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As long as you choose the words "impose" and "force", I will agree with you (on this, at least).

While Christians are expressly commanded to evangelize and not be ashamed of the Gospel, "imposing" and "forcing" are not Biblical ideas from what I read. While on earth, Jesus preached to those who came out to hear Him or entered the synagogue He was teaching in, and He desires followers to believe in Him of their own will.

That being said, as a Christian, I support laws that may very well impose on others (without sacrificing freedom of religion -- again, followers should *freely* choose to believe) such as anti-abortion, protection of marriage, and other biblically-rooted legislation. This source says it better than I can:

Whether law is based upon moral absolutes, changing consensus, or totalitarian whim is of crucial importance. Until fairly recently, Western culture held to a notion that common law was founded upon God's revealed moral absolutes.

In a Christian view of government, law is based upon God's revealed commandments. Law is not based upon human opinion or sociological convention. Law is rooted in God's unchangeable character and derived from biblical principles of morality.

In humanism, humanity is the source of law. Law is merely the expression of human will or mind. Since ethics and morality are man-made, so also is law. Humanists' law is rooted in human opinion, and thus is relative and arbitrary.

If that's imposing and forcing, and I suppose it is, label me guilty as charged.

I lump Creationists (yes, all of them) together with all the other groups exhibiting fundamentally irrational thought processes that have fallen by the wayside in the past century or so. Casualties of scientific advancement, nothing more, in spite of all their posturing and racial self-glorification. You can make all the fine distinctions that you wish, call me a redneck if it makes you happy. It matters not to me, and ultimately makes no difference. Reality is what it is, the Universe works a certain way, and science is (unfortunately for many belief systems) the only rock-solid method the human race has yet come up with for understanding and manipulating it. Religion had millenia to prove itself a viable method of explaining the true nature of our existence. It failed miserably, and is still failing.

The problem you have is with your idea of what a "Creationist" is. Wikipedia defines creationist this way:

Creationism is the religious belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe were created in their original form by a deity (often the Abrahamic God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam) or deities.[1] In relation to the creation-evolution controversy the term creationism (or strict creationism) is commonly used to refer to religiously-motivated rejection of evolution as an explanation of origins.

You are taking the second part of that definition and applying it all creationists, whereas many "creationist", myself included, belong to the first half. So, at the risk of lumping "us" together, I will refer to what I believe as meaning those that believe as I do (the first half).

My personal definition of creationist is much more simple. It is simply that "God created everything." As I am PHD educated (PBS, History Channel, Discovery Channel... PHD, get it?), I'm not going to attempt to go into great detail on how the universe works. However, I do have a degree (a real one), have taken science courses and I do have a fairly firm grasp of the concepts.

First, we'll start with the idea that there religion and science are not compatible. Galileo observed that "the laws of nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics". Was Galileo NOT a scientist? Einstein believed that the universe was static. It is the way that it is and has always been that way. Georges Lemaitre, a Catholic Priest thought differently. His idea was that if God CREATED the universe, then it must of had a beginning. He used Einstein's own equations to propose the idea, that Einstein disagreed with. Hubble's observations proved Lemaitre right and Einstein had to revise his theory. Now keep in mind that Lemaitre was a Catholic Priest AND A CREATIONIST. Are you going to say that he was not "scientific"? So when you say, "Religion had millenia to prove itself a viable method of explaining the true nature of our existence. It failed miserably, and is still failing", did you factor Lemaitre's contribution into it? And, as for you quote about religion not being able to "prove a viable method for explaining the true nature of existence", I could say the same about science.

For your homework, I want you to look up the "just so universe" "laws of nature" and read up on the fundamental laws of nature. THIS site is a good place to start. Stick to the cosmos stuff and stop when they start talking about the location of earth and all.

On to evolution. Very few Creationists deny "micro evolution". A rabbit that turns white in the winter snow will do better than one that stays brown, and more white-winter-rabbits will survive to reproduce while the brown-winter-rabbits will die off. In areas where it doesn't snow, the opposite is true. This is proven fact and is not denied by Creationists as there is obvious evidence all around us.

On the other hand, there is "macro evolution", which states th

Either way, the odds that universe would exist in any recognizable, with planets, galaxies, stars and so on, are way too small to be coincidence. (source)

Here is more from the original article:

The fundamental boundary value (or initial condition) problem with the big bang is the criticality of the initial velocity. If this velocity is to fast, the matter in the universe expands too quickly and never coalesces into planets, stars, and galaxies.

Actually I don't see that as a problem. Earlier this year I read an article in I believe Sciam about how the universe is expanding faster than people thought and gave this scenario of how our heavens may look in 100 billion years or whatever, I don't recall. The galaxies fly out so far and fast people on earth will no longer see the lights from them. Meanwhile the stars in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, grow closer together with nothing visible outside of it. Then last week I read another article on the life span of different living species. Trees can live for thousands of years, humans and whales for 100 years or more, but some insects only live days. In a universe where the velocity is "too fast" for you may not be for life forms that only live in a nanosecond.

THEN you multiply those odds by the odds you speak of with carbon forming and such...

Just because all the life humans know are carbon based how does this rule out life based on another element?

only then do you come up with the odds for our type of life

Ah, I thing I may see, "our type of life". What if there are other types of life? Such as silicon based life that only lives a nanosecond? I don't know the answers, and I heard elsewhere lawyers aren't supposed to ask questions they don't know the answer to, but I'm not a lawyer and I am asking and seeking.

Either way, the odds that universe would exist in any recognizable, with planets, galaxies, stars and so on, are way too small to be coincidence. (source)

Here is more from the original article:

The fundamental boundary value (or initial condition) problem with the big bang is the criticality of the initial velocity. If this velocity is to fast, the matter in the universe expands too quickly and never coalesces into planets, stars, and galaxies.

Actually I don't see that as a problem. Earlier this year I read an article in I believe Sciam about how the universe is expanding faster than people thought and gave this scenario of how our heavens may look in 100 billion years or whatever, I don't recall. The galaxies fly out so far and fast people on earth will no longer see the lights from them. Meanwhile the stars in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, grow closer together with nothing visible outside of it. Then last week I read another article on the life span of different living species. Trees can live for thousands of years, humans and whales for 100 years or more, but some insects only live days. In a universe where the velocity is "too fast" for you may not be for life forms that only live in a nanosecond.

THEN you multiply those odds by the odds you speak of with carbon forming and such...

Just because all the life humans know are carbon based how does this rule out life based on another element?

only then do you come up with the odds for our type of life

Ah, I thing I may see, "our type of life". What if there are other types of life? Such as silicon based life that only lives a nanosecond? I don't know the answers, and I heard elsewhere lawyers aren't supposed to ask questions they don't know the answer to, but I'm not a lawyer and I am asking and seeking.

The article is a good read. It basically covers how incredibly narrow the limits are concerning the laws of nature. If any one of them was just an astronomically small amount different, then the Universe would not exist as we know it, and certainly life would not form. Which leads your budding C/ID believer to ask, "what are the odds of this happening by chance?"

At this point claiming Jesus never existed is just ridiculous. There's more evidence corroborating his existence and many of the things he did than there is for a lot of other historic people from the same time period. Yet, because they aren't nearly as controversial, everyone's perfectly happy to assume that he didn't exist and they did. (Example evidence link so save me from typing all of it here)

What's so bad about Jesus anyway? Oh no! He paid for your sins and wants to take you to heaven when you die. That *is* bad! I've never seen an atheist get pissed off about Buddha or something. I'm just curious what all the hate is about.

Despite uncontradicted statements attributed to Rush Limbaugh that Mr. Clinton issued more executive orders than any prior president, his numbers are at the low end for recent presidents, despite questions about content. Mr. Clinton has averaged 45.8 executive orders a year, the least among the last eight presidents except for Mr. Bush, who averaged 42 per year.

364 Total Executive Orders Issued, 381 Total Executive Orders Issued, too bad he hadn't more time.

If you think Hillary Clinton won't abuse any power, then you have forgotten the flurry of Executive Orders that her husband issued during the last 90 days of his presidency. http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/c-execorder s.html Bill Clinton abused the use of Executive more than any other president. One of his staff members was quoted as saying "Stroke of the pen... Law of the land. Kinda cool". Well it is not very cool for any politician to bypass the normal legislative process.

As for Gonzales, he is merely a vehicle by which the democrats have sought to destroy President Bush. US Attorneys serve at the discretion of the current President. He decided that he didn't want them working as US Attorneys so they had to go. Should have been end of story, but democrats are too driven in their hatred of Presidnet Bush. President Bush is not perfect, but he is not nearly what the media portrays him to be. We can only thank God that it was he and not Al Gore who appointed the recent Supreme Court Justices. A liberal stacked court would have easily cranked out more new laws than congress... all with no recourse from the people.

~AR

Not that I buy it, but the Kalam Cosmological Argument argues for an intelligent designer without refuting evolution.

Look up "monk translation insertions" sometime. Even if the books were a thousand years old the script would have to be touched up by monks as the pages became worn from use. Also the oldest copy of the bible is partial and dates from 3rd century as far as I know. (http://www.allabouttruth.org/oldest-known-copy-of -the-bible-faq.htm)

Religious books were recopied every hundred years or so. The copies we have today have been copied dozens of times by monks who often "modernized" concepts to be in line with the politics of the current day. Also what they perceived as inconsistencies in the original work were "corrected".

Many Christian histories had this problem at least when compared to the record of Jewish scholars. Jewish scholars had an entire class of specialists that maintain documents and compare scrolls for discrepancies and drift. I remember from some research projects that Jewish histories were well respected for maintaining original accuracy while Christian monasteries had a reputation for "inserting" new materials into transcriptions.

The following is an except from http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bib-docu.ht ml to back up my assertion on the reliability of Jewish histories. I don't have time to find reliable references for the "drift" in Christian lore, but Google seemed to have a lot of links.

Even the most softcore porn featuring a 17 year old is illegal,
JB Ramsey,

Meanwhile, there's a woman in a bikini strattling a man in an ad on a website targeting young girls.
http://www.girland.com/

Meanwhile Planned Parenthood wants girls on the pill. Of any age.
http://parents.berkeley.edu/advice/teens/thepill.h tml
http://www.eadshome.com/plannedparenthood.htm
http://www.ppwi.org/?processor=content&sectionpath =30/31/33&complexcontentid=766

Meanwhile sexual content is a marketing tool used to get the attention of teens.
http://www.focusas.com/SexualBehavior.html
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/sexrevol.ht ml

Meanwhile a Kraft commercial starred a junior high scool-age boy offering his cheese sandwich to a young girl. When she accepts,
Barry White's "let's get it on" plays.
http://www.thefixx.net/printthread.php?s=d98713dfe a3bd42a3bdb0aa1b8097b7b&threadid=537&perpage=13

Meanwhile Dave Matthew's band "crash into me" is (was, 10 years ago) played on radio stations anytime day or night. Meanwhile "sex and candy" was on the radio day and night.

Meanwhile Walmart sells thongs geared to young teens
http://www.menstuff.org/archives/walmart.html#2002

Meanwhile many marketing campaigns across the nation are either:

Promoting some (shirt,dress,jeans) as a way for girls to look sexier and thus more attractive to boys.

Using shows that do promote teen sexuality (and are thus more attractive to teens) as a vehicle to promote their items (sponsors of the afore - mentioned Doogie Houser episode)

Meanwhile MTV, in addition to showing "love in an elevator" and Madonna's "like a prayer" video (again, dating myself) begins a show TITLED "MTV undressed" where teens frolic in bedrooms wearing underwear. Unmarried, bi, gay, or straight seems to make no difference.

We're out to protect the young people. give me a fucking break.

How do you falsify evolution? William Dembski writes:

If it could be shown that biological systems like the bacterial flagellum that are wonderfully complex, elegant, and integrated could have been formed by a gradual Darwinian process (which by definition is non-telic), then intelligent design would be falsified on the general grounds that one doesn't invoke intelligent causes when purely natural causes will do. In that case Occam's razor finishes off intelligent design quite nicely.

But, as for naturalistic evolution being falsifiable he writes:

On the other hand, falsifying Darwinism seems effectively impossible. To do so one must show that no conceivable Darwinian pathway could have led to a given biological structure...The fact is that for complex systems like the bacterial flagellum no biologist has or is anywhere close to reconstructing its history in Darwinian terms. Is Darwinian theory therefore falsified? Hardly. I have yet to witness one committed Darwinist concede that any feature of nature might even in principle provide countervailing evidence to Darwinism. In place of such a concession one is instead always treated to an admission of ignorance. Thus it's not that Darwinism has been falsified or disconfirmed, but that we simply don't know enough about the biological system in question and its historical context to determine how the Darwinian mechanism might have produced it."

So, no matter how complex, even if the system if irreducibily complex, the evolutionist could just say "we haven't figured it out yet"... this excuse could be used on and on with no chance for falsification. For more on ID being falsifiable, read the whole paper here:

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/dembski/docs/bd-tes table.html

But hasn't the purpose of religion always been to fill in the gaps in human understanding

Nope. That's a myth. ;-) Religion serves a great many purposes, of which explaining the natural world is sometimes a small part. In Christianity, specifically, it is almost no part. On the other hand, Christianity spends a lot of time talking about the purpose of life, about which science has little to say.

(albeit with unfounded/illogical assumptions)?

I'll infer that you consider the existence of God to be the primary illogical or unfounded assumption. After all, a "rational" person should never believe in anything until it is proven, right? Except rational people believe in plenty of things that are not proven, foremost being Reason itself. Another example would be the existence of the universe. Oh, does that sound silly? Let me rephrase it, then: the belief that we are not living in the Matrix. These beliefs cannot be proven. They are axioms. You can accept or reject an axiom, but not through pure reasoning.

God is an axiom.

Our notion of a "rational," "intelligent," "educated" person is of one who accepts the axioms of Reason, the axiom that the universe exists, but not the axiom that God exists. This is an arbitrary cultural distinction, and has nothing to do with being rational, intelligent, or educated.

When you can't explain something with reason (backed by empirical observations when appropriate), then you turn to theological explanations which rely on mythos rather than logos.

I wonder who you're referring to. Certainly not most of the Christians I know (although being from the Northeast I don't personally know too many raving fundamentalists). Did you know, by the way, that (contrary to the delightfully articulate but sometimes ill-informed Thomas Paine) Christianity is directly responsible for the scientific method? Prior to the writings of Aquinas, scientific thought was governed primarily by Platonic and Aristotelian worldviews, which specifically deny the reliability of physical experimentation.

I thought it quite interesting that the researcher quoted in TFA feels the significance of his research is to show that "we can use science to understand the world around us." Christians originated modern science, and it's silly to see both sides of this idiotic non-debate forgetting that fact.

But with the advent of science and philosophy, religion has become an antiquated relic of the past.

Since we have already established that religion is perfectly agreeable with science, we will address your other assertion: what philosophies, exactly, have effectively displaced religion? Again, as above, philosophy stems from prior assumptions -- one of which is, again, the existence of God. Perhaps you were not aware that there are theistic and nontheistic philosophies? In recent years, Alvin Plantinga has done much work in establishing theism in the forefront of philosophical scholarship. To pin your hopes on philosophy is merely to work off of beliefs you have already assumed.

--
Dum de dum.

This is an old and defeated point. ID is just as testable as darwinian evolution, probably even more so. What falsifies an ID claim? A natural explanation... Occam's razor will favor a natural cause in most cases. Problem is, natural explanations are yet to be discovered for irredicubily complex systems at the biomolecular level, and it seems implausible that they will. Can they? Sure it's possible, just not plausible. What falsifies darwinian evolution? Pretty much nothing... they will just stick to their guns and say "just wait, we'll figure it out" no matter how difficult the problem gets.

For information about how ID is falsifiable and confirmable, see Dembski's paper "Is Intelligent Design Testable? A Response to Eugenie Scott" here: http://www.leaderu.com/offices/dembski/docs/bd-tes table.html

I've never read the books but they were written be exactly that: a Christian story, about Christ. Lewis was no "fundamentalist" by any means however.

You mention Tolkien and Lewis being contemporaries of each other, but what I find more interesting is the relationship and debate that Lewis and Freud had:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/
http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9801/nicholi.html

It was weird to see their two viewpoints because I honestly sided with both at different times. I'm not a Christian, but a follower of Judaism, so it was easy to side with Lewis at times and even easier to side with Freud. Combined, their insights actually make a nice, complete worldview. You've just got to take what you believe and leave the rest.

Ooh, nice flame. I'll bite. This may be fun. Even if you're trolling, I hope you don't mind if I soapbox a bit.

Why should there be any mention of God in society, other than in churches and other specifically religious forums?

Because in most democracies, there is some notion of free speech. Are you proposing, perhaps, that I should not be permitted to mention God anywhere except within special ghettoes where it is allowed?

On the contrary, if I think something is true, I will state it as a fact. I will tell people in no uncertain terms that homeopathy is a crock. I will also tell people in no uncertain terms that God is not only real but intellectually valid. And you know what? No one has to believe me. That's how the system works.

ObTopic: And that's how ID proponents should go about making their views heard -- by free speech, not legal coercion. Yet by the same token, those who wish to use evolution to attack Christianity should similarly refrain from preaching in class (which has happened to me and many others).

But it's interesting, isn't it, that when a Christian makes a moral statement on some issue, it's considered preaching at best and illegal at worst. Yet when Chris Rock makes a moral statement on the same issue in the same setting, it's "social commentary."

Why should my children be exposed to mediaeval superstitions, if I don't want them to?

Why should my children be exposed to modern superstitions?

Our children will be exposed to plenty of superstitions. My current pet peeve is the execrable popularity of homeopathy, which does real damage when people reject "Western medicine" and then proceed to die from treatable diseases. Again, somehow I don't think you are really advocating that suppression rather than education is the correct way to equip children to deal with the volumes of poor reasoning and bad information that have always existed -- and which is today available to any child who knows how to type the word "Google."

And that's why I teach my students (and later, my children) to identify the assumptions behind what appear to be neutral and objective statements.

For example, I suspect you would agree that a proposition is true only if it is either basic to knowledge (such as logic) or founded on evidence in accordance with that basis. Rationalism in a nutshell, as it were. Yet the interesting thing is that this definition of "true" does not rise to its own standards -- it is very purely a philosophical assumption.

And that means your following proposition about "the truth:"

It's not like the real things in the world, like business, education, health, etc, can't get along fine without poisonous religious fairy-tales being paraded around like "the truth".

...is actually a religious statement. =)

In fact, considering how much damage is done by religion,

You have that right. Throughout history, religion provided a great excuse for nasty people to do nasty things, who might otherwise have needed to invent other excuses. This doesn't change the fact that the rise of the first atheistic -- i.e. morally "neutral" -- governments in the 20th century led to around 75 million deaths in the name of the "greater good," an order of magnitude beyond all religious conflicts combined.

I'd say it would be a massive improvement if it disappeared completely.

Many have thought so. Research shows otherwise. This guy set out to write, in his words, "a defense of secular humanism and ethical relativism" and ended up writing the opposite book after finding that religion correlates with lower rates of crime, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, and family breakdown. He concludes, "Contrary to the expectations of the Enlightenment, freeing individuals from the shackles of religion does not result in their moral uplift." Keep in mind that this author is still an athei

Present-day religious scholars find it remarkable that there's very little independent confirmation for the existence and ministry of Jesus apart from Christian sources.

The following excerpt is from a Christian ministry Website, http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth21.html

1.1.1 In the first century or so after the death of Jesus there are very few references to Jesus in non-Christian literature.

(a) The brief notice in Tacitus Annals xv.44 mentions only his title, Christus, and his execution in Judea by order of Pontius Pilatus. Nor is there any reason to believe that Tacitus bases this on independent information-it is what Christians would be saying in Rome in the early second century. Suetonius and Pliny, together with Tacitus, testify to the significant presence of Christians in Rome and other parts of the empire from the mid-sixties onwards, but add nothing to our knowledge of their founder. No other clear pagan references to Jesus can be dated before AD 150/1/, by which time the source of any information is more likely to be Christian propaganda than an independent record.

(b) The only clear non-Christian Jewish reference in this period is that of Josephus Antiquities XVIII.63-64, the so-called Testimonium Flavianum. Virtually all scholars are agreed that the received text is a Christian rewriting, but most are prepared to accept that in the original text a brief account of Jesus, perhaps in a less complimentary vein, stood at this point /2/. Josephus' passing mention of 'Jesus, the so-called Messiah' in Antiquities XX.200 is hard to explain without some previous notice of this Jesus, especially since Josephus elsewhere makes no reference to Christianity, nor even uses the term Christos of any other figure. The different and less 'committed' version of the Testimonium preserved in a tenth-century Arabic quotation from Josephus/3/, while it is unlikely to represent the original text, does testify to the existence of an account of Jesus in Josephus' work underlying the Christianized text. But reconstruction of what Josephus wrote is necessarily speculative.

(c) Rabbinic traditions about Jesus /4/ recall him as a sorcerer who gained a following and 'led Israel astray', and so 'was hanged on the eve of the Passover'. Some of the relevant passages may date from the second century AD, but they are very obscure, and bear little relation to the Jesus his own followers remembered. Their polemical nature and their lack of interest in factual data does not create confidence in their potential as historical evidence for Jesus.

The argument that we somehow owe Africa because of slavery is pretty bogus. Slavery was ubiquitous all over the world in ancient times, practised in every society, including Africa and Europe.

In Europe in gradually disappeared in the middle ages as societies moved from feudalism into capitalism. Africa stayed at the feudal level and so still had slaves. Once the Europeans could build ships and travel they world they bought African slaves, but it was in Britain that the movement to abolish slavery started. So the British abolished slavery, first in their own societies and then eventually in the whole world.

http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/static/pages/5801.htm l

And yet 200 years later, there are still slaves in Africa.

http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9605/articles/gr egory.html

As Voltaire put it

"While it was difficult to defend the conduct of Europeans in the slave trade, that of Africans in bartering each other was even more reprehensible."

Fact is, the Finnish dude is right, most African societies are on short bus to nowhere. And before I get a load of people calling me a racist, it's the society that's retarded, not the people. Africans in Europe/America/anywhere but Africa behave in a civilised way, and I suspect Europeans in some lawless hellhole will turn into barbarians pretty quickly.

And you could probably find some way to bootstrap a civil society in most of the direst parts of Africa, given a bit of ingenuity.

What makes the study highly questionable? And even if you find it so, what makes the article bad? Rather than simply reporting the claims, they had good coverage of the method used.

The "Blinded by Science" article, on the other hand, starts off with an interesting anecdote about what is presented as unreasonable balance, then goes into a rant on global warming that constitutes the bulk of the piece. Furthermore, it focuses exclusively on conservative positions as ridiculous.

It's a standard piece of stealth propaganda. It takes some of the worst excesses of conservative pseudoscience and fringe science and quietly slips opposition to the extremely political and not-especially-scientific Kyoto Protocol into the same category, and for good measure implicitly equates the scientific consensus that human activity is causing some measure of global warming with a consensus that it is causing a global warming emergency, and with mainstream support for extreme claims such as a quarter of all species being wiped out in the next 50 years.

But the initial bit, on breast cancer... are we to simply assume that those wacky conservative legislators have done it again, as he suggests? You don't have to search hard on the internet to find an opposing piece. Here's the first thing I found on google: http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9705/opinion/bri nd.html It makes a pretty good case for active suppression of good quality research suggesting that there is, in fact, a link between breast cancer risk and abortion, and active promotion of a methodologically flawed study as definitive simply because it reports no link.

Looking around more, there seems to be a genuine, legitimate controversy on this point. Studies continue to be published in reputable journals suggesting a link. This is a terrible example of false balance.

Just because the law was written trying to scare girls away from abortions (as I'm willing to assume) rather than from a sincere concern for their health is no excuse for inaccurate reporting about research into the health concerns.

Seriously. I know it's not PC to mention the fact that the Nazis started off as off as a bunch of unemployed homosexuals in Germany, but ...
read for youself. Read here too.

So, it's true Turing wouldn't have been born, but neither would the Nazi party.

Nice try, there, though. Clever insinuation that those that think differently than you are "Nazis".
You'd fit in well in the modern New York Times versus Fox News political debate in this country.

Young College Graduates Are Struggling. Guess One (Unmentionable) Reason

This spring, thousands of young Americans are graduating from college. They and their tuition-strapped parents regard the degree as a good investment--a ticket to financial independence and a better life. Unfortunately, the labor market no longer seems to share this view.

The real wages of young college graduates (ages 25 to 35) fell in 2004 for the third consecutive year. According to figures complied by the Economic Policy Institute, "Young College Graduates Face Weak Labor Market," Job Watch, May 6, 2005.] Between 2001 and 2004, the real wages of young college graduates dropped from $23.04 per hour to $22.41 per hour.

Employment is finally turning around, but not fast enough to soak up the influx of new college grads. Thus the employment rate of young graduates in 2004 was 85.2 percent, down from 87.4 percent in 2000. It has been 20 years since the fraction of young college graduates with jobs has been as low as it was in 2003 and 2004.

It's trendy to blame the declining economic fortunes of the college-educated on outsourcing or the post-bubble collapse of high-tech. But immigration may be, as usual, the factor that dare not speak its name.

Immigrants represent a rapidly growing share of the college educated workforce--and an even larger fraction of the educated unemployed. (Table 1.)

From 2000 to 2003 (the latest year of available data):

• The college-educated labor force grew by 10.3 percent
• The foreign-born college educated labor force grew 24.6 percent
• The U.S.-born college educated labor force grew 8.2 percent

The growth rate of college-educated immigrants was three-times that of college-educated natives.

This occurred despite the post 911 slowdown in student visa processing. This also occurred despite a doubling of the unemployment rate of college-educated foreigners.

Economists call this a "supply-shock" --a situation where excess labor causes wages to fall.

The role of college-educated foreigners in depressing wages of U.S. natives is brought home by Harvard economist (and Cuban immigrant) George Borjas. In his seminal Quarterly Journal of Economics paper [The Labor Demand Curve Is Downward Sloping: ] Borjas concludes that immigration 1980-2000 reduced wages of the average U.S.-born worker by 3.2 percent in 2000.

The reduction varied dramatically among education levels. Native high-school dropouts suffered an 8.9 percent wage reduction. But even college-educated natives suffered an above-average reduction of 4.9 percent.

The impact was greatest on college graduates with 11-15 years of work experience - i.e., most likely to have

I've tried to find web sites that present these arguments in simple language. Most are too long and involved for people to wade through. Here's some I found readable. Does anyone know of other sites that have a concise presentation of either side?

http://www.doesgodexistanswer.net/

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/crea tion.html

http://www.iep.utm.edu/o/ont-arg.htm

I've tried to find web sites that present these arguments in simple language. There's not many. These were OK.

http://www.doesgodexistanswer.net/

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/crea tion.html

http://www.iep.utm.edu/o/ont-arg.htm

This "green religion" clamping down on progress reminds me of the Church crackdowns on science during the Reformation.

Not to get too off topic, but your statement could be understood to mean that the crackdowns on science were a result of the Reformation. The Reformation actually had a very positive impact on science. While not covered nearly as well as the Renaissance in our education system today (religious bias perhaps?), the Reformation had huge impacts on music, art, science, and philosophy that finally brought Europe out of the dark ages. You could even say that the Renaissance may never have happened without the Reformation opening the door.

The crackdowns on science came from the Roman Catholic church during the dark ages and the early Reformation. They did not want to lose their power base, and free thought was a threat to their system.

It is interesting that today most people have such a negative view on religion when it was, in fact, the Christians of the Reformation that have built the scientific framework that allowed the world we live in today. Although sadly there is a lot of misinformation and bad science coming from the Christian community today, one need not reject religion to embrace science. Without the faith in an orderly Creator, we never would have developed the science based on an orderly universe. Just because some circles use religion for wrong purposes does not necessarily make that religion wrong.

Marshall McLuhan's message: ""The Medium is the Message" is now about 4 decades old. McLuhan is thought by many to be one of the fathers of the age of technology yet posters on /. seem unable to distinguish between two mediums/metaphors as visibly distinguishable as film and book. The experiences are distinctly different enjoy each according to its merits. If you can't distinguish between two diverse experinces perhaps you're too egocentic and tribal, read primitive.

You're talking about the shelf I keep in my closet to hide all the books I'm embarrassed to have bought?

That's what reviews are for ;-)

1) "To me the evidence is conclusive...Over and over again in the high court I have secured the verdict on evidence no nearly so compelling [as the evidence for Jesus' resurrection]."--Sir Edward Clarke, former Justice of the High Court of England
http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/num9.htm,
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/2964/resurrecti on-evidence.html,
http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth22.html

2) Not true. Christian teaching is that sex is a gift from God, and cannot in itself be sinful, but it is sinful to indulge yourself, to the exclusion of God. Never mind the psalms, read the song of songs.

3) hardly a basic or core belief, but prove it never happened, and that it was meant literally, which you must do say it is "bunk"

4) "The odds against a universe like ours coming out of something like the Big Bang are enormous. I think there are clearly religious implications" (John Boslough, Stephen Hawking's Universe, p. 121).

The only thing man can create 'out of nothing' (albeit with prior environmental influences) are ideas.

[15] And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
[16] All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
[17] That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

-- 2nd Timothy 3:15-17 of the KJV Bible at umich.edu

[1] Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
[2] For by it the elders obtained a good report.
[3] Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

-- Hebrews 11:1-3 of the KJV Bible at umich.edu

[17] So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

-- Romans 10:17 of the KJV Bible at umich.edu

your camel-thru-eye-of-needle example (of biblical mistranslation) just doesn't work. sorry. after reading the above link, i think you'll agree that the passage was intended as hyperbole, not a gate. since you're aware of this common myth, i think i can safely peg you as a sunday school refugee. :)

i'm getting even further off topic... but i'll just posit that people's misgivings about biblical translations are pretty much unfounded...

the bible is, BY FAR, the most trustworthy ancient document as far as authenticity is concerned. see the table provided in http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/bibleorg. html.

people don't seem to be too concerned about the authenticity of plato's writings but we've only got 7 manuscripts that are of the same quality/date-delta as the 24,000 manuscripts of the greek new testament. the way i understand things... the new testament is the most historically authentic ancient document that we've got. more info at http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bib-docu.ht ml.

further... it's not as though there's any short supply of greek and hebrew scholars. our seminaries pump them out at huge rates. heck, even i took a few semesters of greek. my wife knows hebrew fairly well. the mainstream translations we've got, at least the english ones i've had access to... seem quite excellent to my lights.

in short, i think the "bad-translations" argument doesn't really work. at all.

Your "every scrap of historical and literary evidence" amounts to a few testimonies written after the alleged events were about a century old, that were chosen to be preserved by the Council of Nicea and subsequently were bound together into a book called "Bible".

That is not how the Canon happened. A bunch of church leaders didn't get together and arbitrarily decide what should be included and what shouldn't. It took a couple of centuries, during which time different leaders made lists of the texts they considered authoritative. The earliest list was even made by a heretic...
FF Bruce's classic work on the subject is available online for free here.

Anything contradictory would be long gone by now.
Nope - there is a large collection of these documents which survive so we can compare for ourselves exactly how it happened.


Historians generally don't go on something that flimsy and call it 'fact'.

A interesting table on the relative ages and number of copies we have on ancient documents. If anything, all ancient historical documents are "flimsy" by your standards *except* the New Testament ones.

In the end of the 1980's, Russia existed. Nuclear submarines existed. The CIA existed. The United States existed. There are documented cases of people defecting from Russia to the United States. Submarines would 'see' using sonar. The Russians often tried nagivating deep trenches in the atlantic with their submarines to evade notice.
Therefore The Hunt For Red October must be a true story, right?

I've heard this pathetic argument before and people making it betray their utter ignorance of historical, literary and archaeological rigour needed when studying the ancient near east.
Tom Clancy as far as I know is still alive (truly an American icon? :)) It would a simple matter to verify that and then ask him what his purpose was in writing that text, bearing in mind the overwhelming evidence points to a work of fiction (one of my favourites actually) designed to entertain. A statement to that effect even appears in the credits of the film - "work of fiction, similarity coincidental" etc.
Now compare that with Luke, a trained Greek doctor and easily the finest historian who ever lived, and his stated purpose:

1 Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us,
2
just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us,
3
I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus,
4
so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.

Or a little later on when he puts John the Baptist's ministry clearly into historical context:

1
1 2 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene,
2
during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, 3 the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert.

You can tell the author's purpose and you can verify his description of historical events with external evidence - in pretty much the same way I did with Red October.

Very interesting - If corroborated, then this data presents a huge stumbling block for the standard evolutionary "Big Bang" theory. As any good evolutionist knows , after the "Big Bang" all the matter in the universe, which had been compressed (through forces and mechanisms unknowable) into a very tiny ball, exploded outward (spherically, with planar tendencies) with tremendous force. All of this random matter eventually coagulated into more and more complicated forms until stars, planets, and the like were formed.

This observation of thousands of galaxies SO FAR OUT from the assumed center of the "Big Bang" doesn't make sense, since the matter comprising those galaxies (being the furthest out from center and thus having the greatest initial velocity and energy), should be the MOST CHAOTIC, not the most ORGANIZED, as they apparently are (being in string formation). Obviously this is not the appropriate forum for an ultra-detailed discussion of the physics in the theorized Big Bang; suffice it to say that this observation stands to flip Big Bang Science upside down and inside out.

This brings to my mind ponderings of the Intelligent Design, or "ID", argument, which you can read more about here at LeaderU. I agree with the ID proponents - the more we learn about the universe, the more obvious it becomes that it takes more "faith" to believe that that universe was created by chance than it does to believe that SOME outside, intelligent force "caused" it to be (the details of which are certainly open to debate).

Actually, many Christians have contributed to science throughout the ages. And in the spirit of modern science, I will back up my statement with references so you can have the opportunity to check them out.

Christian Influences in the Sciences
Keppler
Review of "The Galileo Connection"
Scientific Facts and Christian Faith: Are they compatible?

I especially liked the last article. The quotes provided at the end truly sum up my feelings on science and faith.

Second example: ACLU sues when gay groups are excluded from Christian-sponsored Family Day parade - like, d'oh? Would ACLU sue to include NAMBLA in such a parade? Evidently they would. What about the Christians' right to make their point? Sorry, stick to making it in church, presumably behind locked, soundproof doors lest some poor unwary Atheist be accidentally converted.

Third example: ACLU causes pulling of an AIDS brochure addressed to Christians as being inappropriate for a government department to publish. In point of fact they actively oppose many Christianity-focussed (ie the opposite way around) AIDS defenses as well, despite the measurable fact that this is the only effective defense against AIDS so far discovered. They'd rather that people died than that they becomes Christian. But I digress: is this government department unable to address the Christians in their constituency in their own language, when bringing them to an understanding of AIDS and a compassionate response toward AIDS sufferers? ACLU seems to think so. I mentions the Bible in other than a condemnatory light, so it has to go.

Over to Leader U for a bigger dose.

If you want to learn the truth, read the following: http://www.leaderu.com/science/intdesignfaq.html

You can include monkeys anywhere you want in your crackpot-science tree... truth is a lot different!

Why-do-I-care panders: The other day, Some Guy took his radical casemod out for a bit of 802.11 action at 36,000 feet. That's amazing, beats the onboard movie.

For example, the discovery of Santa's flying reindeer would be a big step on the road to understanding the physics of his journey, akin in chemistry to discovering the transuranic series, and would have much more impact than finding yet another sign of a stressed creator. For example, the CIA would be absolutely fascinated to get a handle one someone who ``knows when you've been naughty''.

``But seriously folks,'' add to this the 250,000+ species known from fossils and it should be clear that at least every 8th-to-80th transitional form should have shown up in the fossil record we've exhumed so far (BTW, the above ref cites TL Erwin in The Tropical Forest Canopy within Biodiversity, 1988, NAP (WA DC) for a generous ceiling of 30 million species, mostly insects). If we had equal parts transitional and stable species (really, we need many times that because most attempted changes would fail according to any reasonable theory), for example, there should be an absolute scratching minimum of about 2,000 known transitional species discovered in the fossil record by now.

While we're having fun, take DM Raup's figure of 99.9% ( Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck? , 1991, WW Norton NY - see this too for commentary and a ceiling of 40M species) extinct species, there should be at least 20 transitional species alive today, and using the 10-30 million species range vs 2 million known, we should have found somewhere between 1 and 4 of those by now.

Maybe one of those is Santa's reindeer? Which, BTW, are probably female...

From this website

Celestial (Heaven) - for Mormons who have kept ALL of the laws and ordinances of their church. What will the celestial heaven (kingdom) supposedly be like for a good Mormon? He will be a god, he will rule over a planet with his wives and spirit children.

laugh, its a joke

http://www.leaderu.com/focus/tolkien.html

Here are yet more links, regarding the terrorist attack. Only, these links are in response to a question I have ... are we actually dealing with a radical sucide cult here ?

Yeah, I know, sounds wacky. However, considering the planning and fanaticism behind last tuesday's acts ... and considering that the Teliban has about as much in common with Islam, as Heaven's Gate did with Christianity. Are we actually up against a group that preaches taking their lives, along with others, is a path to paradise ?

Here are some links on the subject. Decide for yourself.

Chronology of Suicide Cults
Doomsday, Destructive Religious Cults
Suicide Makes Ten Deaths Among Guru's Followers
More Than 200 Die in Uganda Cult Mass Suicide
Aum and Terrorism
Suicide Cults The End Of The Century
AUM SUPREME TRUTH
A party, prayers, then mass suicide
Lessons to be Learned: Heaven's Gate Tragedy
Cults

In fact, many of the nazis were homosexuals. I have spoken at Hope College, and I felt it was quite on the liberal side.