Letters to the Editor
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@droogoy
Must I "reinvent the wheel" each time I am making a point, when there are dozens of sites and forums on which I debate?
Debate? Your Salon comments are 163 letters covering 45 pages of juvenile flame from a person who cannot articulate a point of view, only drop buzzwords and insults. Sorry I took you seriously. Should have recognized a baiter.
Also, don't post anonymously and pretend to be someone else. Its passive aggressive.
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prohibition of promoting religion
"hoping to avoid getting snagged on the First Amendment's prohibition against promoting religion"
Am I missing something?--I just read an reread the first amendment and nowhere does it prohibit promoting religion. Perhaps Gordy has an agenda? More likely it is his way of assaulting religion "insidiously?"
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Actually
verelse wrote:
Sorry I took you seriously. Should have recognized a baiter.
No, sorry I took you seriously, I should have recognized a grade A bozo when you first insisted there were no falsification tests for evolution.
Fits the standard modus operandi for the zealots, morons and pseudo-intellectuals I have had to debate (including in real life forums) for the past twenty -eight years.
If you are some kind of intellectual, you are a disgrace to the name. If you possess a Ph.D. it ought to be revoked. You ought to go soak your head someplace.
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Self-Organization
Well, the IDers are right about one thing: Darwinism isn't sufficient for explaining the origins of life. However, there is something that does account for it: self-organizatin theory. A few years ago Science ran an article about different-sized rocks self-organizing into rings and loops in Antartica. Apparently all you need is different-sized rocks, water, and alternating freezing-thawing temperatures. Now, if rocks and water can cause self-organization into ring structures (an order which, if we saw it would make us think, "I wonder who came out here to organize these rocks" -- with the answer we now know to be "Nobody), then imagine what complex systems could emerge with organic chemicals. Well, we don't have to imagine. Here I am, typing this. It turns out that if you combine self-organization theory, complexity, emergence, and various theories of evolution, including Darwin's natural selection and sexual selection, you can get living things from noliving things. No designer needed.
I myself am a Christian, but I don't need ID or creationism to believe in God. I have faith.
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How are the intelligent design fools any different from the angry mob that lynched James Watson?
If you want to talk about evolution why limit it to the Christian fundamentalists? No matter what you think of religous people they are somewhat of an open book (no pun intended). After 4,000 years they have prefected their philosophy and stick to it, whether or not you believe in it also.
It is the multiculturalists that make me nervous. Say anything about how we are all different from each other (diverse) and they will try to get you fired. Point out the biological differences between men and women and you get sued.
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creationist
So you dispute the entire scientific field of archeology then.
This is why I don't like you creationists, you feel that it is acceptable to outright lie to try and prove your point.
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Libsaredense
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
There you go. Right there, first phrase of the first amendment.
What it means is that government is not allowed to play favourites one way or the other, which means your seperation of church and state as most religions are mutually exlusive.
This is actually consistent throught the document, where the alternative of being able to affirm to an oath as opposed to swear to it, is ever-present.
They did this because of the religious lunacies of the old world more then anything. The founding fathers were out to make a society where you could really be free to believe what you wanted, and they saw secularism as the way to do this.
And face it, they were right. Look at America today, look at your dominance in the sciences, your long proud human rights record (Before Bush at least) and all of that. Look at how you are falling behind now that the emphasis has shifted to being religious.
This is not to say that religion should be banned, an atheist state is no more secular then a theocracy, but rather that government and religion should not mix if it can possibly be avoided.
This is the heart of the argument over Creationism versus Evolution, not the actual mechanisms of how we got here, but rather that the simple fact of Creationism making it into America's schools not because it is a scientifically valid theory (It doesn't even really qualify as a theory, seen as it is untested, unverified, and is based purely on faith) but because it is a belief held by a religious group.
It is a battle over a culture where a man can declare those who do not share his religious beliefs to not be real citizens (GHW Bush) and still get elected president.
Make no mistake, that statement told atheists around the world just what was at stake here, not simply the right to be an atheist, but also the right to be a Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Budhist or even a Christian of another denomination in America. It is a fight against the gas chambers making their way to the world's last declared super-power.
It is a fight for the truth, and against the idea that one truth needs to be nullified by being balanced with an equal and opposite lie. It is a fight against propaganda.
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You Damned Dirty Apes!
There is no point of arguing the finer points of evolution with apes, especially when those apes are arguing by hurling excrement.
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@Ghingis Can thanks for the reveal/tell
"How are the intelligent design fools any different from the angry mob that lynched James Watson?"
In poker that is called a tell.
James Watson wasn't really lynched (psychological inversion) for saying that black people are inferior.
There it is, the real ugly reason that so many love the theory of evolution, because you see, not all people have evolved to the same level as Mr. Watson, one presumes. Some races are evidently closer to our simian cousins that Mr. Watson is, it would seem.
How interesting!
Racism and it's true believers who bow down and worship it with reverence just love the idea that some races are just not as close to the pinnacle of perfection that "their" race is and so we see the reveal and the tell, as well as all the others who tack on all the other aspects of exclusionary and discriminatory hate speech.
Nice bedfellows! You know who you are, and what you are.
Watson is a fool who has not overcome his racist imprints.
Evolution is racism's best friend . Evolutionism legitimizes racism with the tar of bad science. Racism is stupid and those who hold those beliefs are evidence of devolution, not evolution.
Thanks Ghingis, for making it so clear.
There is a fairly recent theory that the major racial groups all came from a common ancestor far to recently to account for any genetic divergence that would count as our notion of "race" - there is only one race of humans. I prefer that theory. It was a nice program on PBS too. You "evolutionists" should watch it sometime.