Posted on 12/20/2005 7:54:38 AM PST by snarks_when_bored
Fox News alert a few minutes ago says the Dover School Board lost their bid to have Intelligent Design introduced into high school biology classes. The federal judge ruled that their case was based on the premise that Darwin's Theory of Evolution was incompatible with religion, and that this premise is false.
"If the Germans and Americans could momentarily stop the combat at Christmas in WWII, Wolf can do the same.
I wish all a Healthy Happy Holy Christmas.
Wolf"
Beautifully well said!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
You can have all the free exercise of religion you want, just about anywhere you like, other than in public facilities paid for with public taxes, and governed by publicly elected bodies. Because when you do so, it is quite obviously an establishment of religion, which is forbidden, for good reason, by the Constitution.
There is a whole continuum from establishing a specific religion by statute or fiat, to endorsing a religion, to mentioning, to accomodating it, to suppressing it, etc.
It doesn't strike me as a "spectrum". It strikes me that if you use government resources to promote religious beliefs you are violating every part of the 1st amendment that addresses religion, because thru taxes, you are stealing resources from all beliefs to support whichever belief has gained control, and monopolizing an influential public forum that, for example, monopolizes compelling children, by law, to attend.
Perhaps if people spelled out their opinion on that aspect of things first, the flame wars would become a little more civil.
Fine, my theory is that there is no such spectrum--the post-civil war amendments pushed respect for individual rights established in the Bill of Rights down on all levels of local government, including school boards. And the 1st amendment doesn't say "you can establish a little bit of religion". It says "congress shall pass NO laws". Forgive me if don't think this will lower the temperature of the rhetoric an iota; I think the conflicts of opinion here are largely substantive, not due to misunderstandings.
As far as the Oregon remark, much of the "Left Coast" including Oregon is tainted by hostility to Christianity. From some of your posts, it looked like some of the hostility had rubbed off; from other of your posts, it seemed like you were expertly defending the supernatural.
So what?
That ambiguity is why is used the word "might"; and the use of such a phrase did accomplish the intended purpose, of attracting your notice to the point of replying.
No ambiguity is apparent to me. And you could hold my attention better, by saying what you have to say in a SHORT, straightforward, uninflammatory manner.
That's where you and I differ, then. "Grass-roots" usage of public facilities is not the same as "Congress passing a law respecting an establishment".
It strikes me that if you use government resources to promote religious beliefs you are violating every part of the 1st amendment that addresses religion, because thru taxes, you are stealing resources from all beliefs to support whichever belief has gained control, and monopolizing an influential public forum that, for example, monopolizes compelling children, by law, to attend.
Thank you, Rev. Lynn, may I have another?
Are you stealing the taxes, or are you using money which was going to go to the school anyway? Kids deciding to meet on their own for a Bible Study would fail your test, apparently; but it ought to be clear that the kids aren't members of Congress, there is no law involved, and that they are not "stealing" money any more than any other special-interest club meeting at the school. Accomodation is not the same as endorsement, endorsement is not the same as establishment.
Fine, my theory is that there is no such spectrum--the post-civil war amendments pushed respect for individual rights established in the Bill of Rights down on all levels of local government, including school boards.
Then we disagree on our premises.
As far as the Oregon remark, much of the "Left Coast" including Oregon is tainted by hostility to Christianity. From some of your posts, it looked like some of the hostility had rubbed off; from other of your posts, it seemed like you were expertly defending the supernatural. So what?
In an earlier post, you had asked me to "go insult someone else". I was fleshing out the thought behind my original Oregon remark.
Cheers!
...and Merry Christmas!
Full Disclosure: For the nonce, the whole ID in schools debate bores me to tears. It is pretty obvious that ID is not science, and so teaching ID in science class is a misnomer. Unless you're one of those folks who believe that extraterrestrials seeded the earth etc. In that case you ought to showcase ID next to VCR's of The X Files.
Cheers!
...and Merry Christmas!
You know the saying, "When in Rome"
Besides, it's quite understandable that they got tired of opening the ole' papyrus every morning and reading the same score, again and again...
"Lions 1, Christians 0"
But Io Saturnalia, anyway!
So Julian, when are you going to observe the ceremonies at the temple of Aphrodite? ;-)
This turns into you preferring to dance along double-talking rather than admit you said something stupid. That makes you stupid and transparently dishonest.
I don't mind explaining this to you again. I'm curious to see just how driven you are.
This too is all wrong. Never mind for the moment that you are only spewing words to obfuscate a more basic problem. It shows you don't know how to test your premise even if you had bit off some more manageable chunk.
The all-at-once poof model is called creationism. That's silly, yes. Personally, I don't think even God would make a cell that way, much less a man from dirt in one afternoon. At any rate, there's no poofing in evolutionary models, the very thing you say you're going to discount.
Evolutionary models have features like the following:
So I'll now restate the two problems I see for you, from inside working out. One, to the extent you're trying to model abiogenesis at all, you're just trying to do a strawman poof model without the poofer.
Then there's the outer problem. If you don't know all the things that can have happened on an early abiotic Earth, you don't know that none of them could lead to some unknown primitive life the exact nature of which you also don't know. You have said you're going to prove there is no scenario and you patently don't have the goods for that.
The outer problem, it's just too late. I don't believe you don't see it. Period.
Are you implicitly invoking a god or gods for the inherent contradiction in that hypothesis? Or time travel?
And how would you test for either?
Absolutely. Your performance would be disgusting if it weren't for the Lord or whatever. You can't be fooling anybody, even as you pile on the paragraphs. How severe is your compulsion?
... but it is you who has failed in this regard.
No. Your so-called test plans absolutely do not address your stated hypothesis. Grow up. Admit the obvious in public rather than do some endless silly dance.
It can be stated in the positive: All occurrences of life originating are caused by intelligent intervention.
Doesn't help. You have to prove a negative to prove that statement. Are you too dumb to understand that as well? How dishonest are you willing to be? How dumb do you want to play? Where is the bottom? How low will you go? Is the Lord commanding this?
You need to explain it for the first time.
Your premise is abiogenesis can never happen by any means. "Never by any means" would include such esoteric means as "Incrementally, cumulatively, and GRADUALLY over long periods of time" the way mainstream science postulates.
Why do you refuse to answer how my hypothesis differs fundamentally from the law of gravity?
OK, the law of gravity is a mathematical approximation of something readily observed. Your premise is nonsense.
Your premise denies that it could have happened. If it did, you're wrong. Are you capable of recognizing this? More importantly, are you capable of admitting it?
How do you know that life originated only once?
Why are you bludgeoning with your ignorance? We don't know that life originated only once. We only know that all the life we see betrays evidence of common ancestry with the rest of it.
How do you know there are not many possible environments in which life self organizes from lifeless matter?
See the above. If there were other independent origins of life, they died out before or after the one that seeded all the life we have now.
How do you know this process is not occurring right now?
I have a reason. Are you smart enough to guess what it is? All you would probably have to do is remember rebuttals from other threads. Let's do an integrity test. Why isn't new life forming from scratch in some warm mud puddle right now?
Whether a historical event took a long time to randomly occur is irrelevant to the fact that if it does occur, the occurrence can be pinpointed as a moment in time.
There is no particular poof moment in real models of abiogenesis. You mix real dishonesty with real pig-ignorance. There is no "Big Poof!" No poof. No special moment of "It's alive! It's aaa-LIIIIIIIVVVEEEE!" All gradual all the way. If you don't know anything about real thinking in abiogenesis, you don't even know what to address.
If there are transitional forms of matter, so what? They are still either lifeless or living.
So it wouldn't mean anything if something was forming in your backyard right now, anyway? At least, not until it went all the way?
All you need is a single living cell.
I need and expect less. Did you know that?
If this is challenging, difficult, unfair, so what?
Nothing is as challenging and difficult as showing life will never form from non-life in any amount of time by any means, unless it's getting an honest admission of same out of you.
Too many are trying to remove God from the schools and the government, by calling God a church, or religion.
That's what Judge Jones did. He called mentioning Intelligent Design twice in the one-minute statement, religion.
Whatever "grass-roots" usage means, a public school is still a part of a local government in the US, and local governments in the US have had to respect rights established in the Bill of Rights, by constitutional law, ever since the post-civil war amendments to the constitution were ratified. You may not like this, but it is nonetheless, what the constitution says.
Are you stealing the taxes, or are you using money which was going to go to the school anyway?
I think you must have hugged a liberal lately. There is no significant "money which was going to the school anyway"; schools are overwhelmingly funded by compulsory taxation--of everyone: athiests, pastafarians, jainists, jews, moslems, wiccans, and raelians not excluded.
there is no law involved, and that they are not "stealing" money any more than any other special-interest club meeting at the school. Accomodation is not the same as endorsement, endorsement is not the same as establishment.
I don't believe we were addressing private clubs meeting in otherwise unoccupied buildings after hours, which I have no insurmountable problem with. I believe we were addressing the faculty of a school being forced to endorse a contemptuously thinly disguised christian religious doctrine in a science class which, as was pointed out earlier, children and their parents are lead to believe they are forced to attend if they want to graduate.
Contrary to your stated opinion, endorsement IS the same as establishment, and accomodation probably is to, if it costs anything significant to accomodate.
In an earlier post, you had asked me to "go insult someone else". I was fleshing out the thought behind my original Oregon remark.
Consider finding a way to flesh out your thoughts that doesn't involve using me as a noodle-scratching post.
Full Disclosure: For the nonce, the whole ID in schools debate bores me to tears.
Huh. That was pretty detailed arguing for a bored person.
It is pretty obvious that ID is not science,
Oh, it's more science than most of the marginal ideas vieing for scientific respectability. and so teaching ID in science class is a misnomer.
Well, it's not outstanding science, but it seems a little odd to call it a misnomer. Ether and phrenology were sciences, once upon a time, and ID has a better shot then they do.
Unless you're one of those folks who believe that extraterrestrials seeded the earth etc.
If you include unintelligent extra-terrestrials, then I do.
In that case you ought to showcase ID next to VCR's of The X Files.
ID's anemic cousin, panspermia, bears some promise. That doesn't make it a science of the legitimacy of the theory of gravity, or the theory of evolution, such that it belongs in a high school science book, but it ain't out of contention.
Whatever "grass-roots" usage means, a public school is still a part of a local government in the US, and local governments in the US have had to respect rights established in the Bill of Rights, by constitutional law, ever since the post-civil war amendments to the constitution were ratified. You may not like this, but it is nonetheless, what the constitution says.
Sorry 'bout the confusion there, in talking about "grass roots" I was leading up to my suggestion (one with which you disagreed) about there being a continuum between accomodation and endorsement. Apparently I did not make the connection clear enough; or possibly you had dismissed that subject from your consideration once you had 'disposed of it.'
I think you must have hugged a liberal lately. There is no significant "money which was going to the school anyway"; schools are overwhelmingly funded by compulsory taxation--of everyone: athiests, pastafarians, jainists, jews, moslems, wiccans, and raelians not excluded.
Yes, that money from compulsory taxation does "go to the school anyway" : for salaries, maintenance, utilities, staff, administrative overhead, etc.
I don't believe we were addressing private clubs meeting in otherwise unoccupied buildings after hours, which I have no insurmountable problem with. I believe we were addressing the faculty of a school being forced to endorse a contemptuously thinly disguised christian religious doctrine in a science class which, as was pointed out earlier, children and their parents are lead to believe they are forced to attend if they want to graduate.
That is in fact what ID tends towards, particularly as manifested in the Dover case. But in one of your earlier posts, to which I was responding, you seemed to advance the position that virtually ANY usage of public schools by any religious organization, constitutes an "Establishment of religion". My post to which you just replies was addressing that point.
Contrary to your stated opinion, endorsement IS the same as establishment, and accomodation probably is to, if it costs anything significant to accomodate.
Endorsement need not invoke sanctions for rejection of what is endorsed; establishment presumably would. And you chopped off half of my statement again--are you zeroing in only on those portions of my text with which you disagree? Just to prevent unnecessary friction.
Consider finding a way to flesh out your thoughts that doesn't involve using me as a noodle-scratching post.
If I knew exactly what a noodle-scratching post WAS, I might be in a better position to comply ;-)
Huh. That was pretty detailed arguing for a bored person.
You must not be a regular reader of my posts. No surprise, most everyone else ignores them too :-)
Ether and phrenology were sciences, once upon a time, and ID has a better shot then they do.
Most people today tend to use the word "sciences" when they mean "Natural Sciences" i.e. implicity looking only at the natural world, not considering the supernatural. If one happens to use that working definition, then ether and phrenology were better "sciences" than ID.
Unless you're one of those folks who believe that extraterrestrials seeded the earth etc.
If you include unintelligent extra-terrestrials, then I do.
I apologize if you posted extensively on this topic earlier, and I missed it--if unintelligent extra-terrestrials seeded the earth, how does that fit under the rubric of "Intelligent" design? (Unless you meant the unintelligent E.T.'s were themselves the 'seeds' ??)
ID's anemic cousin, panspermia, bears some promise.
Never heard of that, I'm sorry to say. (Told you the subject bored me!)
...do you have a link handy like Ichneumon tends to?
Cheers!
...and Merry Christmas!
ID wins?
You are perhaps unaware that the leading proponent of ID fully acknowledges both evolution and a common ancestor?
In other words, if you believe in ID (unless you think you know more about ID than Behe does), you also believe that humans and monkeys evolved from a common ancestor over millions of years.
Apparently, I made an argument that as of the civil war, the constition says ALL local governments must respect the 1st amendment. Nobody answers this argument terribly often, because it's pretty obvious.
Yes, that money from compulsory taxation does "go to the school anyway" : for salaries, maintenance, utilities, staff, administrative overhead, etc.
I didn't understand the point of this argument the first time you ran with it. How does this address the point that people of every religious pursuasion must pay taxes to support schools?
you seemed to advance the position that virtually ANY usage of public schools by any religious organization, constitutes an "Establishment of religion".
I expect it does. I'm just not willing to fight over something like a couple of kids using a classroom after hours. It doesn't piss me off like it does when school officials use their positions of authority and exclusive access to student ears, to push a private agenda the constitution forbids.
And you chopped off half of my statement again
Why is that a problem? Make more succinct statements, and I won't be able to do that.
Natural Sciences" i.e. implicity looking only at the natural world, not considering the supernatural. If one happens to use that working definition, then ether and phrenology were better "sciences" than ID.
As the defendants at Dover repeatedly pointed out, (in their case, lying, as it happened) ID does not insist on a supernatural explanation.
Endorsement need not invoke sanctions for rejection of what is endorsed; establishment presumably would.
Gee, what a consolation. Do you think the inquistion wasn't a Catholic organization in control of spain after it stopped burning spanish witches?
Most people today tend to use the word "sciences" when they mean "Natural Sciences" i.e. implicity looking only at the natural world, not considering the supernatural. If one happens to use that working definition, then ether and phrenology were better "sciences" than ID.
Oh, I don't think so. ID has, in my estimation, a far better chance of becoming a serious science theory, since ether and phrenology have pretty much been to bat, and failed their falsifiability tests. The odds on ID are just basically unknown.
if unintelligent extra-terrestrials seeded the earth, how does that fit under the rubric of "Intelligent" design?
Go back and look, I wasn't answering a question about ID.
ID's anemic cousin, panspermia, bears some promise.
Never heard of that, I'm sorry to say. (Told you the subject bored me!) ...do you have a link handy like Ichneumon tends to?
Why would you want a link if you are bored with the subject?
For now, nighty night.
Pleasant fights! :-)
Thank you for posting a link to the transcript. I think any right-minded person can see from reading it that why astrology is generally considered falsified or refuted now is not a weaseling out; the history is the CONTEXT of Behe's perfectly accurate answers about scientific theories, and what is purposely left out of the sound-bite distortions. A text without a context is a pretext. Rothchild used these types of 'gotcha' pretexts repeatedly for the purpose of caricaturing Behe as a nut, and imo the judge dutifully echoed like a parrot.
Cordially,
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