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the_ignored
SFN Addict
2562 Posts |
 Posted - 03/01/2007 : 13:14:03 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by filthy
I'm afraid I don't understand this: quote:
Give me any link to any article found on any anti-Christian website regarding the historical basis for Christianity, and I'll give you a detailed rebuttal within a week or less, which I will send to the author and give you his/her response.
The historical basis for Christianity is all very ordinary: an ancient people trying to explain their world and existence through supernatural beliefs, just like they all did. From thence came the NT, which evolved into what the faith is today -- a primary fund-raider, and a sanctuary for sanctimonious scoundrels.
I have indeed read Sarfati. In fact, I've had some conversations with him when he was active at Theology Web. He finally went ad hom on me one time too many, and I got banned for handing it back. No sense o' humor, those folks. I've also read Wieland, Ham, Baugh, Hovind (chuckle), Dobson, Perkins, and a fair number of the other better known YECs. So what?
You have? Cool! Could you tell me (in PM, if necessary) who you were on TWEB, so's I can go and check up on the relevant posts? Or could you copy and paste them to me in PM or something?
BTW...as for smoke's saying that ID has no real link to creationism, he should read the judge's decision or the transcript from the Dover trial itself. Both available at the National Center for Science Education, I believe.
Or, he could just read the Wedge document.
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>From: enuffenuff@fastmail.fm
(excerpt follows):
> I'm looking to teach these two bastards a lesson they'll never forget.
> Personal visit by mates of mine. No violence, just a wee little chat.
>
> **** has also committed more crimes than you can count with his
> incitement of hatred against a religion. That law came in about 2007
> much to ****'s ignorance. That is fact and his writing will become well
> know as well as him becoming a publicly known icon of hatred.
>
> Good luck with that fuckwit. And Reynold, fucking run, and don't stop.
> Disappear would be best as it was you who dared to attack me on my
> illness knowing nothing of the cause. You disgust me and you are top of
> the list boy. Again, no violence. Just regular reminders of who's there
> and visits to see you are behaving. Nothing scary in reality. But I'd
> still disappear if I was you.
What brought that on? this. Original posting here.
Another example of this guy's lunacy here. |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2007 : 13:31:21 [Permalink]
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quote:
Although the current members of the ID movement are overwhelmingly Christian, the ideology behind ID is naturalist/supernaturalistic. Its argument is not that God created Adam and Eve on the 6th day and rested on the 7th AND that evolution is false, but simply that evolution is false.
IDists are fond of telling you that they don't think that evolution is necessarily wrong, it's just that it could not have happened by purely "materialistic" mechanisms. So, an IDist can hold the view that common descent is true; that there has only been gradual change in species over time; that there is selection, drift etc; actually anything that science has to say about evolution EXCEPT they claim that some things are too unlikely to have happened in the absense of intelligence (think Behe's irreducible complexity, or Dembski's complex specified information).
And this is, of course, why ID is scientifically vacuous. Just about ANY viewpoint can be held by an IDist just as just about ANYTHING can fall under the term ID. Real science hasn't got this kind of luxury. |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 03/01/2007 : 14:29:16 [Permalink]
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quote:
You have? Cool! Could you tell me (in PM, if necessary) who you were on TWEB, so's I can go and check up on the relevant posts? Or could you copy and paste them to me in PM or something?
It was some three or four years ago and Dee-dee, et al, was in high dudgeon at the moment. Many were warned, suspended, and shitcanned. Joe Meert, PZ Myers, and Glenn Morton were there and got suspended in their turns as well. They gave "Socrates" something of a bumpy ride. It was fun, and I could probably have gotten back in; Dee-dee tends to be forgiving if you make nice, but I was starting to losing interest.
I was "Duvenoy" and I was hanging a lot at Internet Infidels.
doov
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2007 : 15:37:29 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by the_ignored
Or, he could just read the Wedge document.
Well, this is the kicker, isn't it? When the main force for ID puts out a secret document claiming that their mission was to "reverse the stifling materialist world view and replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions," it's hard to come to any other conclusion than that ID is creationism in disguise. |
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular
USA
1191 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2007 : 09:12:04 [Permalink]
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Smoke, you seem to be railing against some cartoon version of atheism you learned somewhere. If you want to argue against actual atheism, you should first learn what it is. To put it very simply, atheism is simply a lack of a belief that that a god or gods exist. This includes your god and every other god ever hypothesized. The lack of belief follows from the utter lack of credible evidence that any god exists. I don't hate or blame god because I do not believe that there is anything there to hate or blame.
Arguments against christianity are not only pointing out the lack of evidence in support of it, they also point out the flaws in the "holy book" and the "logic" the whole thing is based on. There are numerous contradictions and stories of impossible events. There is the sanctioning, even glorification, of atrocities and antisocial behavior on a scale that any reasonable person would find revolting. And there is the completely ridiculous notion that a being capable of creating the universe would micromanage and treat his creations so poorly. Top it off with the concept that the god had to come to earth in the form of his son, in order to have the crap beaten out of himself and have himself killed, all to save his creations from himself!
It's a wonder so many people buy into this story. Of course that level of gullibility also explains why there are almost as many variations of christianity as there are christians themselves, each claiming that they have the Truth(tm) and the other guy, sadly, is wrong, and should be dispatched to an eternity of unimaginable torture. I guess it also explains scientology, homeopathy, "The Secret", Deepak Chopra, and professional wrestling. |
The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley
The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2007 : 09:37:36 [Permalink]
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Hawks wrote: quote:
IDists are fond of telling you that they don't think that evolution is necessarily wrong, it's just that it could not have happened by purely "materialistic" mechanisms. So, an IDist can hold the view that common descent is true; that there has only been gradual change in species over time; that there is selection, drift etc; actually anything that science has to say about evolution EXCEPT they claim that some things are too unlikely to have happened in the absense of intelligence (think Behe's irreducible complexity, or Dembski's complex specified information).
Thank you for mentioning this! When Michael Behe was at OSU a few years ago, during the question and answer period one of the students from Students For Freethought (the club I was VP of at the time) asked about common descent and got Behe to admit that man descended from ape-like creatures. He simply squirmed as he admitted it and did a lot of word salad dancing around. It was like he was trying to make sure he confused all the totally anti-evolution Creationists so they'd keep supporting him and buying his book, while admitting that his hypothesis does not oppose evolution. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2007 : 10:06:49 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by R.Wreck
It's a wonder so many people buy into this story. Of course that level of gullibility also explains why there are almost as many variations of christianity as there are christians themselves, each claiming that they have the Truth(tm) and the other guy, sadly, is wrong, and should be dispatched to an eternity of unimaginable torture. I guess it also explains scientology, homeopathy, "The Secret", Deepak Chopra, and professional wrestling.
Hey! Speak for yourself, man! That stuff is real!
Whoooooo!
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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2007 : 10:24:56 [Permalink]
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| WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! |
by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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Ghost_Skeptic
SFN Regular
Canada
510 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2007 : 13:16:44 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by marfknox
Hawks wrote: quote:
IDists are fond of telling you that they don't think that evolution is necessarily wrong, it's just that it could not have happened by purely "materialistic" mechanisms. So, an IDist can hold the view that common descent is true; that there has only been gradual change in species over time; that there is selection, drift etc; actually anything that science has to say about evolution EXCEPT they claim that some things are too unlikely to have happened in the absense of intelligence (think Behe's irreducible complexity, or Dembski's complex specified information).
Thank you for mentioning this! When Michael Behe was at OSU a few years ago, during the question and answer period one of the students from Students For Freethought (the club I was VP of at the time) asked about common descent and got Behe to admit that man descended from ape-like creatures. He simply squirmed as he admitted it and did a lot of word salad dancing around. It was like he was trying to make sure he confused all the totally anti-evolution Creationists so they'd keep supporting him and buying his book, while admitting that his hypothesis does not oppose evolution.
Don't the IDiots claim that all species did not descend from a common ancestors - it seems Behe does not agree with this, however did Behe not claim there were no transitional fossils for whales? or am I confusing him with Dumbski |
"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. / You can send a kid to college but you can't make him think." - B.B. King
History is made by stupid people - The Arrogant Worms
"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism." - William Osler
"Religion is the natural home of the psychopath" - Pat Condell
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" - Thomas Jefferson |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2007 : 14:21:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Ghost_Skeptic
Don't the IDiots claim that all species did not descend from a common ancestors - it seems Behe does not agree with this, however did Behe not claim there were no transitional fossils for whales? or am I confusing him with Dumbski
Well, this is part of the ID problem-- they don't actually have any hypotheses. There is no predictive power. To date, ID is almost entirely made up of critiques of evolution. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2007 : 14:29:55 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Cuneiformist
To date, ID is almost entirely made up of critiques of evolution.
Poor critiques of evolution. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2007 : 22:34:19 [Permalink]
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quote:
Poor critiques of evolution.
Erroneous critiques of evolution.
Can't think of a single one that is based on any actual evidence.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 03/03/2007 : 08:52:56 [Permalink]
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But more to the point, a competing theory can't simply be a critique (however good or bad) of another one. It has to say something on its own. ID has no predictive powers and isn't testable. All it says is that some things are too complex to have come about via the mechanisms described in modern evolutionary theory. Indeed, if I understand ID correctly, the claim is that we can only say that some things have been designed. Trying to figure out who designed such things, or how they did it is impossible. (Though, through logical deduction, the only possibilities for a designer are a) some divine being, or b) an extra-dimensional being.) It's really quite worthless.
Speaking of which, I guess smoke bailed after all. Even after he asked for and received a critique of AiG, he's nowhere to be found. Figures.  |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 03/03/2007 : 09:19:37 [Permalink]
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He's in over his head here. I think he failed to realize that we not only do our homework, but like doing it! One giveaway was when he asked me if I'd read Sarfati. Of course I have, as have many of us; if we didn't know what they were thinking, we couldn't very well argue against them, now could we?
Why do people not research this site before leaping in? 
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
 Posted - 03/03/2007 : 10:32:49 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by filthy
He's in over his head here. I think he failed to realize that we not only do our homework, but like doing it! One giveaway was when he asked me if I'd read Sarfati. Of course I have, as have many of us; if we didn't know what they were thinking, we couldn't very well argue against them, now could we?
Why do people not research this site before leaping in?
Most like Smoke probably never research the other side. They only read the propaganda that they have been fed about us and science and even the bible on websites like AIG. Armed with incomplete or absolute baloney about skeptics, they come here thinking that they have the goods on us and that we will be easy targets.
And the really sad part is they go running back for the shelter of those sites that ultimately left them unable to debate with anyone who actually knows anything about the subject they thought they were expert on. Only by insulating themselves with a propaganda wrap dished out by others of their kind do they find support for their views.
Meaning, they are not willing to learn from us or especially teach us anything, if indeed they actually have something to teach us…
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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You may be a fundamentalist atheist if...
