Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Why Fight Over Intelligent Design?
Foxnews.com/Cato ^ | November 22, 2005 | Andrew J. Coulson

Posted on 12/06/2005 11:55:32 AM PST by MRMEAN

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 201-220221-240241-260261-271 last
To: Senator Bedfellow

It seem to apply even if the threat is not under the influence of the threatener. It seems to me that all appeals to faith include an element of ad baculum.


261 posted on 12/09/2005 8:38:59 AM PST by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 260 | View Replies]

To: js1138
Appeals to negative consequences are ad baculum, to be sure.
262 posted on 12/09/2005 8:58:32 AM PST by Senator Bedfellow
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 261 | View Replies]

To: Senator Bedfellow

So is there a name for bribing one's opponent, offering a reward for accepting an argument?


263 posted on 12/09/2005 9:01:36 AM PST by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 262 | View Replies]

To: js1138
Not per se, not that I'm aware of...
264 posted on 12/09/2005 9:06:25 AM PST by Senator Bedfellow
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 263 | View Replies]

To: Senator Bedfellow

Appeal to consequenses seems to be the general category. It's been thirty years since I read this stuff.


265 posted on 12/09/2005 9:14:52 AM PST by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 264 | View Replies]

To: js1138

These are all appeals to emotion, though - perhaps that's the best general heading for them. In one case, it's an appeal to one's fear of some negative consequence. In the other, it's an appeal to one's desire for some positive outcome.


266 posted on 12/09/2005 9:15:44 AM PST by Senator Bedfellow
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 263 | View Replies]

To: js1138

Crossed posts :)


267 posted on 12/09/2005 9:16:38 AM PST by Senator Bedfellow
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 265 | View Replies]

To: Senator Bedfellow; js1138
So is there a name for bribing one's opponent, offering a reward for accepting an argument?

I don't know what WE call it, but it appears that GOD does not like it at all!!!
 
 

NIV Exodus 23:8
 8.  "Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous.
 

NIV Deuteronomy 10:17
 17.  For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.
 

NIV Deuteronomy 16:19-
 19.  Do not pervert justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.
 

NIV Deuteronomy 27:25-
25.  "Cursed is the man who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person."    Then all the people shall say, "Amen!"
 
 
NIV 1 Samuel 8:3
 3.  But his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.
 

NIV 1 Samuel 12:3
 3.  Here I stand. Testify against me in the presence of the LORD and his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Whose donkey have I taken? Whom have I cheated? Whom have I oppressed? From whose hand have I accepted a bribe to make me shut my eyes? If I have done any of these, I will make it right."
 

NIV 2 Chronicles 19:7
 7.  Now let the fear of the LORD be upon you. Judge carefully, for with the LORD our God there is no injustice or partiality or bribery."
 

NIV Job 15:34
 34.  For the company of the godless will be barren, and fire will consume the tents of those who love bribes.
 

NIV Job 36:18
18.  Be careful that no one entices you by riches; do not let a large bribe turn you aside.
 
 
NIV Psalms 15:1-5
 1.  LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?
 2.  He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart
 3.  and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellowman,
 4.  who despises a vile man but honors those who fear the LORD, who keeps his oath even when it hurts,
 5.  who lends his money without usury and does not accept a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken.
 

NIV Psalms 26:9-10
9.  Do not take away my soul along with sinners, my life with bloodthirsty men,
 10.  in whose hands are wicked schemes, whose right hands are full of bribes.
 
 
NIV Proverbs 6:35
35.  He will not accept any compensation; he will refuse the bribe, however great it is.
 

NIV Proverbs 15:27
 27.  A greedy man brings trouble to his family, but he who hates bribes will live.
 

NIV Proverbs 17:8
 8.  A bribe is a charm to the one who gives it; wherever he turns, he succeeds.
 

NIV Proverbs 17:23
23.  A wicked man accepts a bribe in secret to pervert the course of justice.
 
 
NIV Proverbs 21:14
14.  A gift given in secret soothes anger, and a bribe concealed in the cloak pacifies great wrath.
 
 
NIV Proverbs 29:4
4.  By justice a king gives a country stability, but one who is greedy for bribes tears it down.
 
 
NIV Ecclesiastes 7:7
 7.  Extortion turns a wise man into a fool, and a bribe corrupts the heart.
 

NIV Isaiah 1:23
23.  Your rulers are rebels, companions of thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow's case does not come before them.
 
 
NIV Isaiah 5:22-23
 22.  Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks,
 23.  who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent.
 

NIV Isaiah 33:15-16
 15.  He who walks righteously and speaks what is right, who rejects gain from extortion and keeps his hand from accepting bribes, who stops his ears against plots of murder and shuts his eyes against contemplating evil--
 16.  this is the man who will dwell on the heights, whose refuge will be the mountain fortress. His bread will be supplied, and water will not fail him.
 
 
NIV Ezekiel 22:12
 12.  In you men accept bribes to shed blood; you take usury and excessive interest  and make unjust gain from your neighbors by extortion. And you have forgotten me, declares the Sovereign LORD.
 
 
NIV Amos 5:12
 12.  For I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins. You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
 

NIV Micah 3:11
 11.  Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money. Yet they lean upon the LORD and say, "Is not the LORD among us? No disaster will come upon us."
 

NIV Micah 7:3
 3.  Both hands are skilled in doing evil; the ruler demands gifts, the judge accepts bribes, the powerful dictate what they desire-- they all conspire together.
 

NIV Acts 24:26
 26.  At the same time he was hoping that Paul would offer him a bribe, so he sent for him frequently and talked with him.

268 posted on 12/09/2005 10:40:44 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 264 | View Replies]

To: Senator Bedfellow
My day was made when everything shut down for the weather this morning...

Lucky (?) you!

Mine started before daylight shoveling and digging and blowing.

(Never DID find the newspaper!)

269 posted on 12/09/2005 10:42:54 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 260 | View Replies]

To: Elsie

Bah, none for me, thanks :)


270 posted on 12/09/2005 10:58:06 AM PST by Senator Bedfellow
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 269 | View Replies]

To: Senator Bedfellow


For the science room, no free speech
By Bill Murchison

Dec 28, 2005


Will the federal courts, and the people who rely on the federal courts to enforce secular ideals, ever get it? The anti-school-prayer decisions of the past 40 years -- not unlike the pro-choice-in-abortion decisions, starting with Roe vs. Wade -- haven't driven pro-school-prayer, anti-choice Americans from the marketplace of ideas and activity.

Neither will U.S. Dist. Judge John Jones' anti-intelligent-design ruling in Dover, Pa., just before Christmas choke off challenges to the public schools' Darwinian monopoly.

Jones' contempt for the "breathtaking inanity" of school-board members who wanted ninth-grade biology students to hear a brief statement regarding Darwinism's "gaps/problems" is unlikely to intimidate the millions who find evolution only partly persuasive -- at best.

Millions? Scores of millions might be more like it. A 2004 Gallup Poll found that just 13 percent of Americans believe in evolution unaided by God. A Kansas newspaper poll last summer found 55 percent support for exposing public-school students to critiques of Darwinism.

This accounts for the widespread desire that children be able to factor in some alternatives to the notion that "natural selection" has brought us, humanly speaking, where we are. Well, maybe it has. But what if it hasn't? The science classroom can't take cognizance of such a possibility? Under the Jones ruling, it can't. Jones discerns a plot to establish a religious view of the question, though the religion he worries about exists only in the possibility that God, per Genesis 1, might intrude celestially into the discussion. (Intelligent-designers, for the record, say the power of a Creator God is just one of various possible counter-explanations.)

Not that Darwinism, as Jones acknowledges, is perfect. Still, "the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent scientific propositions."

Ah. We see now: Federal judges are the final word on good science. Who gave them the power to exclude even whispers of divinity from the classroom? Supposedly, the First Amendment to the Constitution: the odd part here being the assumption that the "free speech" amendment shuts down discussion of alternatives to an establishment-approved concept of Truth.

With energy and undisguised contempt for the critics of Darwinism, Jones thrusts out the back door of his courthouse the very possibility that any sustained critique of Darwinism should be admitted to public classrooms.

However, the writ of almighty federal judges runs only so far, as witness their ongoing failure to convince Americans that the Constitution requires almost unobstructed access to abortion. Pro-life voters and activists, who number in the millions, clearly aren't buying it. We're to suppose efforts to smother intelligent design will bear larger, lusher fruit?

The meeting place of faith and reason is proverbially darkish and unstable -- a place to which the discussants bring sometimes violently different assumptions about truth and where to find it. Yet, the recent remarks of the philosopher-theologian Michael Novak make great sense: "I don't understand why in the public schools we cannot have a day or two of discussion about the relative roles of science and religion." A discussion isn't a sermon or an altar call, is it?

Equally to the point, what does secular intolerance achieve in terms of revitalizing public schools, rendering them intellectually catalytic? As many religious folk see it, witch-hunts for Christian influences are an engrained part of present public-school curricula. Is this where they want the kids? Might private schools -- not necessarily religious ones -- offer a better alternative? Might home schooling?

Alienating bright, energized, intellectually alert customers is normally accounted bad business, but that's the direction in which Darwinian dogmatists point. Thanks to them and other such foes of free speech in the science classroom -- federal judges included -- we seem likely to hear less and less about survival of the fittest and more and more about survival of the least curious, the least motivated, the most gullible.






Find this story at: http://townhall.com/opinion/columns/billmurchison/2005/12/28/180478.html


271 posted on 12/28/2005 3:03:02 AM PST by 13Sisters76
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 270 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 201-220221-240241-260261-271 last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson