A chance to be a pro-science activist!

Because it would be oppressive, and worse than that... boring as hell.Diversity of opinion and belief is important. We need crackpots and at least a little bit of delusional and outside the box thinking, just as much as the rigid stick to logic and evidence (and assume that is all there is) types.The key is to make sure there is a government which allows many diverse and conflicting belief systems to live in harmony.That is why a secular government is the best system developed so far. The Romans and Greeks allowed for many, but still an imposition of their own beliefs on top of others. It can work, but its still messy. The founding fathers were quite brilliant in instituting secular gov't.Many mistake secularism in gov't for atheism. It is more like agnosticism or simply "I won't touch that with a ten foot pole"-ism.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

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Oh, I see, you want to play some ad hominem to discredit ID solely because it might have some Christian heritage.

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Creationism specifically refers to the Biblical God as the intelligent being, while ID is more deistic, saying there is a god or an intelligent force, but it never says whose God.

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I think it is very interesting that you think that ID says there is a god at all, and that is has some "Christian heritage", because the major ID proponents never say that at all. In fact, they take great pains to explain that their idea is not religiously derived at all, and definitely distance themselves from the Christian religion as much as they can.The fact that you think the ID movement is actually founded in Christianity, and is referring to God as the IDer, belies the IDists true source and effect.ID is simply a modern version of God of the Gaps, except they don't call it the Christian God.

I had several comments on commikes posts, they have been moved to the appropriate thread.For this thread I just would like to note this: is a logical fallacy (appeal to authority) position: creationist love to play the numbers games, and now this "form" of "evidence" appears to be moving into the IDist conceptual arena.For numbers compare you list to "The Steve List"
http://www.ncseweb.org/...ticles/3697_the_list_2_16_2003.aspThis lists all the scientists who have endorsed the following statement: see My post #132 on {Intelligent Design Creationism} thread (click) for the remainder of these commentsthis thread is about the question of fair play occuring at the school board. obviously it is not, regardless of how you view the topic if you switched the book donations and read through the comments you would have to conclude that bias is evident.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

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Because of "the holocaust" having happened not too long ago, a world war, and a lot of evidence, It's taught that it actually happened.

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Exactly.Evolution is happening as we speak. We can run an experiment in a pitri dish with bacteria that demonstrates evolution. There is a LOT of evidence in support of evolution; 150 years worth, conducted by hundreds of thousands of scientists.What you are suggesting is that it's no big deal that we teach ID in schools, which has no scientific evidence to support it. This is just the same as teaching the idea that the Holocaust didn't happen as a valid alternate theory, even though there is no evidence to support it.

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ID is just an alternative to a sketchy history.

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What is ID theory? What are it's predictions, how can we test them and have they been tested and shown to survive the tests? What would falsify those predictions? Does the Theory take into account all of the observed evidence?See, if ID wants to be taken seriously as science, it has to answer these extremely basic questions, but it hasn't as of yet.Why should any old idea, regardless of how much support it has, be taught as a valid alternate theory when it is clearly anything but?

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You forget that students sort of forget to question things in school.

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That is the fault of the educational system and programs that emphasize test results.

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They start to think that whatever a teacher says is truth, and questioning it is a waste of time. They become desensitized. This would be abolished if some things were questioned for them, or rather another opposing view was put into the picture.

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OK, then do you agree that the idea that the Holocaust never happened should be presented as a valid alternative to mainstream WWII history?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 03-26-2005 10:14 AM

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Ahem... Moses commited genocide, the Jews commited genocide, the Xians commited genocide, the Muslims have to some extent attempted genocidal purges. The current "culture war" is a concept developed by and propagated by fundementalist Xians, because as they put it the Xian worldview is in danger (in competition with others) and Xians must fight to stay on top of other beliefs.

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Humans are corrupt.Isolating religious groups from this competition really doesn't mean much to me, people will always have this, unless they can somehow can seperate from this world of materialistic competition. That is our need.

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The ToE doesn't say anything about social "darwinism" which is made be people quite ignorant of what the ToE is about. Most of evolution appears to be driven by environmental changes, or entities moving into new environments, not how best to kill and dominate each other. It just so happens that the ranks of better adapted creatures will thrive.

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I respect it as a science, but when applied to humans it becomes very ugly.Man doesn't have to be a part of this mess.This message has been edited by prophex, 03-30-2005 11:36 AMThis message has been edited by prophex, 03-30-2005 11:37 AM

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Social Darwinism enjoyed widespread popularity in some European circles, particularly among ruling elites during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During this period the global recession of the 1870s encouraged a view of the world which saw societies or nations in competition with one another for survival in a hostile world. This attitude encouraged increasing militarization and the division of the world into colonial spheres of influence. The interpretation of social Darwinism of the time emphasized competition between species and races rather than cooperation.

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What you are suggesting is that it's no big deal that we teach ID in schools, which has no scientific evidence to support it. This is just the same as teaching the idea that the Holocaust didn't happen as a valid alternate theory, even though there is no evidence to support it.

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Take ID as an idea, rather than proven science. While you need the evidence, all I want is the idea as an alternative, I believe that this might spark some people to re-think what their teachers tell them with great faith that it is truth. Maybe it wouldn't fit in a classroom dedicated to science, rather a philosophical disscussion after school. Wherever it wouldn't be as bad as Lenny might like to tell you.

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That is the fault of the educational system and programs that emphasize test results.

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High School.

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OK, then do you agree that the idea that the Holocaust never happened should be presented as a valid alternative to mainstream WWII history?

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I don't agree with censorship, with evolution and creation, noone really knows, nothing to hide.

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Social Darwinism enjoyed widespread popularity in some European circles, particularly among ruling elites during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During this period the global recession of the 1870s encouraged a view of the world which saw societies or nations in competition with one another for survival in a hostile world. This attitude encouraged increasing militarization and the division of the world into colonial spheres of influence. The interpretation of social Darwinism of the time emphasized competition between species and races rather than cooperation.

Ahem... thank you for proving what I just said. Evolutionary theory does not say humans are in a state of materialistic competition that cannot be overcome, Xians do.Although I suppose I'd point out there was no materialistic reason the genocides of Moses, and later Xians and Muslims. Neither is there a materialistic competitive reason for the current "culture war" the fundamentalist Xians have begun and continue to propagate. All of that was ideological non materialistic competition.The genocide commited at Canaan was material and ideologically driven. I honestly don't know what this means. What does it mean to apply the ToE to humans?Look again at Genesis and the fall and the aftermath of the fall... that's a mess humans need to be a part of?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

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Being a pawn sucks. The rich guys tell me to take part in the american dream, competing for a home and a nice family. The one creationist I met was poor, and sought truth. Although his arguments were sometimes flawed.

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Don't confuse atheism with greed, or theism with nobility. The very existance of communism demonstrates an atheistic criticism of capitalistic profit for its own sake. Fuck the american dream, it was always a lie.

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The genocide commited at Canaan was material and ideologically driven.

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Ideologically I see, but material? How?

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Thanks for giving me the oppurtunity to leech knowledge off of all you guys.

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The very existance of communism demonstrates an atheistic criticism of capitalistic profit for its own sake.

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Marx's acceptance of this notion of materialist dialectics which rejected Hegel's idealism was greatly influenced by Ludwig Feuerbach. In The Essence of Christianity, Feuerbach argued that God is really a creation of man and that the qualities people attribute to God are really qualities of humanity.

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-wikipediaYes, you're right. Had to look it up.

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Don't confuse atheism with greed, or theism with nobility.

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I don't understand, sorry but could you explain this? I'm not seeing where I said something to that effect.

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Thanks for giving me the oppurtunity to leech knowledge off of all you guys.

I emailed your friend Lenny on my newly acquired GMAIL account and this is what he said, I sent him more or less my first reply to you here.

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Sorry for the form letter----I get so many emails from
fundamentalist kooks that it's impossible for me to
reply individually to all of them.

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I don't "debate" in private email. I prefer to say
everything in public where everyone can see. If
you think you have something scientific to say,
then join us at the DebunkCreation email list --
sign up at

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http://www.groups.yahoo.com/groups/DebunkCreation

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and say it. There are a number of professional
scientists there (most of them Christians) who
would be more than happy to join me in demonstrating
right there, in front of the whole world, how silly
and stupid all of the creationist anti-evolution
"arguments" are.

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If, on the other hand, all you want to do is preach
at me, don't bother. I am an ordained minister, and
I am not even remotely interested in listening to
any of your religious opinions.

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If I wasn't a google convert I probably would check it out, but I just told him evc is better. He warded me off with this reply.

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Thanks for giving me the oppurtunity to leech knowledge off of all you guys.

Uhhhhh... You are responding after a break so maybe you forgot what our little back and forth was about.If you follow the thread back up you will find that it was my point that ideology was the driving force of Xian and Jewish "bible-based" genocides. You responded by saying they had a material basis like other genocides, mainly competition for resources/power/survival. My reply was suggesting that in addition to any material motives (which you were suggesting) Canaan most certainly was ideologically driven.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)