theories that fit in with the converntional wisdom? Wouldn’t it be better to present both points of view? To report on all observed phenomena, not just those that we like?
Defense Guy
We do, and we have from the beginning. The area we disagree on is the teaching of evolution as the source of life. Teaching evolution is science class is a no brainer, but if you are going to expand it then the other theories should be mentioned. To me, it seems better to have that conversation in philosophy class.
ppGaz
Now that’s phenomenon I can use for a good purpose.
It’s not about what “we like”, though. It’s about what is testable, repeatable, and explorable in a disciplined way.
If the Water into Wine “miracle” (actually, a revolution in the vintner’s art) were something that could be tested, and the test repeated to see if we get the same result, and explorable in a disciplined way, then we could use that in a science class.
But as it stands, the “miracle” can only serve as an example of something that depends entirely on believing the claims of other people. Alas, that ain’t science.
ppGaz
Does this mean you are sending the five dollars?
Marcus Wellby
Well DG, you do have a point there. It is easy to get a little carried away commenting. And for that I do apologize.
My basic frustration is this – as a country we have been falling behind on science education. Our public schools need to push forward on science, not move backwards. ID is very much moving backwards. It is not science – it is religion, and more than that, it is aimed at a very specific religious group. Not all Christians accept ID, let alone other religions entirely.
You want to teach or learn about ID, do it own your own time and on your own dime. Open private schools where that is ALL you teach. But don’t expect those of us who watch as we fall behind Europe, Japan, China, and India in basic science skills to accept it.
ET
Can I just say that telling RINOs to just become Dems is as funny as people telling the DINOs to become Republicans. Both of these groups represent the middle of the spectrum – or at least that seems to be the cane – and neither seems to be represented all that well in their respective parties.
As to the RINOs – most of these people were Republicans either long before the southern white males took over the party or joined the party when the old time Republicans still had some say say. That is likely why they are so upset with things as they are.
Being from New Orleans, going to school in Alabama, and having most of my family be from Mississippi – I can say that it seems most of those that control the GOP today (and many, many that vote GOP) only came on board with the election of Reagan. It is like he gave them permission to vote the party of Lincoln. I watched these guys when they were called Yellow Dog Democrats – I didn’t like them then and I don’t like them now. It is more of a personal thing than a political thing however cause frankly they scare me in a totally visceral way. Now I may be a bit biased on this – OK I am a bit biased on this.
I wonder if guys like Delay and his version of GOP congressmen speak to the traditions of the GOP as it was or speak for the GOP they changed. They brought all of the worst traditions of the south with them and frankly these guys scared me when I met them one-to-one growing up and they scare me now. I keep picturing them transplanted to the 1960’s hiding under sheets and burning crosses. Like I said – I may be a bit sensitive on this so hammer me on this all you want to on it.
If the GOP were the party of Chafee, Lugar, Spectre, Snowe and the like I might actually still have some respect for it. But it isn’t. When I registered to vote in New Orleans within days of turning 18 I registered as a Republican – back when that was just not done (though in a handful of years that would change). When the GOP started to rise and I started to mature, I quickly realized that on it’s current trajectory it would in no way speak for me or to me. Yes I am a registered Democrat but that is only so I can vote in primaries. If that wasn’t the case I would register Independent because the Democrate party reminds me of my family – totally disfunctional and frequently self-defeating.
Rightwingsparkle
Marcus,
Interesting. I understand your frustration. But I highly doubt a debate on the origins of life is going to force us into losing some educational race with other countries.
Trust me. Our problems in education goes far and beyond adding anything to the plate.
I think we just have different frustrations.
Defense Guy
Again, I have made no claim to wanting to teach this as science in science class. The only place I take issue with it is when it used as a proof of life on earth, because as of yet, it isn’t. This is the same position being put forth by the president.
There is so much wrong with our public school system that this issue barely even begins to account for it.
albedo
Well, personally, I’m not saying RINOs should become democrats. And, in a way, I’m glad guys like John exist on the GOP side, because it gives one hope that the party of Lincoln will someday be reclaimed from the nutjobs. OTOH, if I was a RINO, I think I’d be edging toward outright libertarianism or just plain independent status.
No shit, same here. Exhibit A – NARAL v. Langevin.
Rightwingsparkle
ET,
Then I guess I may be the scariest person to you on this thread. I grew up in Mississippi and my dad was a democrat and a Senator in the State Legislature. My family was yellow dog democrats. And yes, Reagan changed all that for me and my family. I saw a Democratic party that promoted the cycle of poverty and dependence through welfare. I saw a party who no longer cared about the most vunerable of our society. So I left that party.
(I can assure you that no one in my family wore white sheets, the thought is repugnant to me)
If the GOP were the party of Chafee, Lugar, Spectre, Snowe and the like then I would not respect it. Because if it is only those Republicans, then it becomes the party that the left accuses us of being, selfish and greedy with no social conscience.
I like having them in the party, don’t get me wrong. I like diversity of thought in my party. But I don’t want them as leaders.
Mike S
Really? What about this?
Right now there is an assault on science and many states are attempting to put ID in science classes. And now the leader of the free world, the most powerfull man on the planet, the laeder of this country has given the whole idea a nice little push.
Rightwingsparkle
Mike,
Even seeing ID as dominant perspective is not going to do away with evolution!! You can believe in both or most of one and part of another. That is what discovery is all about. I certainly believe in evolution and want my kids to be taught that process. But do I believe that we evolved from monkeys? No. There is no missing link proving that to me yet.
Did it ever occur to you that opening the perspective of ID would cause kids to really look at the way life develops and how the world began? If nothing else, maybe to dispute ID??
In an open debate no one loses! We all win by listening to the arguments!
you guys just don’t want the argument.
ppGaz
Exactly right. And this is the reason why we have a contentious debate on this subject. That’s why it’s important. And if the apologists on the right would stop talking as if everything were about them, and as if every assault on this boneheaded policy were an attack on all religious people, and wearing the victim shrouds, maybe we could have a calm discussion about it. But they won’t, and we can’t.
George Bush is a walking disaster for this country. Living proof that it really is worse to do something wrong, than do nothing at all.
It’s going to take a long time to repair the damage caused by this guy. A long time. On so many fronts.
We recently saw a car manufacturer pick Toronto for a new plant, because of the problems with training workers in the South. We have the spectacle of people in this very thread decrying “the problems in schools” while defending policies that degrade education and condemn more kids to an education of navel-gazing and feelgood concepts (be they from the left, or right). While these people fret about how to get creationism into the classroom, and Bibles into schoolroom desks, and prayer into the daily regimen, we lose jobs because the people coming out of this system can’t be trained to work in a car factory.
Like I said, these things have consequences. It isn’t about how to stir up blog traffic. It’s about what kind of country this is going to be.
Mark
Rightwingsparkle-
Funny, I thought Bush, DeLay, Cheney and Rove were the ones that gave the “selfish greedy with no social conscience” moniker to the GOP.
And please explain to me how the Democratic party promotes poverty! TheGOP is the enemy of the poor. Blocking min wage increases, fighting universal health care, making it harder to declare bankruptcy, weakening labor unions, shifting the tax burden to the poor…the list is virtually endless.
It amazes me that anyone making less than $100K a year would vote GOP.
mac Buckets
Thinly-veiled racism. Why doesn’t he just say Toyota didn’t want blacks working on their cars?
Defense Guy
He probably meant stupid southern rednecks, melonin-challanged.
Slartibartfast
Here’s the main problem with ID, as I see it: it attempts to completely discount TOE because TOE doesn’t currently and succinctly explain absolutely everything, and because TOE isn’t this handy idea that absolutely anyone can fully understand after a few minutes’ study.
Which are fine objections; I have those myself. But the conclusion that everything currently inexplicable must have God as an explanation, that I do have problems with. The problem with ID is that it doesn’t explain anything, and it in fact invites an end to scientific inquiry. And of course the sleet of lies coming from the Discovery Institute, those don’t help all that much either.
Defense Guy
So, are you under the impression that this paragraph can be described as an attempt at calm discussion, or is this the result of the we can’t because they won’t premise? Not attempting to set up and either or, it could be something else entirely I suppose.
Do you believe that your course of action is determined mostly by the actions or words of others?
JonBuck
RightwingSparkle:
There is no scientific debate between ID and Evolution because ID is not science. Their goals are explicitly religoius in nature, as the quotes above show. Until they produce some evidence, conduct research, and show how the evidence they have collected supports their theory, they will not be taken seriously by the scientific community.
I strongly suggest you go over to the TalkOrigins web site. They have the most extensive cross-referencing and refutation of ID and Creationist claims on the web.
Andrei
LOL. I actually agree. But it’s REAL hard not to be angry and asshole-like with what’s the GOP is doing these days. Hard work even. 8^)
Ah well… the human condition.
Defense Guy
I tend to agree with this statement, as it is an odd sort of arrogance in man that thinks he might be able to tell either way. I am not suggesting that we have teachers stand in front of the class and tell their science students anything about G-d.
No, the problem with ID is that it explains everything (in terms of how we came to be), but has no true scientific basis, as we now understand that term, in which to do so. It is an answer for which showing the work may well be not possible. This drives those with a grounding in reality as seen through science and our senses to the exclusion of even the possibility of the divine, out of their minds. I suppose it’s not hard to figure out why.
ppGaz
What do you think the three threads in a couple days’ time have been about, DG? Barney Frank?
They’re about the fact the president of the United States is pimping superstition as an educational goal.
It’s not about you. Or me. Or John Cole. It’s about the president of the United States pimping superstition as an educational goal.
You want a calm and rational discussion about that?
Start it here _____________________________
Nobody is stopping you.
albedo
Jesus H. Christ on a Popsicle Stick. Are you even reading anyone else’s posts here? ID is fine, great even. Could be the truth. Teach it at home. Teach it in Sunday school. Even teach it in a religion or theology class in public school, should such a thing exist. But don’t teach it in a science class, since it isn’t science. And don’t teach it alongside evolution, as a competing theory because it’s not. It’s a speculative hunch about life origins with no basis in fact or documented research. Get it?
IT’S. NOT. SCIENCE.
Rightwingsparkle
Mark,
Well, we have a whole different perspective. The vicious cycle of welfare threw generations into poverty. That is on the Democrat’s back. I saw that first hand.
For many many years I made less than 100K and was Republican. I saw my hard earned money flying out the door to support a bloated govt. with programs that didn’t work and billions of dollars of fraud.
When you force small businesses out of business with a mandated minium wage, then the workers who would have had jobs in the upper levels of that business are also out of work, along with the minium wage earners. Then no one spends and other jobs are lost. Everyone loses.
Please don’t preach to me about tax burdens. The more money I make the more they take out.
Universal Health care? OMG! So everyone can have crappy health care, like the Canadians?
I have worked with the poor all my adult life. There hasn’t been a time I haven’t been able to get them the health care they needed.
No matter what you earn, I’ll never understand why anyone would be a Democrat….;-)
ppGaz
It’s because the alternative is not acceptable.
Rightwingsparkle
albedo,
It’s not Science? Trying to discover the origins of life isn’t Science?
It’s like this. (I’m repeating myself on these threads so forgive me if you read this already)
For years Doctors didn’t believe in germs or bacteria because they couldn’t “see” them. Then we got microscopes and there ya go??
How many things are we not “seeing” now??? Who knows? Maybe we can discover proof of God. Maybe not. But we will never know if we don’t try.
Defense Guy
So what do you make of the fact that 70% or more of the population believe, at least to some extent, in the superstition you are so busy deriding. Put more simply, they don’t find it to be ‘superstition as an educational goal’.
ppGaz
So, if we just try hard enough to develop the right instrument, we’ll be able to see angels?
Defense Guy
Some things we see, then we don’t, then we do, etc.
Where are they going?
Slartibartfast
I disagree; I say that because it attempts to make a pat, one-size-fits-all answer to everything related to evolution, it actually explains nothing and removes any need or desire for understanding from the picture. One could simply refer the student back to God in any study of physics, for example, and that would “explain everything”?
Might it help if I retracted the statement that it doesn’t explain anything and revise that to say that it doesn’t add to anything to human understanding of the material?
Finally, scientists see organizations like the Discovery Institute and ICR as, pretty much, packs of liars, because their approach is, to a large degree, to make up some position or theory, assign it to their opponents, and proceed to whack it. This isn’t science.
ppGaz
No. Science is science. “Trying to discover” is only science if it employs scientific method.
Discovery does not require science. Science is just a facilitator.
Rightwingsparkle
Ok, This has been fun guys. Thanks for the interesting and lively debate and thanks for not letting this thread fall into name calling. (for the most part anyway) This is the kind of debate I like.
I don’t think we changed each other’s minds, but hopefully we gained a bit of a perspective on what the other is thinking.
Come visit my blog anytime. I have my share of leftys and I treat them well.
http://www.rightwingsparkle.blogspot.com
albedo
No. When you start from the premise that life is too complicated for God not to have created it and then work backwards by ginning up some (extremely dubious) examples that this is so – which is exactly what ID’s proponents have done – it’s called “having a hunch.” It may even be true, but science, it ain’t.
ppGaz
Was it Toyota? I don’t remember. But we don’t have to make up what they said, it’s on record. Look it up.
ppGaz
The same thing I make of the fact that 100% of the population used to think the earth was flat and the sun revolved around it.
They were wrong. Truth is not a popularity contest.
John S.
Your premise is entirely ludicrous since one of the themes of the Bible is that God is completely beyond the grasp of human comprehension.
Remember when man decided to build a tower so high it would reach God (the Tower of Babel)? God struck mankind dumb with a multitude of languages. Remember when a Pharaoh sought to question the power of God? Enter the 10 plagues. Have you forgotten the lesson of the burning bush? Man lacks the capacity to converse with God directly (or see him).
Anyway, the point is that proving God’s existence is something that true people of faith would never seek to do, and quite frankly scientists do not seem all too interested in proving His existence either.
So the only people that would even attempt to try and do such a thing either have no understanding of what it means to have religious faith, or they are trying to make a specious argument in order to advance their own misguided beliefs.
Defense Guy
Yes, they were wrong. Truth becomes true to the public when you can prove it, independantly and repeatedly. What we have now, does not constitute proof of the origins of life on earth. The distinction should be clear.
So, tell me, are eggs currently good or bad for us?
Slartibartfast
Yes. And you can quote me on that.
Likening the TOE-ID debate to the health value of eggs, though…I don’t think you’re striking a blow in the name of science, doing that.
ppGaz
You should ask your doctor.
Okay, you gave me a straight line, I had to take a swing at it.
Eggs are neither good nor bad. It’s a question of your particular blood chemistry, your state of health, etc.
I love eggs and I will eat them even if they aren’t good for me.
Well, there are two things embedded in there. One, I don’t agree with you about truth and the public. A certain percentage of people will agree to just about anything. Another certain percentage won’t agree to anything. People are infinitely variable. I refrain from making gross generalizations about them, unless it gives me an edge in the argument :-)
Two, I cannot understand why we keep coming back to this “origins of life on earth” thing. The argument over how science should be taught does not hang on this question. I already said to you, the origin of life is not known. I’m comfortable with that. I don’t lay awake nights worrying about it. I have faith that the answer will become clear in the fullness of time. If you get my drift.
Mystery is good. It keeps us on our toes.
Andrei
Let me guess… You and the president believe all human life started from prehistoric monkeys, then evolution kicked in. One day, no monkeys. Next day, BAM! MONKEYS! Then hundreds of millions of years of evolution occured and we’re good to go in understanding where we came from as a species.
Do you know or understand anything of molecular biology or how cells evolve, mutate and grow over very long periods of time? Have you read any research and new data coming up from the genome project about the similarities in DNA constructs of various species?
The real issue this: The theory of evolution goes far enough back (to single cell organisims evolving into multi-cell organisims) in scientifically explaining a critical aspect of how life came to be and has evolved on this planet that is direct contradiction to the stories people are told as children about God and how life came to be on the planet.
For whatever reasons people can come up with (largely due to most everyone’s legitimate fear of dying someday), they want to cling to those stories about God even while they enjoy the spoils of modern medicine and science.
More importantly, however, the failure we see these days on this topic is not from the President IMHO. It’s from a religious community that refuses to evolve over time as we learn more about the universe that surrounds us. What did we learn from the persecution of Galileo by the religious leadership at the time? Apparently little since too many of the religious leadership seem interested in finding ways to reconcile modern science and medicine with a book that was written some 2000 years ago.
I would lay blame on this issue far more on the Pope and other religious figures for not finding a way to more effectively reconile their religious beliefs with what we know to be proven from the fields of modern science and medicine.
ppGaz
Very loud LOL!
Reminds me of an old Steve Martin routine.
Paraphrasing …. BAM! Monkeys! Then came the blog.
Andrei
“Apparently little since too many of the religious leadership seem interested ”
Should read:
Apparently little since too many of the religious leadership DO NOT seem interested
jg
Welfare doesn’t create poverty, it keeps poverty stricken people from starving to death. I swear there are people in this world who think the unemployment problem would be solved if we ended welfare. That all those people will just find jobs.
One party thinks some tax dollars should be spent on the common welfare of the country’s citizens. The other party thinks some tax dollars (working class peoples taxes only) should be spent helping multi-billion dollar oil companies research life after the oil runs out. Why are they using my money to do that instead of taking it from their profits?
Republicans will NEVER end welfare. it doesn’t affect the base so long as they lower the bases taxes. Let those who work paycheck to paycheck provide for the times in which they may need welfare. The rich will never need it so the republicans are making it so they don’t pay into it.
Nathan Lanier
Man, it never fails. I’ve posted on message boards, newsgroups, and blogs for years now and nothing sparks debate quite like creationism/ID/evolution.
Richard Bennett
More importantly, however, the failure we see these days on this topic is not from the President IMHO. It’s from a religious community that refuses to evolve over time as we learn more about the universe that surrounds us. What did we learn from the persecution of Galileo by the religious leadership at the time?
The Romans had the right idea: feed the bastards to the lions.
Richard Bennett
Duh. Republican presidents presided over the two largest expansions of the welfare program: 1) Eisenhower expanded it from a program that only served widows and orphans into one that served (and some would say encouraged) out-of-wedlock births; and 2) Nixon, under Pat Moynihan’s advice, radically increased benefits and ended the man-out-of-the-house rule.
Neither did so for any ulterior motive that I’ve ever been able to find, so it’s clearly not been a partisan football for most of its history.
Sojourner
Barney Frank is an asshole for mocking Bush’s support for teaching ID in science classes?
Breathe deep… left is right; up is down; black is white.
Oh, okay. I get it.
DougJ
“The same thing I make of the fact that 100% of the population used to think the earth was flat and the sun revolved around it.”
Well, I bet they taught that in schools the, that the earth was flat. We should do the same with creationism at least until a majority decides otherwise, which I find very unlikely.
Public education should reflect the shared values and beliefs of the community, not the dogma of liberal elites. It’s that simple.
Sojourner
No. The issue is whether ID should be passed off as SCIENCE. This is a huge difference.
Most Christians understand that science is one of many ways of understanding the world. And it follows a structured methodology not used by other ways of understanding. They have no problem understanding what science offers as well as its limitations. And they have no desire to mix the two.
It’s only the nutcases who want to pretend that ID is science. And they should be completely and emphatically mocked.
Frank was a whole lot more restrained than he needed to be.
DougJ
Look, RINOs, if you like evolution, the big bang, and the other myths so much, why don’t you effing leave the party already? Lord knows, we won’t miss you must. We’re sick and tired of hearing you go on and on about what “idiots” the core of the party. If you’re going to piss on us, please do it from outside the tent, where not as much of the spray will hit us.
DougJ
Do you RINOs know how dumb you sound? Shorter John Cole on the creation debate: “I think that Christians are subhuman morons, but Barney Frank sounded catty when he said the same thing, so I’m proud to still be a Republican.” How ridiculous is that? You’re holding the conservative movement back with your fakery. Just move to New York and burn flags with Paul Krugman. You’ll be hurting us less doing that than you are now.
Halffasthero
Someone once made a comment about picturing the day when he is offered a chance to fly on a plane designed by “faith-based” engineering. He finished by saying “Thanks but I think I will drive”.
I don’t often agree with Rick Moran but his rant on his website hits the nail right smack on the head. We are competing in a global economy where not everyone or every country agrees with the divinity of creation. And even if they did, would not require that it be part of their teaching. We are already starting to lose ground in education and I see these guys who want to ram creationism and Intelligent Design down our throats. There is no nice way to say that. That is going to hurt us in the long run when we have to play apologist and “balance” our education in order to try to get across the ideas of how science works. Anyone who has to do a presentation for their final project in grad or undergrad has to be able to prove their argument in front of professors. Are they going to argue God as the reason for why something works? How is that going to be substantiated or argued? What will it prove? The argument of stating that everything is based on Intelligent Design ends the discussion for that very reason.
I read or heard somewhere that when the scientists have finally figured out how “it all” began, they will find that religion has been there all along. How about people exercising a little faith (the basis of all religions) and not worrying about whether God had a hand in everything? We should be allowed to come up with our own answers. That is probably one of the biggest reasons we are here if you want to get philosophical.
ppGaz
Survey time: RealDoug, or FakeDoug?
Slartibartfast
ppGaz
No, education should teach the subject at hand. If the subject is science, it needs to teach science. Not French, and not religious myth.
Defense Guy
I’m doubting this is doug. There is ample room for difference of opinion in the big tent, as I am sure those in the donks camp worth listening too would claim as well. The area of contention is small, and making it larger is not wise for either side.
DougJ
“Survey time: RealDoug, or FakeDoug?”
It’s me, RealDoug.
This spoofing has really undermined my credibility here. I may have to stop posting and go elswhere.
ppGaz
Just checking. We need to get you a secret word.
Defense Guy
So teach evolution, just avoid the leap in assumption that it is the de facto proven source of life on earth. That belongs in philosophy.
demimondian
Sojourner has a passing encounter with duckquack:
You need to work on your orthodoxy, though, Soj…the correct tryptich is
War is peace
Love is hate
Ignorance is strength
Sojourner
And what teacher would be stupid enough to do anything other than encourage the students to decide for themselves which is right. Which, of course, completely undermines the whole purpose of science education.
Any teacher that challenged ID directly would in likelihood end up fired because of complaints from ignorant parents.
Sojourner
Actually, the biggest culprit was the loss of manufacturing jobs. These jobs allowed high school grads the chance to work their way into the middle class.
Stormy70
Why are the inner cities run for years by Democrats not making any progress?
Rome Again
That’s not always true, although I suspect it is often times. My parents had five children, raised 4 Republicans, I’m not one of them. I’m the youngest, saw a lot of racist viewpoints in my family and decided that I wasn’t having any of that. I also was the only child left at home when my parents got rich and I saw how they cared more about their freaking money than they did about anything else.
I’m not disputing that what you say is the way it may *usually* happen, but not always. I grew an understanding that greed and bigotry wasn’t what I could possibly believe in and for me I exposed myself to looking for the opposite of that, and I found it in the Democratic party.
You know what I find amazing (bear with me here for a moment everyone, both parties hear me out please, I’m addressing this to Republicans mostly, but try to see this from both parties points of view please) is that both parties shifted their goals and viewpoints, (Dixiecrats became Republicans – and the party of Lincoln evolved out of a “Democratic-Republican” party that had Thomas Jefferson listed as a Republican (of course, Republicans say “you can’t confuse Jefferson with a Republican”) and depending on when each of us was born and what our parents taught us or we somehow came to discover in our own observations, both parties admit to being the party of the working people, championing the needs of the poor, and pushing civil rights.
It seems there are racists in both parties (my parents were Republican racists; yet many Republicans state that it’s the Democrats who are racist and barring such extreme behavior as Robert Byrd once belonging to a KKK organization (whose racist past I wrote about earlier) I don’t know of any racist Democrats, and I’ve talked to plenty of Democrats in my lifetime. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, just that I’m unaware of my party being full of racists. I’m sure Republicans would say the same.
As someone with a Republican family, I was exposed to Republicanism early on, but of course, I only saw what I would call “the dark side”. I’m sure there are Republicans here who grew up in Democratic families and can attest to the same.
We’re not all that much different really, with the exception that I have never personally told a Republican that he has to leave my country or that I’d like to kill him simply because he doesn’t support my point of view (and let’s face it, the only reason why supporting the president is important is because it IS their point of view; otherwise, with all the questions of scandal after scandal (and hundreds of dollars of debt coming out of this administration), Republicans would have been calling for the president to come clean as well, just as they did with Nixon, and Clinton.)
Clinton got in trouble for having sex with a woman, not for any actual policy-making decisions. The railroading (and yes, I do consider it a railroading) was simply because Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich (who both have had run-ins with drugs and/or premarital affairs) and their Republican friends stirred up the Republican party.
We have all been duped, because as much as I believe you believe your Republican party stood for civil rights and was non-racist, so the same is true of my Democratic party. It is all based on what we heard, understood and observed.
If Republicans (as a whole, and I realize individuals will still disappoint) would simply tell me and my Democratic friends that we can live in the same country and continue to discuss the issues until we come to some sort of consensus, I would be willing to do the same. I don’t want to kill anyone, never did, I simply want my country back away from these religious and corporate extremists who have screwed ALL of us financially and constitutionally.
It has become apparent to me that theocratic extremists may be the culprits in the war against the parties these days. I think they are the driving factor that pushes all of us further apart. They used to exist in my party I understand (the southern Dixiecrats) and now they’re Republicans.
If you can understand that I have a problem with a president who embraces this religious extremism ideology, then you are much closer to my point of view then either of us are with the religously intolerant.
I admit that racism probably existed in my party and I’m just unaware of it, can you admit the same? I admit that I’m a Democrat because I understand the Democratic party to be the party of tolerance and the champion of the victims of this country, you probably believe that about your party too, don’t you?
If you believe in God, that’s okay with me; is it okay with you if I’m still making up my mind?
I’m sure we’ll still have differences, but what do you say that we try to compare our common traits and see how we can build a bridge to understanding the differences instead of threatening each other with castigation and death?
Why do I say “threatening each other with castigation and death”? Because I was threatened with both of these things by Republicans on several occasions. I am sure some of you can say the same of a few uncouth members of my party as well.
I’m willing to talk about our commonalities, how about you?
Thoughts?
Sojourner
Thanks! This is a lot harder than it looks.
Defense Guy
Great mantra, although I would write it this way:
War may be the only tenable path to a peace worth having
Love is the most assured way to conquer hate
Ignorance of that which seeks your destruction is its greatest strength
albedo
That’s what’s already being done. I may be wrong about this, but I don’t think the theory of evolution, as it stands today and is taught in schools (other than those in Kansas), purports to explain first principles. There’s research being done on abiogenesis, but nothing conclusive. As I remember it, evolution as taught in my high-school biology class basically started with, “life began evolving from asexual single-cell organisms,” and didn’t address from whence those first creatures came.
Sojourner
Because of treaties like CAFTA that ship jobs for high school grads over seas. And it’s a bipartisan criticism because Clinton was just as bad.
Rome Again
Maybe because contrary to the opinion of some, Democrats are not the elitists some people make them out to be. There are rich and poor in both parties, and while gluttonous rich people are only taking care of themselves, the poor are having to try to find a way to benefit from social programs that keep getting slashed. Now, I realize that Republicans think that social programs are expensive and not ideally run, but do you think that people in the inner cities should be given a helping hand or not? I would think that if you’re concerned about the poor in the inner cities not getting the help they need, you’d be forthcoming with support for a bill that would try to help them, although it would most likely be imperfect. That is what Social Security (among other programs) was supposed to be.
Rome Again
And as another Democrat, I totally concur with that assessment. Clinton screwed us on NAFTA.
DougJ
I was just emailed the URL of an excellent on-line graphic novel about what the future may be like if the secularists and liberals have their way
Check it out
http://accstudios.com/f/comicpreview_page_cover.htm
Rome Again
Whoops, make that hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars of debt… sorry, I got to typing too fast.
Stormy70
My church has done more for poor people than failed government programs. My church teaches them how to get a job, marries people too poor to afford the paperwork, feeds and clothes them. And they don’t accept crappy clothes, the clothes must be in good shape and funtional. It help people get jobs with business owners who belong to the church as well as with the local outlets of giant corporations. School supplies are given out to needy families, and Christmas toys are given out as well. All supported by the members of the church. They are treated with dignity and respect, not treated like a number.
Rome Again
Sorry DougJ, I’m really sick of hatred, I want to understand and try to unite the common beliefs instead of continuing to tear them down.
You go ahead and indulge in the hatred, I hope it makes you feel better. Tell me, according to your understanding, does Jesus condone this behavior?
Rome Again
Well, I don’t know your church, but it seems that most churches only do these things to give them an opportunity to proselytize to them. I ended up getting help from a church years ago, for the next three months I had people visiting me three times a week and wanting to pray in my home.
DougJ
“You go ahead and indulge in the hatred, I hope it makes you feel better. Tell me, according to your understanding, does Jesus condone this behavior?”
Rome again, I am not a hater. To the contrary, I found your piece on the differences between the parties to be quite thoughtful. I don’t hate you, or ppgaz, or even Michael Moore ;)
I think it comes down to this: for too long liberals have had too much power. They’ve done a lot of thing which undoubtedly seemed smart to their secular minds. But in the process they’ve wrecked a lot of our society. It’s time to give faith a chance. If I sound angry, it’s become I’ve become frustrated by the rule of secularism. Even when we who revere faith win elections, it seems like the men in black robes keep the secular rules in place.
As the country has become more secular the past 60 or 70 years, crime has gone up, teen pregnancy has gone up, the economy has gotten worse, and increasingly we are viewed as weak and divided by the rest of the world. Couldn’t we just give faith a chance? Is that asking too much?
Sojourner
I’d like to see data on that. The reality is the faith-based programs rarely stand up to scrutiny when real, concrete date are involved. The most common trick is to not include drop-outs in the final program assessment.
Rome Again
You call them failures, I see lots of programs that have worked quite well, but of course, with half the country being brainwashed into believing they’re complete and utter failures, they never got the support they needed to really become the great programs they were designed to be.
What happens to those people who don’t want to feel like they have to go to a church for help? Churches have a way of making people feel bad about themselves (“you’re a sinner”, “you’re going to burn in hell”, “you need Jesus”) and pushing people away. No, churches should not be the nation’s answer to solving poverty, if they want to help, fine… but one should not have to visit a religious establishment to get help, it makes many people uncomfortable.
Actually, if church people weren’t the loudmouthed “my way or the highway” type of people, I’m sure many more people would feel just fine walking into one, sadly though, I’ve not seen much Christian love in the churches these days. I’m not the only one who feels this way.
Sorry Stormy (funny that is my cat’s name, I like him), you are not one I care to unite with… you are one who is taking my country down the tubes with your “churches should be the welfare of the people” line. You are what I consider to be the enemy, and a part of the faction I consider responsible for this mess we are in. Please do feel offended if I no longer wish to engage in conversation with you, I’d rather puke up tons of applesauce. When your church alliances bring back the Christian love, I might listen, until then, sorry… I don’t have time to waste on your crusade.
ppGaz
DougForReal, are you sure you want to go on record as stating that your view of the future is based on fiction?
:-)
ppGaz
Cite, please.
Mike S
Damn that constitution.
Rome Again
Really, with 5 of the last 7 presidents being Republican, why would you feel that? Since 1980 23 years,starting with Reagan), Republicans have been in power all but 8 years.
I’m so sorry that you feel persecuted, but it’s JUST NOT TRUE!
albedo
First of all, source please. You can’t just throw out statements like that without some stats. The economy is worse how? 60 or 70 years ago we were in the middle of the Great Depression.
Secondly, how do you know if we’re actually more secular? Again, stats please. 85 percent of Americans believe in angels. I don’t think we’re all that secular. As a matter of fact, compared to the rest of the first world, we’re about as secular as Iran. Take a trip to Belgium and then tell me how secular America is.
Thirdly, assuming you’re correct about an increase of secularity, how do you propose to pin higher crime rates or whatever on that. England is ten times as secular as the US of A, and they have about a zillionth of the violent crime we do. Think greater access to guns (in WalMart) might have something to do with higher crime rates? If you’re going to pin all the accumulated ills in the last century on the evils of secularity, by the same logic, you have attribute social gains to it, as well. I guess civil rights and women’s lib were purely because of secularity as well, right?
Fourthly, what does giving faith a chance mean? Faith has all the chance in the world, whenever anyone prays, whenever anyone goes to church. What the hell are you talking about?
Atheists make up about 5 percent of the population. There are 430 something Christian congressmen in the legislature. Our president is a born-again, and most of his staff including the veep are Christians. Every president in US history has been a Christian. Again, what the hell are you talking about?
Rome Again
oops, 25 years, hit the 3 instead of the 5.
Bob
I can’t understand how anyone still believe in Bush or any of the Republican thieves. I guess God did it.
demimondian
DefenseGuy splutters:
Hook. Line. Sinker.
Chomp
(Here’s a hint. Defenestration Guy: go look up the word “duckquack” on Google.)
Rome Again
Yeah? Funny how that happens, when the current man in the Oval Office tells half this country that if we don’t support his war on a country that did not intend to invade us that we were with the terrorists, it is no wonder we’re weak and divided.
I would love to unite with people who have common goals, but supporting this president is not part of the deal. He divided us, he indicated we’re not one of his citizens.
You know, as much as I didn’t like what I understood to be Republican principles (which I’m sure many Republicans will say are what they understand to be Democratic principles), I can remember when less than 6 years ago we could all have civil conversations that didn’t turn into “get out of my country” threats. I wish we had that again, but your President ruined that. You don’t like how divided we are? Blame the one who created the problem; not the ones he victimized.
Stormy70
They don’t go to the church, they go to the Outreach Center. There is no forcing of people to become Christians or anything of the like.
I’m not offended and I am not a fundi, so feel free to make judgments based on the little time you’ve been posting here.
I don’t have church alliances, and our church has never uttered a political word, but if you are the type of person who is so sweeping in her judgments based on complete ignorance, then I don’t really care to engage you, either. However, I will alert you to when the crusade begins, so you can hide under your bed. What have you done for the crisis in Sudan or Zimbabwe or anywhere for that matter? I support missions that are actually going where it is dangerous to get food and medicine to the people who need it. Even Kristof at the times is praising the work of churches in Africa and other countries. Sorry I’m messing up “your” country, or is that the clever way of questioning my partiotism?
Stormy70
That is the biggest crock I’ve ever read, come here from Kos, did you? Now I see your Moonbat talk for what it is, and actually sorry I even replied to you. Lesson learned. LOL
demimondian
I came here from Kos…do you want me to go away, too?
D’you know what? If Bush had said “We should certainly discuss all scientific theories in science classes.” he’d have been right. He didn’t say that, or even anything close to that. There are ideas which simply are anti-scientific, and ID is one of them.
ppGaz
Really? You don’t think this guy is the most divisive president ever?
Good lord, Stormy, you are really out of touch with reality.
This man is a disaster. He acts as though his little margin of victory entitles him to govern as if the other half of the country doesn’t exist. You have idea, no idea at all, the depths to which this man is despised, and for good reason. I thought I had seen everything with Nixon, but this guy makes Nixon look like Ghandi.
Really, you need to get a clue. Intelligent advocacy is one thing, but blind-ass loyalty is something else.
Rome Again
No, you’re not a fundie, even though you sound like one. I’ve got news for you, the people at Kos are not the only ones who feel Bush has divided the country. There are many others who feel that way. If you feel the need to fictionalize this, that’s your own problem.
You know what? I really don’t care about your crusade, because I’m not one who believes in your goals, or your champion either. Kill me if you must, I’m a better person for not being the one to kill you or any of your compatriots. But then, we all know that your Jesus told you to love your enemies, so why are you going on a crusade?
No matter, I have to go to bed now so I can be up in four hours. Bye.
ppGaz
I didn’t exactly “come here from there” as I don’t post there and read there only lightly. But a reference there pointed me here, which is how I discovered Balloon Juice. I stuck around mainly because I enjoy John’s work and I find that he is attentive to facts. Even when I don’t agree with him, which is a considerable amount of the time, I don’t feel like I am being bamboozled. Pissed off at times, but never bamboozled. I don’t like to be bamboozled. If I wanted to be bamboozled, I’d be a Republican. I’d rather be free to have the wrong opinion, than be bamboozled by lying c…suckers (for example, the government).
DailyKos is pretty hard to pin down. I tend to pay attention only to Markos himself, as I think the guy is awesome. But DKos is a place where almost anybody can put up a tent. It’s diverse to a fault, and I mean that literally. To a fault. There is material there that I think is just crap. But, that is its appeal …. diversity of opinion.
Stormy70
Wow, you certainly became unhinged rather quickly. Oh my dear lord, this is priceless. Why did you bring killing into it, anyway? The crusade line was a joke, but I know better than trying to joke with a Kossiac moonbat of the first water.
No, I don’t want you guys to go away since it is so much fun to see you freak out, which is what she just did. She doesn’t want to unite with me? This is her argument? An attack on me for saying the good my church is engaged in, and the failure of government programs these people are not being served by? A personal attack for believing the wrong way is not the a coherent argument, it is an emotional burst of crazy talk. I assumed she came from Kos, it’s not like I accused her of coming from DU. I can understand that would rightfully piss anyone off.
Stormy70
Not all Kos people are Moonbats, I know this, but I can recognize when they arrive here. You know I like to tear it up with most of you guys, but I’m not sitting back for crazy conspiracy talk from emotional lefties. Ain’t goona happen (said the Scottish way ;) )
The Disenfranchised Voter
Secularists? Secularists? THE US WAS INTENDED TO BE A SECULAR COUNTRY!!
You people need to learn your American History.
http://ffrf.org/nontracts/xian.php
http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/summer97/secular.html
Slartibartfast
Ah, TOE makes no such claim. You’re thinking abiogenesis, which speaks to origins but is not something that TOE requires to have as a solid basis. As far as TOE is concerned, Merlin could have waved his magic wand and created single-celled organisms magically. Could be wrong about that, but I’m not wrong about the abiogenesis point.
Slartibartfast
Yep, Clinton got impeached for having sex.
Riiight. Do you laugh, when you tell yourself that? Because it induced some snorkles over here.
Halffasthero
Jesus H Christ! This is a real shitstormy70 that hit here. I have a headache seeing all the posting and counterposting. Leave for just a little while and watch the posting go through the roof. There is too much to read to catch up to it all, however, ppGaz is right, Stormy. I hate to disagree with you. Bush has been the most divisive and corrupt president the US has ever had. I consider him a pathalogical liar along with the whole damn lot surrounding him. He has no respect for the greater good and is the ultimate master of cronyism, bar none. I would have loved to see McCain as Pres but while the Republicans control both houses I see no benefit in it. There are no checks and balances and, frankly, we are going to pay for this presidents fun and frolics for a long damn time. Between his tax cuts and his stupid assed expensive fucking programs which he had no intention of financing he will bankrupt us. The beauty of his plan is he won’t be president when that happens. There is no delicate way to say that he is literally sacking the treasury and laughing his ass off. The debt isn’t going to pay for itself which means we have been sold a phoney damn bill of goods.
So he decides he wants to dumb down our education system too by promoting this shitty idea of ID (back to the original topic) along with evolution? That is just par for the course for this shitheel. Every time I think he can’t sink any farther, he always outdoes himself.
End of rant.
This is better than therapy, what with my liquor cabinet being drained of anything I like to drink midweek.
SeesThroughIt
Well, teen pregnancy has certainly gone up in states where they have an abstinence-only sex education policy because abstinence-only sex education is not only ineffectual, it’s often quite wrong in its “data”
Slartibartfast
Abstinence works; the key is using it properly.
Of course, that’s no damned fun, so…for God’s sake, if you’re simply going to abstain, at least wear a raincoat. And rubbers.
DougJ
There is so little data about abstinence only teaching that it is unfair to make the claims that you make, seesthroughit.
And shouldn’t sex education have a MORAL component? By sending our children out with condoms in the like, we may protect them from physical harm to some extent (though the jury is still out on how well condoms prevent the spread of STDs, including AIDS), but we should be helping to shape their moral character as well.
John S.
Sorry, Doug, but moral education is the job of parents at home, not the job of a teacher in a school classroom.
DougJ
“Sorry, Doug, but moral education is the job of parents at home, not the job of a teacher in a school classroom.”
I thought it took a village ;)
John S.
I’m not Hillary Clinton, but first and foremost it takes a parent. If the village is full of parents who don’t educate their own children, what the hell good does it do?
Andrei
I’m still waiting for Stormy to sign up for the services to fight in the war she feels is worth putting American’s lives on the line except her own.
Be a cold day in Hell I suppose…
Richard Bennett
But back to the topic at hand. I think Barney makes a classic liberal mistake in getting all high-and-mighty about a point of view with which he doesn’t happen to agree. The implication is that anyone who disagrees with Barney must be ignorant, because right-thinking people see everything the same way. This is wrong, of course.
The president is fully capable of understanding the evolutionary theory, but he chooses his Biblical account for personal reasons. It’s quite possible for well-educated and well-informed people to reach different conclusions, and the president’s no doubt come from his experience as a recovering alcoholic, just as Barney’s come from his experience as a promiscuous homosexual with a criminal history of employing underage prostitutes. We all have different life experiences, and they’re all equally valid.
The president’s personal belief that ID and creationism should be taught in science classes is wrong not just on science grounds, but on legal grounds. The public school system is not entitled under our system of government to shove religion down the throats of our young people, no matter how eager they or their parents may be for such shoving to take place. We have a Constitution, you see, that makes our government a secular one, and the schools are a branch of that government. This is a fact, and it’s independent of how many Americans go to church, tithe, and pray to Jesus every night before they to sleep.
ID is not a scientific theory, it’s a cleverly devised form of Biblical Creationism that was cooked-up in response to court decisions making it illegal to teach creationism to school kids in the guise of “Creation Science”, the last great deception of the Biblical literalists. Scientific theories make predictions that are testable, providing a basis for rejecting the theory.
ID is quite intentionally not testable, being based on the rather fanciful notion that any flaw, incompleteness, or gap in our knowledge of the specific mechanism of evolution is a de facto proof of ID. That’s not the way science works, of course. If you want to challenge a scientific theory, you’re obliged to put up another one that explains the evidence more concisely and with fewer contradictions. ID says, in essence, “God did it and we can never know how”. This way of thinking discourages people, especially young ones, from learning the complicated tools you need to do science, and it discourages the hard work and study that goes into science. At a time when biology is more important to our economy and our society than it’s ever been, and when science education in the US lags some 45 other nations and is headed down, it’s immoral to attack science education with the ID program, calculated as it is to promote ignorance of science. You merely have to read the excerpts from the Wedge Strategy John posted in the article to see this.
As bad as ID is to science education, it’s just as bad as a piece of theology. ID requires you to believe in a God whose initial design of the physics, chemistry, and biology of this planet was so bad it requires constant tinkering just to keep it running. It requires us to blame the existence of the most dreadful diseases on Divine, Loving Intelligence, and it forces us to surrender Free Will to an ever-meddling God. This isn’t good Christianity.
So if ID isn’t science, and it isn’t religion, can somebody tell me why anybody – even a Sunday School teacher – should waste any time indoctrinating our children with it?
Demdude
(Don’t forget to add Bush’s criminal cocaine addiction, promiscuous hetrosexual sex, failed businesses, drunk driving charges and questional military service.)
It seems that perhaps Liberals act like people are stupid and perhaps conservatives need to make passive aggressive snipes about people they don’t agree with.
DecidedFenceSitter
Yes, but who’s morals? I know for sure that you don’t want my morals influencing your kids, and vice-versai.
Not that this will get read, or probably responded to.
Demdude
I agree. You will also find folks screaming that we need prayer and the Bible in school means their version.
It’s kind of like when people discuss that the pilgrims came here for religious freedom. They immediately made everyone else’s religion illegal.
Sojourner
Not in this case. There is absolutely no reasonable defense for teaching non-science in a science class. It has nothing to do with beliefs. It has everything to do with how science is defined and performed.
Slartibartfast
I object to “cleverly”. The marketing of it is perhaps clever, but not much more clever than what the ICR was doing a decade ago.
mac Buckets
Except the one day I posted, I got banned for pointing out how a poster was wrong on his history. “Troll,” they called me. Yeah, what a diversity of opinion. Left and Insane Left.
mac Buckets
It’s Bush’s fault she doesn’t want to unite with you. All divisiveness is Bush’s fault. We weren’t divided at all under Clinton! Everyone held hands every day and sang songs of joy under the lemondrop trees! Don’t you remember??
And then Bush beat Gore, which tossed us out of the Garden. So by beating Gore, Bush caused all divisiveness, just like the lefties say.
DougJ
“I got banned for pointing out how a poster was wrong on his history.”
A similar thing happened to me on Free Republic. I got banned for sticking up for James Dobson in the whole SpongeBob thing (his comments were completely misinterpretted, but the Freepers wanted to bash him anyway).
Benjamin Polge
I know I’m gonna get torn apart for saying this, but I have to. I’m not a proponent of the ID movement, per se, but I am a Creationist. The fact is that after 150 years, the theory of evolution can not produce ONE single, verifiable piece of evidence that shows a increased informational content on the genome. They have many theories of how this theory can circumvent the 2nd law of thermodynamics… but all of them contradict it. Chemistry experiments have shown time and again that the only place that amino acids can form is in a lab and that the process of making RNA and DNA is so insanly complicated that there’s just no way it formed on it’s own. The ID movement is NOT about replacing science with non-science, it’s a debate over the materialitic assumptions of humanists. This debate is not being held, not because of its lack of scientific merit, but because of its implications. You’ve shown that here on this site. You define the argument as being about whether they can teach relegion in the class rooms, not about whether evolution is wrong or not, or if ID is even valid. I’d suggest that you all look into the evidence before jumping to conclusions. There I said it… commence the onslaught.
Rome Again
I wasn’t divided under Clinton, you may have been, which only leads me to wonder, why is it okay for Republicans to have felt divided under Clinton (who was being ridiculed for an affair with an intern, not for taking us into a war based on lies) and yet it’s not okay for Democrats to feel divided now since our “president” said that if we don’t support his war, we support terrorists? I don’t support terrorists, I support humans acting humanely, even towards combative elements of an enemy. That does not mean I want them to win a war against us, or that I would do anything to help them. I merely want us to act like a part of humanity. Jesus asked us to love our enemies, why am I the one who is wrong for pointing this out? I’m not even Christian and I believe more in Jesus’ “beatitudes” than most Christians do.
While Republicans were ridiculing Clinton, I did not say “you are not my neighbor”, but now I have Republicans telling me that if I don’t support their causes, then I don’t belong in “their” country and if they could find they me they would kill me.
As to Stormy asking me “who said anything about killing?”, your compatriots Stormy, they’ve told me numerous times that they’d kill me if they could, and don’t forget, you brought up the crusade. You may think the crusade is a joke, I assure you it is not. There are people out there who want to kill me simply because I will never embrace their Jesus. As for my “moonbat conspiracy theories” perhaps you’ve never read up on Dominionism, yeah, such a conspiracy theory, except that everything they are planning is coming to pass, including this ID thing.
Richard Bennett
The ID movement is NOT about replacing science with non-science, it’s a debate over the materialitic assumptions of humanists.
I like to think of ID as the scholastic equivalent of suicide bombing. The ID’ers believe science has given us a godless society, so it’s best to stop teaching science altogether. The first step towards that goal is to ensure that nobody learns science, to be achieved by injecting so much confusion into the curriculum.
If you believe we’re all just biding our time until The Rapture comes, it makes perfect sense.
Rome Again
By the way Stormy, telling me what your church is doing or has done is not necessary… it seems to me more like boasting.
If your church really doesn’t proselytize towards those they are helping, I truly applaud that, it is rare for no proselytizing to happen. As I stated earlier, I accepted the help of a church years ago, and they tried to indoctrinate me into their church because of it. I have first hand knowledge how this practice occurs.
If you really want to do something for someone, do it because you feel the need to help someone, not because you can look good towards others afterwards when talking about how you are helping others. I am glad that your church is working in the areas of the world where people are starving and dying, I would expect that if they are really Christian, they would do that… so why is it such a big deal to bring it up? Maybe because many churches DON’T do that anymore. Perhaps the church needs to improve its character, so you don’t have to go around saying “Our church is doing…”.
I will not answer your question of what I do or have done, I don’t have a lot of money, but I try to do my part, and imparting what I do is none of your business. I will do the work instead of boasting about it. My performance in the work of helping others is between whatever God I believe in and me; not you or your church buddies.
Rome Again
What about the rest of us, does our science methodology go down the tubes based on some RAPTURE theory?
Richard Bennett
Why of course it does. All this godless atheism that comes about from the young people learning science delays the Rapture and irritates the Almighty, so we have to stop all that heathen foolishness and strive to be more pious, like good suicide bombers.
mac Buckets
You didn’t realize that the nation was divided under Clinton? Really? You’d think that whole impeachment thing might’ve driven home a point, but whatever…
Your incorrect assertions about the war and Clinton aside, the reason the whining of the left is laughable is that even Bush can’t divide an already-divided country. For the left to whine about how we are so divided now, they have to forget or ignore that we were already divided before Florida 2000. And for you to say that we are only divided because of the war on terror ignores how hateful the left has been toward Bush ever since Florida 2000. War or no war, Bush was never going to get a break from Democrats because he beat Gore in a close election.
Everyone gets threatened on the internet if they hang around blogs/boards long enough (but nothing ever comes of it). Democrats have been openly hoping for Bush’s assassination all over the ‘Net, so spare me the “Republicans are so mean” moaning.
And remember “Jesusland” after Election 2004? That was about Democrats wanting to divide the country because they felt Red States shouldn’t be part of their America.
Slartibartfast
Which just goes to show you don’t understand the 2nd law. The second law says basically the total entropy in a closed system cannot decrease. The Earth is not a closed system.
Slartibartfast
You know, forget that. Start at the talkorigins FAQ and read; following all the links. If you get through that with some objections that still survive, we’ll talk.
Benjamin Polge
Notice that i did not say that i believe that science gave us a godless society. Materialism (the BELIEF that matter is all that there is) has been the siren call for atheists since its inception. Science has steadfastly not gotten rid of God as Einstein, Newton, Pascal, Mendel and Pasteur would have all been happy to tell you. The problem is that people do not understand what is being argued. There is a fundemental difference in Observational or Operation Science and the Study of Origins. there’s a simple experiment to set up to show the difference.
Set up a candle in the room and light it. Then ask people to come in and, using any method at there disposal, determine how long the candle has been burning. Operational science can find out the temperature of the flame, the rate of consumption and even make predictions based on current data… but without knowing certain things before hand (eg. the original height of the candle) there is no observational science that can dertermine the answer.
This is a debate over origins. The long-agers say the earth is millions of years old and here’s my interpetation of the evidence, the young-earthers say that the earth is young and here’s my interpetation of the SAME EVIDENCE. Materialists say that the universe(which, by the way, is a closed system) formed itself out of nothing and the ID guys say that there was a directed inteligent force. The people involved are ALL scientists, they are arguing over interpetations of evidence.
As for the 2nd law, the earth is not a closed system that is true, but unless there is a machine in place to convert energy to a higher form (the best example is chloraphyl) all energy will tend towards chaos. A leaf with chloraphyl turns sunlight into energy, the same leaf without withers and dies and eventually rots. Somehow the same people who accuse creationists of not understanding the 2nd law fail to see the paradox they propose. Before there was a energy converting machine, how did all that energy get converted to a significantly higher state, such as life.
Benjamin Polge
gladly… assuming that you will go to http://www.answersingenesis.org and and read; following all the links.
let me know when your finished.
Benjamin Polge
OK i read through the FAQ. The arguments used there I’ve seen all before, execpt for that bit about Behe. Anyway, i wonder if you’ve given this debate a fair hearing. All of those points in the FAQ have been answered, and well in any of the respectable publications of ID and creationists. I’m afraid that the issue is not as cut and dried as you would like to make it. TalkOrigins is highly biased towards materialism, if they’re right that’s not a bad thing. But if we’re right it is. So let me ask you this question. Have YOU, not TalkOrigins looked into the opposing side. I was an ardent evolutionist, then i looked into creation and changed my mind. If you’re right, a look into the eye of the enemy will not hurt. The truth will out.
Slartibartfast
There’s trouble with that young-earth interpretation of that same evidence; it’s incorrect.
I did go over there; the first few things I read were highly flawed. Top-level: cosmological issues are treated as big problems for evolutionists. Cosmology and evolution; one of these things is not like the other. “Evolutionary astronomy”: no such critter. Evolution is used as a catch-all for absolutely everything, when in reality the theory of evolution is simply a way to explain how simpler life evolved to more complex life. This is my absolute favorite:
Actually, the more I read, the more absolute favorites I get:
Yes, and the force of magic keeps everything from flying apart. Evidently, the author hasn’t yet happened on the portion of basic physics where centripetal acceleration is covered.
Whee! Black holes give no support to evolution. In other news, Mercury’s magnetic field gives no support to young-earth Creationism.
Oh, and they even repeat this old, debunked bit of nonsense:
I disagree strongly with that; I’d say they’re strongly biased toward forming conclusions from evidence using logic and reason. I think that if the evidence pointed right toward God as the culprit, TalkOrigins would be following that, instead.
This is argument from ignorance, BTW: because I don’t understand it, it cannot be. Well, I can’t tell you what came before chlorophyll as an energy-conversion device, but I can tell you that photosynthesis has been around for a staggeringly long time; billions of years. The bacteria that initially photosynthesized didn’t use chlorophyll, they used something called phycobilins. And the idea that photosynthesis is the only source of energy conversion is sort of devoid of merit; there are funguses and bacteria that never see daylight. Heat is another form of energy transfer, and there are lifeforms that thrive on heat, although using different energy-conversion processes than photosynthesis.
And energy is not converted to a “higher form”, it’s used to build molecules. How all that got started is abiogenesis, which is a different subject than evolution.
And yes, I’ve looked into the alternatives. Here’s my take: you guys aren’t doing yourselves any favors. I mean, answeringgenesis.com has a guy who’s been a weatherman for his entire career, writing pieces attempting to refute accepted cosmology. It’s even worse than that; evolution and cosmology and abiogenesis and astronomy and orbital mechanics and even elementary physics are swirled together as if they were all the same thing, when the only thing they might have in common is they disagree with strict creationism.
I don’t see science as negating religion, though. I simply see that strict interpretation of, say, Genesis is incompatible with pretty much everything we’ve observed about the age of the earth. The Grand Canyon was both deposited and then carved by the Flood? At what point was the sand transformed to sandstone? At what point were the metamorphic rocks formed? No answer. How do the steep Canyon walls hold up before the sand turns to sandstone? No anwer.
Benjamin Polge
“I don’t see science as negating religion, though. I simply see that strict interpretation of, say, Genesis is incompatible with pretty much everything we’ve observed about the age of the earth. The Grand Canyon was both deposited and then carved by the Flood? At what point was the sand transformed to sandstone? At what point were the metamorphic rocks formed? No answer. How do the steep Canyon walls hold up before the sand turns to sandstone? No anwer.”
Obviously you did a bang up job of reading the opposition’s points.
Henry Morris did his entire life’s work on flood geology, answering all of those questions, read any one of his books.
the sight that you said you were at http://www.answersingenesis.org; has these to specifically answer your questions
First there’s the whole list from Geology
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/geology.asp
then there’s specific to the Grand Canyon
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v18/i2/grand_canyon.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v17/i3/limestone.asp
http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=type&ID=2
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v15/i1/flood.asp
and on and on and on…
It’s interesting to note that the the middle of the grand canyon’s top is over 1000 feet higher than the top of the head of the canyon… and last time I checked rivers don’t flow uphill. Hey, I could be wrong, I’m only a bible beleiving creationist.
As to the 2nd law, your argument is a straw man, BTW. I never said that you can’t find the machine therefore it doesn’t exist, i was talking about concepts, chlorophyl was merely an example. Read my post more carefully. Also i never said that chlorophyl was the only source of energy conversion, I was using it because most people are familiar with it.
“Evolution is used as a catch-all for absolutely everything, when in reality the theory of evolution is simply a way to explain how simpler life evolved to more complex life.”
As to calling everything Evolution. OK, I admit that is a simplification on our part, but a justifiable one. Abiogenesis is the study of how life developed, in other words, before biological evolution took place, this is what we think happeded to turn a simple moleculea into a more complex ones. Before that simple stellar acretion disks were turning into more complex planets, stellar nebulae were turning into more complex stars, simple particles were turning ito more complex atoms, and before that the simplest of all things: nothing was turning into the far more complex: something. Don’t kid yourself into beleiving that you are talking about completely different things. They are all materialistic interpretations of origins. Labeling them differently on the shelf doesn’t change the content of package.
The problem with this debate is that people are sadly misinformed as to what the debate actually is. The debate is over the Materialist pre-suppositions of the currently accepted Cosmological Paradigm… which is just a fancy way of saying what framework the scientist are currently working in. The fact is the evolution has assumptions in the theory, every theory does whithout exception, even mine. We are questioning whether those assuptions are valid, whether the evidence supports them, or if there ever was.
BTW, just remembered where I’ve seen your nickname before, and let me personally thank you for all those fine vistas on the norwegian coastline. The award was not enough.
Richard Bennett
Um, no, they’re materialistic interpretations of the origins of material bodies. You’re free to imagine any origins you like for the imaginary souls that may or may not be embedded in said bodies.
The Catholic Church is able to make this distinction, rendering under Caesar that which is his and so forth, it’s only a few ignorant heretics who miss the point of God’s teaching and thereby create an artificial conflict. But this ignorance doesn’t keep these heretics from taking materialistic medicine when they’re sick, or from eating materialistic food when they’re hungry, or from living in materialistic houses and driving materialistic cars.
Benjamin Polge
From: http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=materialism&x=0&y=0
Main Entry: ma·te·ri·al·ism
Pronunciation: m&-‘tir-E-&-“li-z&m
Function: noun
1 a : a theory that physical matter is the only or fundamental reality and that all being and processes and phenomena can be explained as manifestations or results of matter b : a doctrine that the only or the highest values or objectives lie in material well-being and in the furtherance of material progress c : a doctrine that economic or social change is materially caused — compare HISTORICAL MATERIALISM
materialism is a philosophy. you can’t take materialistic medicide as medicine has no belief system. you can’t eat materialistic food unless you’re a canibal and though you can live in a materialistic house it’s only because of the people who live there.
OK, I have seen materialistic cars… all glitz, nothing under the hood, but i digress.
your statement of “Imaginary Souls” is a materialistic saying in that it equates the human soul with snufalufagus. The statement “Materialist interpretations of origins” implies material objects by the definition of Materialism.
Now, to rebutt:
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” – 2 Timothy 3:16. Either this is true, or it isn’t there are no inbetweens, God didn’t leave that open.
“In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth” – Genesis 1:1.
“For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them” – Exodus 20:11a.
If scripture is God-breathed(literally Breathed In) and God breathed that he created the world in 6 days, then saying that it took millions of years is calling God a liar.
“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned—” – Romans 5:12
God says (again, assuming that he did) that the reason why there is death in the world was because of Adam’s sin. Evolution says that man was formed by single-celled creatures becoming more complex through mutations and the death of those less fit to survive.
God says, Man first then death
Evolution says, Death first then Man
I believe that the bible is the holy, inspired word of God, the creater of the whole universe. Materialists, Naturalists and those who deny the Genesis account are calling the God who claims to have written the bible a liar or that he didn’t write the bible, or that doesn’t exist.
Surely you can at least see that this is not an artificial conflict that we came up with just to have something to do on the weekend. Documents like the Humanist Manifesto have made this debate personal on both sides. For if I’m right, then scientists have just been acting silly for the last 200 years. If I’m wrong then people have been giving their lives needlessly for over 4000 years.
and for future refernce, the quote is:
“Then he said to them, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.'” – Matthew 22:21
Richard Bennett
I believe that God inspired Darwin to write “Origin of Species” and any conflict between it and the Hebrew Bible has to be resolved in its favor on account of Darwin’s holy book being newer.
Furthermore, I believe you’re a false prophet doing the Devil’s work.
And finally, I prefer the King James version to whatever crap you’re quoting at me, Satan.