Posted on 05/01/2011 7:24:18 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode
The squabble between Darwin lobbyists who openly hate religion and those who only quietly disdain it grows ever more personal, bitter and pathetic. On one side, evangelizing New or "Gnu" (ha ha) Atheists like Jerry Coyne and his acolytes at Why Evolution Is True. Dr. Coyne is a biologist who teaches and ostensibly researches at the University of Chicago but has a heck of a lot of free time on his hands for blogging and posting pictures of cute cats.
On the other side, so-called accommodationists like the crowd at the National Center for Science Education, who attack the New Atheists for the political offense of being rude to religious believers and supposedly messing up the alliance between religious and irreligious Darwinists.
I say "supposedly" because there's no evidence any substantial body of opinion is actually being changed on religion or evolution by anything the open haters or the quiet disdainers say. Everyone seems to seriously think they're either going to defeat religion, or merely "creationism," or both by blogging for an audience of fellow Darwinists.
Want to see what I mean? This is all pretty strictly a battle of stinkbugs in a bottle. Try to follow it without getting a headache.
Coyne recently drew excited applause from fellow biologist-atheist-blogger PZ Myers for Coyne's "open letter" (published on his blog) to the NCSE and its British equivalent, the British Centre for Science Education. In the letter, Coyne took umbrage at criticism of the New Atheists, mostly on blogs, emanating from the two accommodationist organizations. He vowed that,
We will continue to answer the misguided attacks [on the New Atheists] by people like Josh Rosenau, Roger Stanyard, and Nick Matzke so long as they keep mounting those attacks.Like the NCSE, the BCSE seeks to pump up Darwin in the public mind without scaring religious people. This guy called Stanyard at the BCSE complains of losing a night's sleep over the nastiness of the rhetoric on Coyne's blog. Coyne in turn complained that Stanyard complained that a blog commenter complained that Nick Matzke, formerly of the NCSE, is like "vermin." Coyne also hit out at blogger Jason Rosenhouse for an "epic"-length blog post complaining of New Atheist "incivility." In the blog, Rosenhouse, who teaches math at James Madison University, wrote an update about how he had revised an insulting comment about the NCSE's Josh Rosenau that he, Rosenhouse, made in a previous version of the post.
That last bit briefly confused me. In occasionally skimming the writings of Jason Rosenhouse and Josh Rosenau in the past, I realized now I had been assuming they were the same person. They are not!
It goes on and on. In the course of his own blog post, Professor Coyne disavowed name-calling and berated Stanyard (remember him? The British guy) for "glomming onto" the Matzke-vermin insult like "white on rice, or Kwok on a Leica." What's a Kwok? Not a what but a who -- John Kwok, presumably a pseudonym, one of the most tirelessly obsessive commenters on Darwinist blog sites. Besides lashing at intelligent design, he often writes of his interest in photographic gear such as a camera by Leica. I have the impression that Kwok irritates even fellow Darwinists.
There's no need to keep all the names straight in your head. I certainly can't. I'm only taking your time, recounting just a small part of one confused exchange, to illustrate the culture of these Darwinists who write so impassionedly about religion, whether for abolishing it or befriending it. Writes Coyne in reply to Stanyard,
I'd suggest, then, that you lay off telling us what to do until you've read about our goals. The fact is that we'll always be fighting creationism until religion goes away, and when it does the fight will be over, as it is in Scandinavia.A skeptic might suggest that turning America into Scandinavia, as far as religion goes, is an outsized goal, more like a delusion, for this group as they sit hunched over their computers shooting intemperate comments back and forth at each other all day. Or in poor Stanyard's case, all night.
There's a feverish, terrarium-like and oxygen-starved quality to this world of online Darwinists and atheists. It could only be sustained by the isolation of the Internet. They don't seem to realize that the public accepts Darwinism to the extent it does -- which is not much -- primarily because of what William James would call the sheer, simple "prestige" that the opinion grants. Arguments and evidence have little to do with it.
The prestige of Darwinism is not going to be affected by how the battle between Jerry Coyne and the NCSE turns out. New Atheist arguments are hobbled by the same isolation from what people think and feel. I have not yet read anything by any of these gentlemen or ladies, whether the open haters or the quiet disdainers, that conveys anything like a real comprehension of religious feeling or thought.
Even as they fight over the most effective way to relate to "religion," the open atheists and the accomodationists speak of an abstraction, a cartoon, that no actual religious person would recognize. No one is going to be persuaded if he doesn't already wish to be persuaded for other personal reasons. No faith is under threat from the likes of Jerry Coyne.
As predicted.
Metmom we went through this before. Making an observation like the earth is spinning, or the Bible is false, is not a prediction. A prediction would be something like the Earth will quite spinning in 2012. Is that clear enough?
By the way what happened to your rapture last week? Or was it the week before?
No, he didn't. He provided a link to his own conclusions and not to anything PNSN has ever posted stating he did not believe in Jesus Christ. Perhaps in siding with an "instigator", you have fallen into the trap of the blind leading the blind. I expected better of you.
You are not the sharpest knife in the kitchen if you let yourself fall for pnsn’s deceptions. This guy has been avoiding a simple question that every Chirstian would have gladly and eagerly answered. Now he says he won’t bow to someone lower than demons (LOL!), but he won’t even answer Cronos, who is Catholic. Pathetic.
Chirstian=Christian
They're unpacking... :)
So, wait, you guys actually believe people created a "god" because they fear death? I think it's the other way around, atheism was created because man wanted to NOT fear death. If no God exists, then he is not answerable to and man is free to live however he desires and at his end he ceases to exist. Why would man choose to create an impediment to that philosophy??? It makes no sense.
Oh please, whoever said that Atheism was equivalent to dictatorship? Christianity and Islam take to dictatorship quite nicely too, thank you.
Our Founding Fathers went to great lengths to keep GOD out of our politics. They saw first hand the evil that came from combining religion and politics.
Taking Religion out of Politics is a good thing.
Like I said, I don;t keep "files" on people. It's easy to research everyone's responses if you have to time and interest.
My inquiry in his belief began independent of Cronos when pnsn states something that left a strong impression that he did not consider Jesus divine.
When I asked, he came back with insults. This is not a RF, so I suppose anything goes, but I didn't want to stoop down so low as he does. Instead, I asked again for clarification, which only resulted in the the same. I won't stoop down to calling him names, but I didn't expect you to stoop so low as to side with with someone like him. I guess, I was wrong. Maybe I should have known better.
Thank you for making that crucial point! We NEVER hear of atheist/Muslim debates, do we? Even on this thread we have an atheist quoting Hindu "scripture". I wonder how many times that religion has been disputed by them? Rather, it is exactly because Christianity is the truth that it is attacked. Why would the enemy bother with false religions, seeing as how "he" is the reason that there ARE so many false religions???
They're unpacking... :)
I had to think about that for a second. Good one :)
metmom uses a random answer generator. She keys in a few buzzwords words (atheist, godless, Catholic, etc.) and gets a buffet of prefab answers she can post. Content doesn't matter. :)
Boatbums, if you bring out a Muslim to comment about why his deity is true, or if you bring out a Hindu to do the same, I would be more than willing to attack their assumptions. We don’t have any that do here, and hence, my focus is primarily on the assumptions of those who I am commenting with - which, to no surprise, should be obvious what that demographic comprises of.
I have attacked Islam as frequently as I can - it will only take you to look at my posting history to find out. To claim without basis that I don’t, in the face of produced evidence even on this very thread, is to bear false witness, and to lie.
When I bring about the paradoxical problems of time and deity and their interplay, I am attacking the foundational assumptions of all these religions, as well.
Now you want the facts to get in the way of their mutual trust?
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cloning
Human cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy of a human. It does not usually refer to monozygotic multiple births nor the reproduction of human cells or tissue. The ethics of cloning is an extremely controversial issue. The term is generally used to refer to artificial human cloning; human clones in the form of identical twins are commonplace, with their cloning occurring during the natural process of reproduction.
There are two commonly discussed types of human cloning: therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning. Therapeutic cloning involves cloning cells from an adult for use in medicine and is an active area of research. Reproductive cloning would involve making cloned humans. Such reproductive cloning has not been performed and is illegal in many countries.
A third type of cloning called replacement cloning is a theoretical possibility, and would be a combination of therapeutic and reproductive cloning. Replacement cloning would entail the replacement of an extensively damaged, failed, or failing body through cloning followed by whole or partial brain transplant.
I wouldn't want you to strain yourself. Here are the first five from the site: http://www.reasons.org/fulfilled-prophecy-evidence-reliability-bible
(1) Some time before 500 B.C. the prophet Daniel proclaimed that Israel's long-awaited Messiah would begin his public ministry 483 years after the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem (Daniel 9:25-26). He further predicted that the Messiah would be "cut off," killed, and that this event would take place prior to a second destruction of Jerusalem. Abundant documentation shows that these prophecies were perfectly fulfilled in the life (and crucifixion) of Jesus Christ. The decree regarding the restoration of Jerusalem was issued by Persia's King Artaxerxes to the Hebrew priest Ezra in 458 B.C., 483 years later the ministry of Jesus Christ began in Galilee. (Remember that due to calendar changes, the date for the start of Christ's ministry is set by most historians at about 26 A.D. Also note that from 1 B.C. to 1 A.D. is just one year.) Jesus' crucifixion occurred only a few years later, and about four decades later, in 70 A.D. came the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.
(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 105.)*
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(2) In approximately 700 B.C. the prophet Micah named the tiny village of Bethlehem as the birthplace of Israel's Messiah (Micah 5:2). The fulfillment of this prophecy in the birth of Christ is one of the most widely known and widely celebrated facts in history.
(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 105.)
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(3) In the fifth century B.C. a prophet named Zechariah declared that the Messiah would be betrayed for the price of a slave—thirty pieces of silver, according to Jewish law-and also that this money would be used to buy a burial ground for Jerusalem's poor foreigners (Zechariah 11:12-13). Bible writers and secular historians both record thirty pieces of silver as the sum paid to Judas Iscariot for betraying Jesus, and they indicate that the money went to purchase a "potter's field," used—just as predicted—for the burial of poor aliens (Matthew 27:3-10).
(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 1011.)
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(4) Some 400 years before crucifixion was invented, both Israel's King David and the prophet Zechariah described the Messiah's death in words that perfectly depict that mode of execution. Further, they said that the body would be pierced and that none of the bones would be broken, contrary to customary procedure in cases of crucifixion (Psalm 22 and 34:20; Zechariah 12:10). Again, historians and New Testament writers confirm the fulfillment: Jesus of Nazareth died on a Roman cross, and his extraordinarily quick death eliminated the need for the usual breaking of bones. A spear was thrust into his side to verify that he was, indeed, dead.
(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 1013.)
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(5) The prophet Isaiah foretold that a conqueror named Cyrus would destroy seemingly impregnable Babylon and subdue Egypt along with most of the rest of the known world. This same man, said Isaiah, would decide to let the Jewish exiles in his territory go free without any payment of ransom (Isaiah 44:28; 45:1; and 45:13). Isaiah made this prophecy 150 years before Cyrus was born, 180 years before Cyrus performed any of these feats (and he did, eventually, perform them all), and 80 years before the Jews were taken into exile.
(Probability of chance fulfillment = 1 in 1015.)
From your quote I replied. You kept trying to incorporate people groups. My answer stands.
For my purposes of the debate, it was more than sufficient for an individual tribal member's instance of being "saved". You understood this, and knew this. Please, this nonsense has got to stop.
Sorry james, you are not being honest on this point.
You specifically used the word 'Tribals' - plural
It wasn't until I forced you to refine your definition. Now you want to back track some more citing another reference - my my james you are all over the board - little wonder you are recognized for goal post moving extraordinare.
This is a classical fallacy of forcing me to prove the negative. You are proposing this exception, so the onus is on you to prove why you assert this exception.
Looking to split some more frogs hairs I see. Why does it have to prove the negative james - you are open to prove the positive as well. You just assume off the bat that.
You on the other hand employ the same attack you accuse me of - that being that since the proposition has not been "proven" (at least to your mobile standards), it cannot be considered true and therefore must be false.
Bottom line is james, this is just a smokescreen to the fact that you cannot deny the proposition I made - just your response to it. Since you are incapable of proving it wrong via positive means, you try to turn the tables and accuse me of what you then do. Very obamaesque of you.
You prefer to know of God through the words brought to you by mere men?
When those words of God are validated and protected by that same God - yes. What has the 'god' atheism brought us james? Not a whole heck of a lot to show.
The violent confrontations, the bloody wars over what's God-said,
Compared to the last 100 years and what atheistic countries did by the hundreds of millions - just because the people believed in God.
the formation and compilation of the Bible by committee, all could have been avoided by direct, individual revelaton. If your deity can preserve the scriptures, then why are there so many versions of it?
Ignorance on the formation of the bible as well. Tsk, Tsk. james, really. By 'versions' you better define yourself better.
Why do you lie and bear false witness, Godzilla? Why do you force me to call you a liar?
Only yesterday (and one out of, literally, thousands, of comments):
I quick screened your profile - i noted 3 negative comments about islam, yet the the posts of yours were overwhelming anti-Christian in nature in the first four pages. Funny that none of the anti-islam comments were in threads in the thousands as this one. YOur evidence is weak.
No, said I DON'T believe in it. Is 'bald' a hair colour, Godzilla?
Whats the matter james - afraid of the 'believe' word? You believe there is no God. Better take the advice of your fellow atheists james -
If Atheism is a Religion... Then Bald is a Hair Color
Oh, but only works if I am making atheism into a religion james. Taking the statement at face value - you BELIEVE there is no God. Are you denying that statement? Atheists hold to a common belief - there is no God. BTW baldness is a lack of hair, atheism is the lack of a God.
Mammals have been cloned before. Human cloning isn’t an impossibility. As your text mentions at the bottom, human cloning is a theoretical possibility.
The last publicised attempt successfully created an embryo cloned from the somatic cells of an individual, but the embryo failed to implant inside a woman.
As mentioned earlier, mammalian cloning has been proven. Human cloning isn’t a very big leap, in terms of the technicality.
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