Friday, September 11, 2009

Commentos

This is not a post, but rather just a place for you to drop a note or leave any kind of comment not connected to a specific post.   All fond "hello's" welcome.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Climate Change

Ok, so you have the most important mission ever... TO SAVE HUMANKIND... You precipitate to Earth... (well, after waiting couple thousand of years)... and spend 30 years doing nothing waiting for your testicles to drop and for a beard to grow...


What the hell was the point of Jebus being born as a sh***ing pi**ing baby, then grown into a acne ridden teen... then working as an average carpenter (presumably he was nothing special at making furniture as nobody raved about it.) then spend a 10th of the life-time actually doing any work?

Would it not be more logical to be born a 20 year old and "hit the ground running?" All those years he could have been preaching a message of love... he did NOTHING.

P.S. Anybody care to estimate the value of a bench made by Jesus at an auction?
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=291928

Friday, August 7, 2009

Where the arguments take us. (Video Roulette)

Satire:  Brilliant when it reiforces what we believe,  dishonest, manipulating, and stupid when it challenges what we believe.

Satire is strange, in that it must as a form, take what is weak in an argument, and make it weaker (or bolder) through exaggeration.   So satire is, in one sense, inherently dishonest.  It thrives in the market of distortion.  On the other hand, it has the unique ability to lshow us the weakness of a certain claim.

Science is Delusional  (strong satire,  wrong end)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89drdl0Ck7U&feature=fvw

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

The Implications of Naturalism: Notes

No Moral Absolutes:

From a discussion on a largely atheistic forum, in response to a question about relative morals.

http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=14687

Question: If you don't believe it God, then from where do you derive your moral code? If it really is moral relativism, then on what basis do you pass moral judgment on others? How can you reprimand Jenny McCarthy for what she does, if you can't say it's unethical? If you recognize your opinion as relativism and still force it upon others, how is your outlook not self-centered?


Reply 1:  Whether we feel good about it or not, all morals are "reasoned," by which I mean that they are created by intellectual means by and among people. We can pretend that morals come from a magical omnipotent being, but that doesn't make it so. And yes, sometimes morals are invented to serve the interests of their inventors. This is as true of religiously invented morals as of secular morals. As an example, look at the first four of the Ten Commandments (no other gods, no graven images, no taking God's name in vain, keep holy the sabbath), which serve no purpose beyond reinforcing the perpetuation of religious power. Atheists aren't less moral than believers; they're just more honest about where their morals come from.
Note: this seems a most credible critique of Christian morality...I know for example that I selectively choose which of the Christian scriptures I find binding...and it easy enought to dismiss in whole or in part, even thosee I do find binding.



Reply 10:  Relativism is ignorance. Morals are easy. Let me demonstrate morality right here.
me:

Hey, I don't like when people steal my shit. I also wouldn't like it if people killed me or the people I care about.

everyone else:

Hey, we also don't want our shit stolen, and we don't want to be killed.

us:

Lets all live together and agree not to kill each other and steal each others shit! In fact, we'll set up laws to punish people who do that! Ya! Is there anything else we agree on? Um... ya! We all value truth over lies, so lets make it illegal to spread lies! (Oh no Sylvia Brown and McCarthy!) Hey, lets set up some traffic laws in the city so that people can commute easier! omg what's he doing? is he creating a civil society right in front of our eyes, without invoking a god or divine edict? Hey, new idea! Our children might not have the same ideas as to what is right/wrong as we do. We should set up a system where the laws can be changed, so new situations can be reacted to, and the shifting moral zeitgeist can be addressed!

Friday, June 26, 2009

ID: Notes

A comment on Biologos about the real challenge for evolution(ists)   -- the mechanism
http://biologos.org/blog/evidences-for-evolution-part-2a-the-whales-tale/

 
Agreed. Nothing in this article addresses the nitty-gritty about *how the necessary morphological changes were achieved*. It just beats the same old Biologos drum about common genetic features proving common ancestry. The issue isn’t common ancestry; it’s how one form is transformed into another. That’s what we know almost nothing about, and that’s where the scientific research should be focused. Sternberg is pleading for that, but the neo-Darwinians just don’t get it.

 
The problem is that, for the last 50 years or so, the education of engineers and the education of biologists has been radically divergent, and precisely what is needed for a serious theory of macroevolutionary change is the application of engineering insights to biology. I don’t know what it would take to get population geneticists to learn to think like engineers, but I do know that as long as traditional population geneticists are in charge of evolutionary theory, it will never be able to explain how anything occurred in a satisfactory way

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Notes: Profiles in ID (Critical)

We have this going for us, however, which the evolutionary naturalists don’t, namely, the evidence and arguments are on our side. It’s therefore to our advantage to discuss intelligent design and naturalistic evolution on their merits. Conversely, the other side needs to delegitimate the debate between intelligent design and naturalistic evolution, casting intelligent design as a pseudoscience and characterizing its significance purely in political and religious terms. As a consequence, critics of intelligent design engage in all forms of character assassination, ad hominem attacks, guilt by association, and demonization.~ William Dembski