Comments for From the Scriptorum

Comment on Pickled Fish, Dead Greeks, and Memories by Mari kvam

Mari kvam — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:42:38 +0000

I love pickled herring with the big salad

Comment on Reposting P.Z. Myers by Andy

Andy — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:38:03 +0000

Of course, you don’t need to be a fundamentalist Christian to hold this view. Many philosophers have made essentially this same objection against Kant.

Comment on 05 December 2007 by Schoeneman Shurlocke

Schoeneman Shurlocke — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:30:06 +0000

Hi people, it is Thanksgiving Day! I’m enjoying my extra day off, and I am planning to doing something fun that’ll probably involve a moto trip and seeing something new in Garfield I haven’t seen yet.
You write something new at Thanksgiving?

Comment on Pickled Fish, Dead Greeks, and Memories by Richard

Richard — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:42:14 +0000

were we ever that young!

Comment on Pickled Fish, Dead Greeks, and Memories by JB

JB — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:03:22 +0000

You had me at pickled herring, yum!

As for what makes up ones “self” I have no answers. Even allowing for the existence of a soul tho, you cannot define it as a fixed eternal thing. So much of my belief system, including religion, has changed over the years for me to accept that self is any less fluid and evolving than cellular make up. You add to your “self” as you progress thru life, and to some extent you subtract that which doesn’t fit any longer.

For example while you still may be my young friend from the beermuda triangle you are also a husband, father, and scholar. While I rather suspect that you, like myself, do a whole lot less wandering around country roads drinking the cheapest beer imaginable.

Comment on Thou shalt not write by JustKristin

JustKristin — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:23:00 +0000

I tried for a while to come up with a postmodern way of saying “You have made me laugh so hard that I have wet my pants a little,” but I had to give up.

Comment on The Wells dry by richard

richard — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:29:46 +0000

as for illustrative points in the ten questions above, they are responses to the inane questions posed by wells. The answers are not provided to explain evolution, a task that actually requires a great deal of reading, study, and experimentation. The answers provided are to questions posed by Wells, and the very fact of there trivial nature says far more bout the nature of Wells’ queries than it does about evolution. For evidence, I propose taking a college evolution course with a lab. Ask the professor frank and direct questions. IF his answers are unclear, press him until he gives a clear answer. red accounts of experiments. read Darwin (though science has moved a long way since his work). Read Coyne’s why evolution is true. Read the legal opinion of the judge (a Bush appointee, a Republican, and an evangelical Christian) concerning the blatant dishonesty of ID in the Kitzweller vs. Dover case. Read. Don’t take my word for it. Demand evidence. Test that evidence. Test it again. This is science. This is reason, and in a world where men are blowing up buildings so that they can go to a magical garden with 72 virgins or a man is claiming that it was the voice of god that made him kill 113 people, we need reason. we need to be free of superstition, ignorance, and intolerance because someone else doesn’t believe in the same sky god we do.
Let me be blunt: To side with the ridiculous notion of ID when there is so much physical evidence for evolution, not to mention to wish to take people’s rights (as in marriage) away because they do not share either your beliefs or your certain subsection of belief is to be on a side familiar to history. it is the side that once burned witches, that once killed Protestants for being Protestant and Catholics for being Catholic. It is the very side that denied for 200 years after the evidence came in (and sometimes longer) that the earth revolved around the sun. Going farther back, it is the side that thought Zeus threw lightning and when challenged in their beliefs, put a man like Socrates to death.
The enemies of reason have always been there. They once stood behind the cup of hemlock that Socrates drank, now they stand behind the Star of David, the Cresent, and the Cross.

Comment on The Wells dry by Richard

Richard — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:59:48 +0000

First, the mountain of evidence is unavoidable. Yes, I have seen expelled. Stein, whose scientific knowledge is risible at best, first lied to group of scientists concerning the nature of his show, then spliced clips to distort evidence. Stein’s general statements were so preposterous as to warrant very little comment from researchers. Dawkins took the time to crush Stein quite handily.
As for the arguments to disprove evolution, they use either unsound logic or unsound science. Science uses evidence, and though they may not always like the results (there are many Christians I know who hate the idea of evolution, but nevertheless realize that the evidence is overwhelming. Now, evolution does not mean that there is no God. The mechanism for evolution could very well have been instituted by a creator, but the results are not intelligent design. 99.9 percent of all species to ever live are now extinct, which is in itself hard to equate with any theory of purposeful design. Further, anatomical redundancies and self-destructive features abound. While this does not disprove ID entirely, it makes it very unlikely. If there were any evidence outside of sheer hope and speculative, untested experimentation, I would take the idea more seriously. Evolution, however, is continually proven, thousands of times every month. Scientists continually try to disprove it, but they cannot, and the evidence grows and grows. You asked me a question. Let me ask you two:

If there be a God, why do so many of his followers wish to place such staggering restrictions on his abilities? Why is your concept of God so small? Could He simply not come up with evolution? His omnipotence would surely tell him that the grand result would be humanity? (I certainly do not hold this theological view, but I maintain, given the colossal evidence – and I have to say, I have never seen so much that is so rigorous and TESTABLE – that this is more likely then some unprovable wish for ID)
Question 2: Why are many evolutionists monotheists (mainly Christians and Jews, but some Muslims), while there are no opponents of evolution who are not religious?
I leave you with this thought:
Religion constantly attempts to prove itself right, to be the true path, the true way. This is it’s nature. This is why we have missionaries, pastors, desires to ’save’ others. We want to sit down and prove to them that our faith is the way to salvataion.
Science constantly attempts to prove itself wrong. They are not concerned with their dogma. They want the truth, as much as they can get. Then they want to try and prove it by testing against it, again and again and again and again. Stein thought it was funny that the first objection people had was that he lied to them about the nature of his show (it was, I asure you, not the last objection they had, though this is how Stein portrays is). Of course they were. They are used to honesty. Do you really think that a scientist, if he cold disprove evolution, would not do it. Can you imagine the fame and recognition they would achieve? Their name would eclipse that of Darwin.

Finally, do you gt a flu shot every year? You need to, because there are many stains, and those that survive the vaccine, well, they adapt by a process of mutation, natural selection, speciation, and evolution. Germ theory, antibiotics, so much is founded upon the proven concept of evolution. Have you really looked at the evidence?

Comment on The Wells dry by Jay U know who I am person

Jay U know who I am person — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:13:32 +0000

bye the way have you seen, “Expelled” ?

Comment on The Wells dry by Jay U know who I am person

Jay U know who I am person — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:12:38 +0000

All of your answers say that most of the arguments to disprove evolution are only because they are “Illustrations” . How does this prove your point? I know I shall regret this but I just cannot resist