Posted on 06/03/2005 6:25:25 PM PDT by Crackingham
So Jesus wasn't savior, and the Doctrine of Salvation wasn't in force until 1054? Just offhand, this seems like just another bit of silliness.
For the record, Jerusalem was taken by the Muslims in in the mid 600's. That's a middlin' long interval to prepare a "counterattack".
Islam continued moving across Christian North Africa and on into Europe.
The first crusade was advertised as coming to the aid of our byzantine brothers, and recapturing the holy land, not as a defensive counterattack.
It also moved north into Christian Turkey. The Crusades to which you keep referring were the counterattack.
As far as I can tell from sources I've checked, The muslims were not a credible threat to Western Europe until about the 1400's, under the Ottoman turks. In fact, several reports suggest that many muslims were surprised by the first crusaders, who shouldn't have been, because they simply refused to believe an effective army could project itself that far away from their home base.
Were the Jewish communities murdered by the First Crusade, on the way to the Holy Land also an example of counterattack? How about the Albigensian Crusade?, was that a "counterattack"?
The catholic church recently issued a long-winded apology called "We Remember" regarding amongst other things, the Inquisition, and the persecution of jews. The fact that some persecutions were falsely attributed to the church does not exhonorate it for the persecutions it did commit, which are both extensive, and publicly acknowledged by the church.
The depth, or lack of, Christianity is also missed. Conversion was not overnight. Yet school books will refer to Christian Europe during periods when Christians were definitely the minority, and segments of Christian kingdoms were still pagan. Yet all actions are portrayed as those of Christians.
All of the inquisition was an action of the church, all of the Hammer of Witches, was issued by the church. The drowning of the Anabaptist children was personally supervised by the Pope.
Darwin went out of his way to point out that Darwinian evolutionary theory could in no manner address the question of life's origins--there is no point in debunking something that doesn't exist.
The fossil record shows spurts of tremendous creation unsupported by slow evolution or observable patterns of mutation. I haven't heard a good explanation for this,
That's because none is needed, just as you don't need to see a galaxy in every corner of the intersteller void to conclude that gravity is a universal force. That's because we reason about things by induction, and don't need to see every possible example before we draw an inductive conclusion. Thousands of supposed gaps in the fossil record have been filled, and when filled, the fill-ee has turned out to be morphologically continuous with the two species on either side of the gap. This has not prevented creationists from blithly assuming that all we've created is two new gaps. Creationists generally work pretty hard not to understand that inductive reasoning, imperfect as it is, is how science does its work.
and I'm unsure of what "threat" exists from ID.
It's not a threat. It could be true; probably is, in fact, in some manner. However, it is not remotely science, any more than astrology, which could be true, or UFOlogy, which could be true, are sciences. The threat is from creationists, who have a painfully obvious ax to grind, who want to use the science classroom to teach something other than science. Scientists naturally don't care to much for that, much in the same vain as good english teachers don't care too much about having eubonics and phonics taught as a viable alternative to grammar and spelling in english class.
It was my point that scientists are too quick to reject ideas. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems that you wouldn't have to believe in God or ID to listen to a theory that some process has rapidly created new life at various times outside the explanation provided by Darwin or mutation.
I don't think you understand this situation very well. Scientists are quicker than any other group on the planet to entertain bizarre new ideas. Including literally dozens that have been proposed to account for discrepencies in chronology that have been turning up in the molecular mutational clock-of-all-species. Many of them more entertaining and/or far-fetched than ID. Serious books about panspermia, the nephew of ID, have been written by no less than two Nobel scientists, independently. However, scientists are also aware that science is a disciplined fraternity with necessary entry requirements, not a mardi gras party. And micro-biology and paleontology have met the requirements, ID not so much. If you want to teach ID in sociology class, or art class, feel free. If you want to hold a science class at a school my child must attend, I'd very much appreciate it if you would only teach him what science believes in science class.
Really. I've asked you maybe three times, for example, if the inquisition was part of the Catholic Church, or if the church issued the Hammer of Witches. In response, you have reached into your vault to discover some wrongs the church didn't commit. So I presume "disability" is code for not agreeing with you, in acknowledgement of your mighty library.
but not so much as my realization that you've worked yourself into a full fledged, Christa-phobic, zealotrous rant. I can only imagine the foam and gnashing of teeth. I'm going to do your friends (giant leap here) and family a favor and bid you goodnight before I read about you in tomorrow's forum.
Your silliness is only exceeded by your sensitivity. If you think this is a rant, perhaps seseme street would be a better forum for you than FR.
Sorry, I didn't notice this before. Maybe you aren't talking about the supposed gaps here. Maybe you are talking about the Cambrian explosion, or somesuch. The fossil record does not show "spurts of tremendous creation unsupported by slow evolution". It merely shows windows of no useful evidence, as yet. There is no overwhelmingly serious, credible evidence refuting Darwinian evolution--where there have been plenty of opportunities for such evidence to crop up. In particular, no credible evidence exists of, say, a mouse suddenly giving birth to a marmoset.
If you are talking about the cambrian explosion, there are plenty of reasons why the fossil record should be abrupt at this point. For one, this was about the time mountains started poking up out of the water. That means before then, the ocean was not saturated with calcium leached out by erosion. No calcium means no shells. No shells means damn few fossils. When we don't have an immediate explanation for something in science, we don't immediately guess that a miracle occured. That doesn't mean miracles can't occur, but it does make it a perfectly useless assumption for a scientist to take. So far, guessing that a miracle occured has been a 100% losing bet in science.
No problem, I'm fairly used to creationist fellow-travelers boasting of their mighty, but unseen arguments, being invasively personally inappropriate for a dozen posts or so, and walking off in a self-righteous huff.
I'm not sure what else you people want to know. "All that Dimensio is asking for" has been detailed time and time again. You can either deal with it as it is, or like Dawkins refuse to accept anything about it at all, or even refuse to talk about it. It's really not my problem. Such leaps of ego and arrogance are better suited to DU.
And these 'billions' of Chinese all burned books? The communist party may have burned books, but to make an appeal to popularity in this instance doesn't make sense. The number of individuals within an organization that burns books has no relevance, the occurrences of individual book burnings has much more importance. How often have religious groups sponsored book burnings?
Not in this thread they haven't. The only description of the theory of ID so far put forward is a listing of all the areas within the current ToE Behe, Dembski and Johnson feel are inadequate. How is that a theory of ID?
You can either deal with it as it is, or like Dawkins refuse to accept anything about it at all, or even refuse to talk about it. It's really not my problem. Such leaps of ego and arrogance are better suited to DU."
You are the best qualified judge and jury to make this determination are you?
But that isn't what the thread was about. It turned into dimemensio trying to change the subject.
You are the best qualified judge and jury to make this determination are you?
As opposed to the literal judges and juries? Yes.
Your attempt to shift definitions won't work. Communist China presently oppresses as did the Khmer Rouge. Your further attempt to lay blame at the feet of others won't work. It is you, Randi, and Stalin that are birds of a feather. If you wish to add additional "book burners", go ahead, you still remain a member of that elite group.
Andrew, you are the one shifting definitions by making one group's actions in book burning carry more weight than others simply through the numbers of its population.
Following the advice of Li Si, Qin Shi Huang ordered all philosophy books and history books from states other than Qin --except copies in the imperial library for official uses--to be burned. 212 BC This is accompanied by the live burial of a large number of intellectuals, who did not comply with the state dogma.
Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. Acts 19:19
Sibylline Books were burnt by Flavius Stilicho (died AD 408).
The books of Arius and his followers, after first Council of Nicaea (AD 325), for heresy.
The library of the Serapeum in Alexandria, trashed, burned and looted by Christians, AD 392], encouraged by their bishop.
The books of Nestorius, a Syrian who was a Christian bishop and Patriarch of Constantinople in the early fifth century; one of the major heresies concerning the doctrine of Christ was named after him (died in 451), after an edict of Theodosius II, heresy (AD 435).
In 1233 Maimonides, a Spanish philosopher considered the greatest Jewish scholar of the Middle Ages who codified Jewish law in the Talmud (1135-1204), book "Guide of the Perplexed" was burnt at Montpellier, Southern France.
In the 1480s Tomas Torquemada promoted the burning of non-Catholic literature, especially Jewish Talmuds and, after the final defeat of the Moors at Granada in 1492, Arabic books also.
In 1497 the Bonfire of the Vanities, preached by Girolamo Savonarola, Italian religious and political reformer; a Dominican friar in Florence who preached against sin and corruption and gained a large following; he expelled the Medici from Florence but was later excommunicated and executed for criticizing the Pope (1452-1498), consumed pornography, lewd pictures, pagan books, gaming tables, cosmetics, copies of Boccaccio's Decameron, and all the works of Ovid which could be found in Florence.
In 1918 the Valley of the Squinting Windows in Delvin, Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The works of Jewish authors and other "degenerate" books were burned by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s.
May 10, 1933 in the Opernplatz, Berlin, Germany, SA troops and student groups burn over 20,000 books, including works by Thomas Mann, Erich Maria Remarque, Karl Marx and H.G. Wells.
The Satanic Verses, burnt by Muslims who considered it blasphemous.
Harry Potter books, burnt by American Christians who considered them satanic.
For your information I have over a thousand books in my home and have never thrown a book out let alone burned one. My belief that ID is a psuedo-science that should not be taught in schools and should be exposed for what it is, does in no way make me a book burner. I am no more (probably less) a book burner than those here who would like to remove evolution from the education system.
Doesn't matter how many are in the group, the point is they wish to suppress. That is what Randi wants to do and what you support. The only reason for Randi's payment is to suppress the expression of an idea.
I have multiple copies of "Origin of Species" in my home.
And my point is that suppression of an idea does not make one a communist. The judgment call made on suppression of an idea can only be based on the idea itself and a prior judgment made on what that idea presents to society. I frequently attempt to dissuade people from believing in homeopathy, shark cartilage cancer cures, psychic healing, and a number of other junk science. I believe these are harmful and should be made illegal.
If you consider only those three mentioned, am I still to be considered equivalent to Stalin?
I didn't say you were a communist. I said you, Randi, and Stalin were birds of a feather. And you are, in relation to the suppression of ideas. You can include whomever else you would like in the same class, the only requirement is that they wish to suppress. You do. Your judgement call is also most likely against your stand. The idea that God is involved in our existence is held by the vast majority of people in the U.S.
(CBS) Americans do not believe that humans evolved, and the vast majority says that even if they evolved, God guided the process. Just 13 percent say that God was not involved. But most would not substitute the teaching of creationism for the teaching of evolution in public schools.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/22/opinion/polls/main657083.shtml
The topic of the moment is a film, not a school curriculum.(to head off a diversion)
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