Posted on 05/24/2008 9:04:49 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
In his book "Descent man," Darwin tells us that he thought that in a few hundred years the "civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. ... The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."(Chapter VI, about paragraph 18. Just search for 'As we may hope,')
In any case, you're twisting what I said. You had implied that the Bible (and implicitly Christianity) was racist -- all based on something B.Y. said about the Bible which the Bible itself does not say.
First of all, "Darwin's idea" was not "that all came from nothing without God."
And secondly...
So is liberty [A dangerous idea -Jes]. So is technological advancement. So is exploration. So is belief and trust in God. So is atheism.
I'm going to argue you on the point of believing and trusting in God as described in the Bible. Not all ideas are equal, and not all are equally dangerous.
But give me those dangerous ideas over closing our minds and ignoring reality!
But the closing of our minds is what we have going on in schools across America. The official story is taught as if it is fact and any questions raised are dogmatically ruled out of order regardless of merit.
Are we to teach the idea that Yahwek is Loki...playing tricks on humans to make them think that his 6000-year-old earth is really billions of years old?
Not in science class! Now if a school board wants to teach "Comparative Origins theories" classes as a side, fine -- but I'm saying that if you can't reproduce the experiment and demonstrate it, don't teach it in science class at taxpayer expense.
I have no problem with you starting a church and claiming that's the fact, because Religion allows for untestable beliefs, faith without evidence.
For the record, I don't claim that God's special creation is proven fact but rather that I have faith that it is true. But it is a faith!
But Science's job is to describe the world in which we live...
I agree -- but that's not what's happening (or at least it's not the only thing that is happening.) "Science" is teaching far more then just how works the world we live in -- it is also teaching, as fact, about how it came to be - and that at one time there was nothing and then the vacuum fluctuated.. Who ever saw the vacuum fluctuate? Something from nothing? I'm telling you, this is the closing of the human mind.
and my profession as a scientist ...
Speaking of profession and background, I'd love to know a little more about your profession as a scientist. That really could mean just about anything since science can cover just about any field. There are physics, math, orthopedics.
By way of background, my profession as a scientist is in electronics engineering and computer programming.
What is your professional background and what do you do?
... would be untenable were the world so random as to have been created by a non-mischievous God.
That sentence doesn't seem to make any sense. I don't think that it's logically and grammatically valid.
I base my predictions and evaluations on an old, changing earth, with evolving creatures
What sort of predictions is it you're getting paid for?
...and guess what, my evaluations and predictions are good enough that people pay a decent price for them.
Some Preachers, magicians, and politicians make good money too. Honestly, appealing to personal experience without any mention of what that is doesn't generally turn out to be very convincing.
Hmmm...Christianity was a very dangerous dogma...leading to genocide at times.
How so? When? You see, just hurling insults at something without at least a minimal reference is most disingenuous.
Better not teach it until we are SURE that the idea is true... and there's no way to ever be sure ('til End Times..?).
I think we agree here - Christianity, Intelligent Design, the Bible, etc, should not be taught in public school SCIENCE classrooms. Real science - that which we can all see, repeat, and test -- should be taught. And there is a lot of it! There is no need to waste any time discussing stuff that might or might not have happened which cannot be scientifically demonstrated. Especially stuff with moral implications, which is accepted dogmatically.
You ride a more efficient bicycle each year, eh? Glad you don't rely on petroleum products.
And I guess your bike is made of wood.
I don't get your point. What are you trying to say?
Said mrjesse: I'm convinced that the study of where we came from is driven by the moral desire to try and free ourselves from moral limits.
Funny...when I was a Christian, I had no less curiosity than now.
I meant to say (And the context may have implied this) "I'm convinced that those studying to prove that we came from nothing is driven my the moral desire to try and free themselves from moral limits."
How did it come that you no longer believed in Christ? Was there a tragedy? Some other incident? or was it when you started getting into your teens and all those restrictions just didn't seem right? Or was it in college when professor after professor showed you that God didn't exist? I would be most grateful to understand why you no longer believe. When you were a Christian, did you still have the same desire to prove to people that the world came by natural means from nothing?
Said mrjesse: It's sure the way it looks to me -- the people I run into who believe TOE generally don't have a clue as to how it all works, but they take it by faith.
heh. And you can't say the same about Christianity?!? (A dear friend told me, soon after meeting, something like, "you're one fo the most Christian people I know--and you're not Christian!" Many "Christians" know little about their professed faith....but that's no evidence against its truth!)
I agree totally -- many Christians do not know very much about the Bible. But regardless, and even for those who are well learned in the Bible, it is still a faith and still claims to be a faith! (I speak for myself at least.)
My problem is that the ideas of everything from nothing are also taken by faith but taught as fact!
Thank you! Exhausting, but fruitful. Glad to be back and I appreciate your well wishes. :-)
Great to hear! Can you share what you did - or is it top secret? This weekend I did some simple experiments regarding the traditional double-slit interference pattern experiment. I did several tests, came up with a simple formula that roughly predicts the interference band spacing based on wavelength and slit spacing and slit-target spacing, and I also made a javascript double-slit interference simulator to check my results against! I also did a simultaneous multi-color interference pattern experiment with sunlight, then plotted 3 of the colors (RGB) out separately - and sure enough, it worked. Check them out!
You know, I'm amazed we haven't even gotten into Lysenko-Lamarck-Stalin connections!
I thought about it, but Hitler seems to provide a pretty good case for my argument. What in particular did you think that Lysinko-Lamarck-Stalin would bring to the discussion that Hitler didn't?
Thanks,
-Jesse
You made my point.
Darwin spoke of natural selection. Hitler spoke of artificial selection.
Bull! artificial selection is not the process of killing off the unfit. That is natural selection. Gas chambers are not breeding pits.
Oh, yes...now I remember...Hitler didn't really care if Jews reproduced and carried on their line, as long as he could kill the currently living ones.
Oh, and Darwin was severely dyslexic, and when he wrote NATURAL selection, he really meant ARTIFICIAL selection--and insisted that someone must build gas chambers, else there would be no change in the species.
</sarc>
Bull! artificial selection is not the process of killing off the unfit
No, it's not. "Preventing them from reproducing" (whether by sterilizing them, killing them, segregating them by sex, etc., is artificial selection.
artificial selection is not the process of killing off the unfit. That is natural selection
Uh, no. NATURAL selection has to do with NATURE favoring those who fit the environment/ecological niche, allowing them to reproduce more successfully as a species--or pass on genes, at least.
Gas chambers are not breeding pits.
Gee...really?
That's exactly the point. Darwin basically said, "you don't need any human input to change the makeup of the species" whereas Hitler insisted on intervening the old-fashioned (pre-Darwin) way, where you slaughtered your undesired livestock and allowed the desired ones to breed.
In any case, you're twisting what I said. You had implied that the Bible (and implicitly Christianity) was racist -- all based on something B.Y. said about the Bible which the Bible itself does not say.
And you implied that Darwin suggested the policies that Hitler tried to implement -- even though Darwin's writings don't advocate that at all. If anything, they say that no artificial action is necessary to "cull" people.
I'm going to argue you on the point of believing and trusting in God as described in the Bible.
It's a very dangerous proposition...how many have died for such a belief that might very well be false? My own ancestor was burned at the stake in England, in part for daring to speak his mind about infant baptism. It's a roll of the dice whether he chose the right God to worship.
Not all ideas are equal
I'll say!
You know, you stole my line! ;-)
But the closing of our minds is what we have going on in schools across America. The official story is taught as if it is fact and any questions raised are dogmatically ruled out of order regardless of merit.
If that's the case, then we are in agreement that it should be different. We should allow those questions to be raised, and should answer them, including providing the information on gaps in our understanding that might remain.
I'm saying that if you can't reproduce the experiment and demonstrate it, don't teach it in science class at taxpayer expense.
Wow. I guess we want to be the most ignorant country in the world?
Besides, not all science is experimental. Tell me how I can create an earthquake or a continental glacier or an quantum pair or ___ in a science classroom to teach about them? Since I obviously can't, I guess our graduates should pretend they don't exist?
Suppose you were by a window and someone asked you if it was raining out...
If you peek through the blinds and see that it's darkish out there and water is falling from above, you might answer, "It's raining." But could it be that someone has taken the time to erect a gray tarp over your neighborhood and sprinkle rain from a theatrical getup? Sure. When you answer "It's raining," you are actually saying, "based on the observations I have made, reasonable analytical assumptions, and similar examples, it appears to be raining."
Similarly, science explains the physical world based on our own observations, etc. If God is playing tricks by changing laws, making things look older than they actually are, etc., then that's no contradiction from my explanation of what the observations APPEAR to suggest.
Great page on your experimentation! I am not following this, though (just prior to section 7, with the random-looking pattern)...
This must have had something to do with the fact that I was using a little glass first-surface optical mirror with two almost-parallel scratches in it, as my slits.
Not sure what you're saying/explaining as to how that generates that pattern.
I find it remarkable that early scientists were able to achieve the results they did with the equipment they had. In so many cases, even with modern equipment, I encounter results that fall within below the instrument's measurement/error threshhold.
And with that, I must sign off. This is day number two of getting nothing boring done.
Jesse...you just made my day with that line! Thank you.
That kinda solves the former doesn't it? It is awfully hard to reproduce when one is dead. I think that is why it was called the final solution.
Darwin knew what artificial selection was, and it did not involve killing off your pool of animals. It meant breeding the best with the best. Natural selection killed off the unfit just as Hitler did.
That's exactly the point. Darwin basically said, "you don't need any human input to change the makeup of the species" whereas Hitler insisted on intervening the old-fashioned (pre-Darwin) way, where you slaughtered your undesired livestock and allowed the desired ones to breed.
Again, artificial selection involves breeding the best with the best to promote favorable traits. It did not involve killing off your animals. Darwin emphasized the process of killing off the "unfit" as a feature of natural selection. Hitler used this feature. And let us see how Darwin defined a process that used human to human involvement.
From the Descent of Man Chapter 5
A tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection.
Sounds like what Herr Schickelgruber was attempting to do. Except that some of those who sacrificed themselves for the common good did it involuntarily.
I don't know of many/any civilizations that slaughtered their "undesired" livestock with an aim to get a more "desirable" strain.
Exactly my point.
artificial selection involves breeding the best with the best to promote favorable traits.
Just as importantly, it involves preventing the breeding of others.
Recall that Hitler experimented with sterilization rather than extermination. Means to an end....the end was to stop the reproduction of the "undesired," and the means were either extermination or sterilization.
And Darwin's point. Yes, death does that quite well, but selective breeding, as I stated, desires improvement, not extinction.
Again more Darwin. Same source, same chapter(you undoubtedly have seen it before)
Natural Selection as affecting Civilised Nations.- I have hitherto only considered the advancement of man from a semi-human condition to that of the modern savage. But some remarks on the action of natural selection on civilised nations may be worth adding. This subject has been ably discussed by Mr. W. R. Greg,* and previously by Mr. Wallace and Mr. Galton.*(2) Most of my remarks are taken from these three authors. With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
Now the next quote contains Darwin's statement which is used to get him "off the hook". But a clear reading of the statement shows that he feels it is a unfortunate situation that we cannot remedy, but that there are factors which mitigate the harm. Yet, the point is, that what we normally do is counter to natural selection. Therefore, if we commit the actions our morality prohibits us from doing, we are back in consonance with natural selection.
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action,
... though this is more to be hoped for than expected[an increase in that check].
I know the feeling!
And you implied that Darwin suggested the policies that Hitler tried to implement -- even though Darwin's writings don't advocate that at all. If anything, they say that no artificial action is necessary to "cull" people.
No, as I said before, So I'm not saying that Darwin advocated what Hitler did, but rather provided the idealogical building blocks and example of "how it works."
In his book "Descent man," Darwin tells us that he thought that in a few hundred years the "civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. ... The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."(Chapter VI, about paragraph 18. Just search for 'As we may hope,')
So what I'm saying is that what Hitler did is the logical outworking of the merger of what Darwin wrote and what the atheist believes - that there is no God and no moral law above mans law and that all came from nothing - along with man's tendency to generally improve is surroundings. And this is exactly what is being taught as fact in schools across America, and this is the exact dogma that is used to filter evidences by atheist scientists.
People naturally tend to want to improve everything, Darwin provides a theory for a method of how to do it, and Atheism provides the logical mindset that says there's nothing wrong with doing it.
Said mrjesse: I'm going to argue you on the point of believing and trusting in God as described in the Bible.
It's a very dangerous proposition...how many have died for such a belief that might very well be false? My own ancestor was burned at the stake in England, in part for daring to speak his mind about infant baptism. It's a roll of the dice whether he chose the right God to worship.
I have a feeling here that you're blaming the Bible for a villain's act which was in violation of the Bible.
Just what part of the Bible required that your ancestor to be burned at the stake? You say that believing in God as the Bible describes Him is a very dangerous proposition and give your ancestor as an example - but this is just elephant hurling when one makes a serious allegation to prove their point but doesn't actually provide the data to prove their point.
Said mrjesse: Not all ideas are equal
I'll say!
You know, you stole my line! ;-)
I often tell people that it used to be that "All people were created equal" but not all ideas were equal, in other words an innocent human life was priceless but there were some ideas that were just patently wrong. But now it's just the opposite: A common phrase is "Well maybe it's wrong for you but it's fine for me." or "you have your truth and I have my truth" or "there's no such thing as wrong", and it is generally considered politically incorrect to tell someone they are wrong, so by and large all ideas are now equal - there's no such thing as a wrong idea (except of course the idea to the contrary) but not all people are equal -- if a human life is an inconvenience or otherwise worth more dead then alive, it is simply killed. But I digress.
Said mrjesse: I'm saying that if you can't reproduce the experiment and demonstrate it, don't teach it in science class at taxpayer expense.
Wow. I guess we want to be the most ignorant country in the world?
I sure don't see why restricting the science classrooms to the teaching of actual empirical sciences would result in a degradation of knowledge in our country. Of course maybe I'm biased toward the real solid sciences since it is with some of them I work. If I may, I shall just say in jest that I searched google for "American schools falling behind" and it looks like we're doing pretty well with being the most ignorant country in the civilized world already. But I digress.
Besides, not all science is experimental. Tell me how I can create an earthquake
But earthquakes keep happening! We can go out and set up sensors and study them again and again! We may not cause them, but then we don't cause gravity either, and yet we study and measure it.
or a continental glacier
By all means study it! Measure it, slice it up, do core samples, learn all you can about it -- just don't teach as fact things that aren't facts.
or an quantum pair or ___ in a science classroom to teach about them?
Quantum pair from my brief read on the net looks like a highly theoretical area of research. There's no harm in teaching an unproven or highly theoretical theory to a student who understands all the underlying known science as long as it is presented with no more claim to truth then is certain. If you ask me, some of these highly theoretical sciences that are hard to really demonstrate are approaching philosophy rather then science. The fact is that students across the country are being told dogmatically that all came from nothing by natural process. And that is just not known to be a fact, but it is done for moral reasons. It is the approved state religion in the USA.
Suppose you were by a window and someone asked you if it was raining out... If you peek through the blinds and see that it's darkish out there and water is falling from above, you might answer, "It's raining." But could it be that someone has taken the time to erect a gray tarp over your neighborhood and sprinkle rain from a theatrical getup? Sure. When you answer "It's raining," you are actually saying, "based on the observations I have made, reasonable analytical assumptions, and similar examples, it appears to be raining."
The difference is that if anyone doubts it they can run out and measure and check. So when teaching about rain, by all means cover the issue of man-made sources of "rain"
I love to break it to ya, but saying "It is raining" is just a whole lot different then saying "Everything came from nothing"
Similarly, science explains the physical world based on our own observations, etc.
The majority of scientific fields do just explain the physical world based very closely on our own observations. But there are some regions which have moral implications where "science" has adopted dogma and makes claims that go far beyond reasonable compared to the observations around us. For example, Berkeley, (my paraphrase) there was nothing then it fluctuated and created a singularity. Now I don't know about you, but I never had a singularity pop up in my vacuum jar!
If God is playing tricks by changing laws, making things look older than they actually are, etc., then that's no contradiction from my explanation of what the observations APPEAR to suggest.
If God were your servant and you were the greatest thing ever, and he created a planet to look older then it was, you could perhaps say that he played a trick on you. But if God (and I believe he is) is great and created everything and owns it, then we must look at it a different way. For example - the distance of the stars proves to you that they are billions of years old because if God had created them ~6000 years ago the light wouldn't reach us yet - or else god played a trick. But the Bible gives us a clue: It says that he made the moon and the stars to rule over the night! (Gen 1:16-18) Even King David said "The moon and stars to rule by night:".
And to think that the stars have been used for thousands of years as a ruler by which to measure the position of one's ship at sea! They still rule over the night in more ways then one!
So we can see that God didn't create the stars as a device for us to measure the age of the universe - he created them to appear as points of light in the night sky - and he didn't want them too close or the would move about or cause all sorts of other problems - he well knew that putting them far away would be the best place for them! His purpose for the stars was to "rule the night" - so he built them to do just that - right away - without having to wait billions of years. It stands to reason that if he were able to create a planet that gave off light he would just as well be able to use it right away - even if it meant putting light in place.
Great page on your experimentation! I am not following this, though (just prior to section 7, with the random-looking pattern)... Said mrjesse: This must have had something to do with the fact that I was using a little glass first-surface optical mirror with two almost-parallel scratches in it, as my slits.
Not sure what you're saying/explaining as to how that generates that pattern.
First of all, I have no idea what created the pattern. It was unusual so I photographed it and reported it with the rest of my findings.
My guess is that the glass mirror (which may have had a nick in the reflective coating near the double slits) was not perfectly smooth or parallel on its surfaces, which caused different portions of the laser beam to have slightly different lengths of flight path, which caused the funny interference pattern. Other then that I have no idea. It was pretty so I photographed it :-)
Does that help any?
Thanks,
-Jesse
Your answer makes sense only if you don't consider Jews and non-Jews, blacks and non-Blacks, etc., of different species.
Such an idea is abhorrent and wrong.
Hitler was aiming for what he believed was an improvement in the species.
That line of reasoning follows only if you believe old people have no value to the survival of younger people). But suppose the experience of older people have prevented the destruction of altruistic villages, while the non-altruistic villages killed off anyone who could have told them not to camp by a river that migth flood. The "compassionate-gened" people would reproduce, while the others wouldn't.
On the other hand, it could be a general "social" gene--that happens to make people more social and give compassion more broadly than just to just those in reproductive years.
Sad but true.
What??? There exists only one human species.
Agreed. So, therefore, my point is correct.
So I'm not saying that Darwin advocated what Hitler did, but rather provided the idealogical building blocks and example of "how it works."
So we can blame the Bible for revenge, since it discusses through "eye for an eye"...regardless of whether following it today would be a misapplication or not. It "provides the ideological building blocks and an example of 'how it works'"
Again, even if that were true... what are you saying it means?
But earthquakes keep happening! We can go out and set up sensors and study them again and again! We may not cause them, but then we don't cause gravity either, and yet we study and measure it.
Poor kids...if they aren't near an active fault, they remain ignorant.
By all means study it! Measure it, slice it up, do core samples, learn all you can about it -- just don't teach as fact things that aren't facts.
Do tell how I am to collect ice cores from the Laurentide ice sheet over northwestern Pennsylvania as it transitions?
Funny...I would have thought that you'd go with God's word and support the search for knowledge:
14The heart of him that hath understanding seeketh knowledge: but the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness. --Proverbs 15:14 (KJV)
3 Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established: 4And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches. --Proverbs 24:3-4 (KJV) [yep, using King James...the dude who roasted my ancestor! :-) ]
14The heart of him that hath understanding seeketh knowledge: but the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness. --Proverbs 15:14 (KJV)People naturally tend to want to improve everything, Darwin provides a theory for a method of how to do it, and Atheism provides the logical mindset that says there's nothing wrong with doing it.
And what did Darwin say was how to do it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
So yes, it's okay to do nothing.
But Hitler chose a different path...he didn't choose the path of "it will work out through Natural Selection"...no, he chose to do old-fashioned active selection.
I have a feeling here that you're blaming the Bible for a villain's act which was in violation of the Bible.
Whoa! Go back and look what was said. I said it was dangerous to trust the God of the Bible. My ancestor did, and lost his life for it. That's danger, I think.
and who knows, maybe he even lost his soul...maybe the Church of England was right and he was wrong...maybe his belief in the Bible was misguided by interpretive errors. Who's to say Santería isn't the right path...or Catholicism...or Catharism....or Donatism...or...
The fact is that students across the country are being told dogmatically that all came from nothing by natural process. And that is just not known to be a fact, but it is done for moral reasons. It is the approved state religion in the USA.
I don't deny that many science teachers go way overboard in overreaction against the Creationist anti-intellectualism and feel they must preach theories hard, to the point that they seem like fact...I encounter them at conferences. ALWAYS, though, it starts with complaints about the disingenuousness of Creationists and "Creation 'Scientists'"...it's definitely a reaction, not something that would be taken up without a feeling that they need to counter lies.
Doesn't mean that's the right approach, but I wanted to share my experience of actual dealings with science teachers.
Note, you cite a page that was last updated more than a decade ago. You should find something more recent to keep up to date on current understanding in cosmology.
And to think that the stars have been used for thousands of years as a ruler by which to measure the position of one's ship at sea! They still rule over the night in more ways then one!
Funny, though...the north star isn't the same one as it was a few thousand years ago (it was Thuban). Next is Alpha Cephei, then Vega. Funny that we have a changing ruler, eh? I assume that because we can't directly observe the north pole pointing at Thuban, and it's a historical thing, we can't teach about it...but I would also assume the "ruler" bit wouldn't expire when we moved on from sailing ships using navigation by the stars.
Gotta run...be well!
Again, even if that were true... what are you saying it means?
You're taking out of context the Bible's statements here. "Eye for an eye" comes from Exodus 21:24 which if you'll look is actually in the section where God is giving the laws for how the judicial system for the children of Israel were to work at that time and what crimes carry what punishments. See Exd 21:1 that the section is started out "Now these [are] the judgments which thou shalt set before them." - so what it is saying is that the judicial system is, for some crimes, to fine the perp proportionally to the crime he committed - eye for an eye, limb for limb, whatever. So what's your point? Even in your country the punishment is proportional to the crime. By the way, just before "eye for eye" is "life for life" - and even in most judicial systems nowdays murders are supposed to get the death penalty. So I don't see your beef with fitting punishments in a criminal justice system. But you were just taking it way out of context.
Furthermore, Jesus addressed the issue of people saying the saying "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" in Mat 5:38-39:
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
Poor kids...if they aren't near an active fault, they remain ignorant.
Aww dood you're completely hysterically (with hysteresis, that is) twisting what I'm saying! But I'm beginning to think think you well know it. I just had a conversation with LeGrande where, after claiming that everything is waves of nothing, he said that the apparent position of the sun is about 7 minutes behind its actual position due to the time of flight from sun to earth for light and the rotational speed of the earth. And I think he realizes that he misspoke, but seems to be stubbornly standing by it and refusing to support it. He also then says that if the earth were rotating at the rate of 180 degrees in 8.5 minutes, that the sun would appear to be on the opposite side of the world from where it really is. Of course when I asked him what happens if I go get on a merry go around and rotate it at 180 degrees per 8.5 minutes, he won't tell me what happens.
In other words, my recent experience is with an atheist who pretends to know a lot about science and tells me that I'm clueless and so on, and yet he makes an absurd statement as far as I can tell and then refuses to admit its incorrect. So that leaves me wondering what else did he say that he knew was incorrect? Are real scientists like that? Are the editors of the peer review journals like that?
I have long asked myself what reason an atheist would logically have to tell the truth even when they knew they could get away with lying without any bad consequences.
So I would be just so appreciative if you might be so kind as to consider me to have said what I actually said rather then something I didn't say but which would look absurd. (That's called strawmanning.)
By the way, as an atheist, based on the core principles of your atheism, what's the best argument that you could make to another atheist in trying to convince him that he should not do what Hitler did?
Funny...I would have thought that you'd go with God's word and support the search for knowledge:
I am for the search for knowledge.
And what did Darwin say was how to do it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. <
Say, I just don't know. Do you think the word "Extermination" crossed his mind, by any chance?In his book "Descent man," Darwin tells us that he thought that in a few hundred years the "civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. ... The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."(Chapter VI, about paragraph 18. Just search for 'As we may hope,')
As I said before, I'm not saying that Darwin was in this paragraph advocating what Hitler did but he did think about it!
Said mrjesse: I have a feeling here that you're blaming the Bible for a villain's act which was in violation of the Bible.
Whoa! Go back and look what was said. I said it was dangerous to trust the God of the Bible. My ancestor did, and lost his life for it. That's danger, I think.
Now I'm not sure what you are saying - I guess you never actually made your point. Like my grandpa could have but probably didn't say "If a man can't make his own point he probably doesn't have one!". Are you saying that your ancestor was killed because he believed and trusted in God as described in the Bible, or are you saying that he was killed because his executioners believed and trusted in the Bible?
By the way, as I asked last time, "Just what part of the Bible required that your ancestor to be burned at the stake?" -- you've implied that your ancestor was killed and it was somehow required or sanctioned by the Bible but you keep refusing to tell me what statement or idea of the Bible is to blame. That's generally considered false accusations! So it'd be nice, if you're going to keep saying that some statement or idea in the Bible caused the death of your ancestor, if you would actually show us what part.
Note, you cite a page that was last updated more than a decade ago. You should find something more recent to keep up to date on current understanding in cosmology.
Are you saying that the cite is wrong? I've read over a few other websites and this seems to be saying about the same thing as them. And besides, my complaint is about the information that is being taught - and decade old or not - that page is what Berkeley is saying and teaching!
Funny, though...the north star isn't the same one as it was a few thousand years ago (it was Thuban)....we can't teach about it...but I would also assume the "ruler" bit wouldn't expire when we moved on from sailing ships using navigation by the stars.
You're twisting what I've said again. First, most sailing voyages are less then a thousand years. Second, an astronomical ruler does not have to be stationary in order to be used for navigation - as long as the observer knows the path its moving on. Even GPS satellites are moving. As to the other meaning of "Rule the night" (as in watch over or illuminate) the stars don't have to be in the same place to do that either.
Are you just trying to twist everything I say to make it look absurd? :-)
I gotta run too. Take care,
-Jesse
NO, you have to prove your point. Which was, "In other words, it is quite clear that Hitler's views were in direct contrast to Darwin's. "
It is not clear at all, since Darwin argues in "Descent of Man" that "allowing" the weak to survive is counter to natural selection. And he argues that modern man is even subject to natural selection although it is opposed by some of man's actions. Therefore if man follows the "rules" of natural selection, man is again in concert with it. That is what Hitler was doing.
The theory of evolution is descriptive, not prescriptive.
Some species of pine trees only release their seeds after a fire. A botanist who observes this fact is not encouraging arson.
The botantist we are speaking of made a value judgement... HERE....!
We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected.
So tell me, since Darwin has long ago attained room temperature, who are the inferior humans?
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