From Ur, a Sumerian city
Originally, though they had been assimilated by the Semitic Akkadians from whom Abram was descended
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.
From Ur, a Sumerian city
Originally, though they had been assimilated by the Semitic Akkadians from whom Abram was descended
True enough, and I'm just pointing out to the poster in question about his continuous haranguing!
Though... there are posters out there that truly speak of what they believe and I think one can learn.
haranguing doesn't work even in real life. I gave the example above of some Born-again types who in Mangalore/South Canara in the state of Karnataka in India went about distributing leaflets that said that Hindu deities were demons.
Now, whatever you believe -- by distributing that, you're not going to get anyone listening to you! I much prefer the work that some Baptist ministries do which is to actual preach or work with the locals. THAT can convince people, not haranguing.
Sola scriptura Protestants and Muslims are satan worshiping flying monkeys.
They have a nasty agenda - infiltrate Conservative America posing as Christians while they spread hate for the Church Christ founded. They are a cancer.
Interesting that you say that metmom while your post history begs to the contrary, right?
Your posting history was attacks on what everyone else believes and a lot of blanket statements even though in post 2472 you say that blanket statement is a total fallacy. -- I'm glad to know that you now see the error of your posts from previous months and years
It's good to see the change in your posts, talking about what you believe as in statements in post 2557, or 2466 It could well be that when they see Christ, they will recognize Him as the one they have served, albeit in ignorance and say, *So it was YOU all along*.
or 2353 Christianity is about forgiveness through the person of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins. God’s divine justice, death for sin, was satisfied with the death of Christ on the cross. Since Jesus was sinless, death could not hold Him.
God has decreed that anyone who puts their faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross, will be saved, by grace through faith.
Each man is accountable to God for responding to the amount of knowledge that has been given him. God’s justice in the matter will be just as He alone knows the heart. -- though the underlined contradicts your earlier posts
However, you are sharing your beliefs now instead of purely attacking others beliefs which is good and encouraging
SOMEone kinda forgot THIS part:
1 Corinthians 15:13-19
(NASB)
But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised.
For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
Any takers?
People in Indiana who believe in GOD?
Prove it. Provide the links and direct quotes otherwise it IS a personal attack.
Your ASSumption about others does not constitute fact. No matter how far and wide and long you spread the lies you made up about others, repeating them like that will not make them true.
Sure we’ve posted what we believe.
Here, for me.....
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:metmom/index?tab=comments;brevity=full;options=no-change
Now stop lying and saying we haven’t.
Yes, it would be since you, being blind, would see. In any case, it is remarkable that one would spend so much time and effort grousing about something that one does not believe.
It’s not about grousing, it’s about standing for the truth, devoid of superstition.
Well then stop grousing. You certainly don't have a monopoly on truth(presupposing you have any in you). And it is true that truth predated you.
More amateur psychology...No, silly, it was a typo.
The words betray you. Take only this sentence of yours:
"I realize that it is beyond your limited understanding...",
You refuse to follow a good God, and yet choose to follow an evil devil".
An evil devil, metmom? As opposed to what? A "good" devil? LOL. Do you also say "at 10 AM in the morning"?
It's not a judgment, metmom; it's simply stating what Christians believe. Unitarists are NOT Christians; "Christians" who deny the divinity of Jesus are NOT Christians; "Christians" who deny the resurrection of Jesus are NOT Christians. Mormons are NOT Christians. Jehovah's Witnesses are NOT Christians; Gnostics are not Christians; Nestorians are not Christians, Jews are not Christians, Muslims are not Christians for all the same reasons —they all deny that Jesus is one and the same God ans the Father and the Spirit, or they deny that Jesus resurrected form the dead, or both.
Christians believe Jesus is God and Man who died on the cross and rose from the dead. Are you denying that? Is that a "judgment" of a factual statement of what Christians believe? let me help you if you are unsure: it's not a "judgment".
You are singularly unqualified to pass judgment on someone concerning something you deny as reality
Why? because I neither deny nor affirm your God? Does that make you singularly unqualified to pass judgment on agnostics, atheists, pagans, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, etc? You could have fooled me!
Besides, I have already told you that what I said is not a judgment but what Christianity states as its core belief. If you disagree, you can take it up with other Christians.
I wasn't only talking about you, bb. Some of your buddies have. I know you must have read it, because they routinely include you in their ping list. In particular, xzins, who resorts to dictaus papae approach "I am wright and you are wrong..." Pathetic, coming from a man of cloth. Disappointing to say the least.
Your other buddies, such as metmom, routinely tell me I am "singularly unqualified" to pass "judgments" about anything concerning religion. This is laughable, especially since the very same people engage in passing judgments about anything and everything they don't believe in, and I have never stated that I don't believe, but merely doubt. However, no matter how much I repeat it, I am still labeled an "atheist troll". LOL.
Does hypocritical ring a bell here? It should.
As for the second "famous statement" that you here attribute to me: When I say "You have no basis for that," that only means I do not see the basic premise on which your argument (such as it is) is logically constructed. I am merely asking for your further help, that I may understand what, exactly, you are driving at
I accept your explanation and I will keep that in mind, bb.
If atheists claim with 100% certainty that there is no God and you with 100% that there is, then there is no difference between you and them, for only those who pretend to be all-knowing could make such a claim.
This is the best post on the thread. I consider atheists and fundies to be two sides of the same coin. They both claim to "know" there is a God when the fact is - NOBODY KNOWS! If we're all to be honest with each other and ourselves, none of us knows if there's a God or not. We are all 'agnostics'. It all boils down to some us fall on the side of believing or hopeful agnostics, and others on the side disbelieving or skeptical agnostics.
None of us will know the answer to the question "Is there a God?" until we die, and maybe not even then! Maybe God made us all so we have our little time in the sun, and after that it's "game over"? NOBODY knows. Maybe the only "God" there is is pure evil. Maybe Evil God created an illusion of Good God to fool some people into believing in a Good God only to find out after death that all there is as a reward for believing in Good God is an eternity of sliding down razor blades with nothing to eat but adorable kittens. NOBODY knows that this isn't true. Perhaps these gnostics that claim they KNOW there is a God and what it is are actually being deceived by the Evil God posing as a nice voice in their heads. They just don't KNOW.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.