Slashdot Mirror
Creationists Silence Critics with DMCA
Gothmog of A writes "As Richard Dawkins' offcial site reports, an organization called Creation Science Evangelism Ministries has been submitting DMCA copyright requests to YouTube. This has resulted in the Rational Response Squad (RRS) being banned after they protested against videos being taken down and accounts being closed. The RRS videoes attack creationism (AKA intelligent design) and promote the atheist viewpoint. According to the RRS, the copyright requests are without merit since the material in question is covered by fair use or has been declared to be in the public domain. Behind Creation Science Evangelism Ministries is the infamous Kent Hovind (AKA Dr. Dino) who is currently serving jail time for tax evasion."
Don't bother entering this topic unless you have asbestos briefs on.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I have no beef with any major religion, but when large groups of people continue to insist that something as definatively proven (and relatively obvious) as evolution does not exist, they lose an awful lot of credibility.
If your entire system of beliefs relies on blindly sticking to what a book of scripture says, you have serious issues. It is not hard to fathom that there was human error somewhere in that book, be it in the writing, the translation (or the translation's translation), or your own interpretation. It should not be so hard to admit that you could be wrong, without your life falling apart.
The issue in TFA is really either all about Ego or Money. I tend to think it's a little of both.
"The cup is in turn designed for holding hot or cold liquids, and has an open rim and closed base." --US Patent #5425497
Do they want to appeal to the religio-creationist market or to the more technical athiest, sceptic, agnostic market.
The way they handled this (with banning the rational guys) is going to mean they can't have both.
I think they would have been better served to take the videos down, and then after processing that they were fair use, put them back up. That would have not pissed off either market particularly.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Isn't the correct response to a false DMCA take-down notice to file a DMCA counterclaim? Was that done in this case?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Since the videos are public domain, we can follow the recent tactics of the Jedi teacher vs. Viacom.
There is no god but the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. --Denis Diderot
THE DMCA... greedy idiot designed, criminal tested!!!
If you need an evangelist ministry to get people to believe your claims, it's not really science.
"In case of emergency, break glass. Scream. Bleed to death."
I believe the religious guys also tried to stop the Grand Canyon stores from selling books on similar topics. They must figure if they can shield people from scientific speculation promoting evolution their case for creation gets a "fairer" chance.
looks like I will have to get my abestos suit...
Hey, that sounds like good old Al Capone !
Why the hell was the parent modded down? The article stating that he is in jail for tax evasion is a blatant red herring. It has no bearing on the group's DMCA claims whatsoever.
their lawyers had 6000 years to sharpen their teeth...
As a Creationist I'm stunned that they would do something this dumb. Honestly, I have no problem with people arguing about religion and trying to prove it wrong, that's to be expected and trying to silence it is akin to saying that your argument is weaker than your opponent's. This is really quite a dumb thing for them to do, I hope some kind of counter-claim is filed and the videos are put back up. There are some extreme Creationists out there who don't want to debate the topic and just want to shut up anyone who doesn't believe, I would hate for those people to become the stereotypical Creationist when they're really the minority (though having been on /. a which that stereotype is already in effect to an extent...ugh).
Not cool guys. Don't go making the rest of us look bad just because you can't take some criticism/arguing. And really don't make the rest of us look back by using a sore subject (DMCA) improperly and illegally to try and silence the criticism.
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
is that the Quran was not actually written by a deity, but rather by a person.
Or maybe they won't.
+57 Flamebait
http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi#QID132
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Correct, but I'll allow it because it paints the defendant as a cheat and a liar.
The Panda's Thumb also has a story about this, along with a video of "Dr." Hovind. Up until a few days ago CSE's website had this disclaimer: "None of the materials produced by Creation Science Evangelism are copyrighted, so feel free to copy those and distribute them freely.", now that disclaimer is gone. Is Hovind trying to retroactively copyright stuff that has been in the public domain for years?
Hovind is currently serving 10 years in prison for tax evasion. One would think that his time would be better spent raising money to appeal his conviction, or getting his sentence reduced; rather than filing fraudulent DMCA takedown notices. Unless Hovind's son is running the ministry now while mum and dad sit in the pen. If that's the case then Hovind's son doesn't appear to be anymore aware of the law than his father was.
Dear Whiners,
We here at YouTube are all about free speech. We like it so much we are an outlet for free speech.
Starting immediately, we have implemented a policy so that things are kept fair and balanced around here for the First Amendment. Every time you request a certain video/user removed just because you don't like what they have to say, not only will their account/video be deleted, but an account/video that advocates your point of view will also deleted.
There will be some dissent over this policy in the short term. However, in the long term it will serve to stop filling our email boxes full of whining complaints and petty bullshit.
For those wanting to play the DMCA card where it doesn't belong, we have also instituted a policy of banning your IP so that we don't have to listen to your illiterate ass.
Play nice in the sandbox and make YouTube a thing that all can enjoy!
Sincerely,
The YouTube Management
The game.
Irrelevant though it may be, it always amazes me that people put their trust in someone who is obviously immoral. Remember "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Do they want to appeal to the religio-creationist market or to the more technical athiest, sceptic, agnostic market.
They aren't appealing to any group other than those that are willing to file a DMCA takedown request. The group, while also complaining in the way they are, should also file a counter-claim (as has been mentioned in this thread and others earlier in the week) and wait for it to be reinstated if GooTube decides it's appropriate.
Except evolution has nothing to do with thermodynamics. If you took your head out of your ass long enough to read books, you would see that evolution doesn't have a single thing to do with thermodynamics.
Doing some reading around /tfa and allegedly the creationist website is retroactively claiming copyright over videos they released as public domain (apparently stating public release in their videos). I am currently unable to watch vids on youtube (or anywhere) and my sound card isn't supported anyway.*
Does anyone know or is anyone able to verify that: a) the videos were released under public domain and b) if so, would the claiming copyright over public domain material be a legal matter?
I have heard it is Youtube (owned by Google) policy to remove videos with a takedown notice, so they would have been removed anyway, valid DMCA or not.
* (waiting for a usb soundcard for my laptop)
In other news, Foxnews.com says Bush is good, and Democrats are bad. Jeez, can we get a report from a source that isn't pushing an obvious agenda here? If this is really happening as the this site says it is, then someone else must have a report on it, and hopefully, its longer than the three sentences Dawkin's page has.
Lemmings are silly; dinosaurs are extinct.
The article stating that he is in jail for tax evasion is a blatant red herring. It has no bearing on the group's DMCA claims whatsoever.
When arguing with (or for the sake of) a group for whom "rational argument" and "scientific method" have no meaning, you may as well make full shameless use of the techniques so carefully documented by Aristotle. No sense in wasting all his hard work.
Or better, if you can't find a way to use their ignorance to extract money from them, just leave such fools alone. You'll come away from the experience with far more sanity remaining (and lower blood-pressure to boot).
That said, when posting something on Slashdot - Probably best to presume that someone will call you on a logical fallacy, even though in this case, the overwhelming majority will side with the FP.
A. There is no "macroevolution".
B. New species are easy to show. Take a colony of animals, split it into two sub-groups and breed only within those sub-groups until the sub-groups cannot breed with each other.
What you refuse to accept is that a dog will NEVER conceive a cat because that would disprove evolution.
There is no "proof" except in Math. Everything else depends upon evidence. And there is plenty of evidence showing evolution.
No. Because you refuse to accept the repeatable experiments showing exactly that does NOT mean that those experiments do not exist.
Which "transitional forms" are those? All you're doing is repeating crap you've heard.
Someone who will violate the laws of his country and scripture is still to be respected because he wouldn't make false statements on other subjects?
...and I don't believe a lot of stuff that mainstream science says about how we got here, so you can probably call me a fundamentalist. Heck, the very idea that someone just called the universe into existence is pretty unscientific in itself.
But remember, just because some are extremists doesn't mean we all are. Same goes for Muslims and pretty much every other religious group out there. It goes for non-religious groups, too.
Voltaire didn't say it, but it's frequently attributed to him: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Fighting dirty is a bad idea - it does nothing but give your side a bad name.
Has anyone ever noticed that the justice system in America seems to be tilted towards 'the bad guys' lately?
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Claim that they *know* that *somewhere* in CREATION(ism) there are portions of code that *they* own. Somewhere.
it to mean that ideas, philosophies or thoughts that seek the abolishment of reason, freedom, democracy should be covered by it.
"creationism" seeks to set up a delusion that world have come to existence with some supernatural power's calling, and even 6000 years ago too. To the contrary of hard, solid evidence against.
Allowing that would in future would mean that same people will start to call for abolishment of certain sciences and procedures, because they would be continually providing evidence challenging the 6000 year old lie.
Read radical news here
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
if you need an evangelist mass of unwashed nerds to get people to use your operating system (and still fail), it's not really superior.
Hey, just a second. Without seeing the videos, it's kind of hard to say which were the rational actors here. Imagine the scenario where the ID folks were saying "here's what we believe, and this is the logical basis behind it" while the evolution proponents were screaming "OMGWTFBBQ11!11! th3z3 guys r t3h suck". That's not likely, true, but I haven't seen the actual footage and likely neither have you.
Remember, the fact that someone shares your beliefs doesn't mean that they're also civil, reasonable, and calm. Maybe the RRS crew were the mouth-foamers this time around and banned for perfectly acceptable reasons. Again, unlikely, but we'll probably never know the whole story.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
A challenge:
Show me a miracle! Not just a long shot chance, but an honest to god miracle (this means not someone who was resuscitated 5 minutes after death, or 1 hour after being frozen underwater. I'm talking about ashes->living. I'm talking about buried->talking)
I want evidence, or better yet, a "proof". A proof of miracles, or God, would be fine.
Barring proof, highly suggestive evidence, something that can be tested via the scientific method, would be good too.
You see, I can conduct all kinds of experiments that point at evolution, and I can dig up core samples with fossils that suggest it as well. I can do DNA analysis that point to it as well, and given enough time, I can develop an observational methadology to prove evolution going forward.
Do that for me with God. Or Miracles.
That's the difference between faith and science. Faith relies upon, "well, you can't prove it isn't true." Science relies upon, "All the evidence points in that direction, so lets test it."
It's stupid to base an argument on the impossibility of proving a negative result; yet thats what most creationists do. In this sense, as Richard Dawkins would say, religion is nothing more than a mental virus. A piece of intellectual stupidity that seems to resonate with people as an intellectual comfort blanket, no different than the ostrich sticking his head in the sand (or up his rear).
That's not to say there isn't value to spirituality. But creationism, and fundamentalist beliefs in the "reality" of the bible? Hogwash.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
What happened to the Google "do no evil" policy?
Or are they saying that there can only be evil if there is a god?
This is a pretty weak argument, which has been often clearly dispelled by the Rational Response Squad (RRS), which can be seen at... doh!
Seriously though, it would be nice to see common sense prevail a little more often.
living the dream
The implication is that our government that goes to such lengths as to allow the Church of Scientology to exist as a tax exempt religious organisation, throw this guy in prison. I realise its an ad hominum attack, but its also like being kicked out of the KKK for being a bigot.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
> It goes against base thermodynamic principles, but we don't hear the Darwinites ... whining about that.
"Creationists always try to use the second law
to disprove evolution, but their theory has a flaw.
The second law is quite precise about where it applies.
Only in a closed system must the entropy count rise.
The Earth is not a closed system, it's powered by the Sun
so fuck the damn creationists! Doomsday, get my gun!"
-- MC Stephen Hawking
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
The link is to blurb that explains nothing which links to another blurb that explains nothing. All this story accomplished was to start yet another creation/evolution war. Come on now, I know it's Saturday, but it can't be that slow of a news day. I did a quick google news search and the only link that came up for this story is the slashdot one. It's not even a story.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
this is not about extremism. and it doesnt effect anything whether there are good people within the extremist/religious crowd or not.
even if there are many good people amongst them, the radicals will just keep doing stuff like this, and eventually at some point will be requesting that science should be 'revised' because it contradicts 'the divine truth'.
the fact is, once you start to let ideas that are against reason and freedom, they keep asking for more. if you keep on caving in, you get to a point that the freedom of speech/thought concept starts to contradict itself.
Read radical news here
Evolution is just a THEORY, and a shabby one at that. It goes against base thermodynamic principles
The basis for this endlessly-parroted complaint is that evolution makes "simpler forms turn into more complex forms" while the Second Law predicts that in a closed system the entropy and disorder only increases and obviously we can't have that if trilobites are turning into people, right?
But the Earth is not a closed system. It receives high energy, low entropy photons from the sun at 6000K and reradiates low energy, high entropy photons into space at 300K. Any "closed system" that includes evolutionary processes would necessarily have to include the sun as well. Even if local entropy on Earth decreases in certain parts of the biosphere, it's only possible because the entropy at the center of the sun has been increasing the whole time as hydrogen turns into helium. Just imagine what will happen to the Lord's creation once that process comes to an end!
The sun is a cruel trickster- it makes a handy scapegoat in global warming arguments, but with the other hand it undermines this illiterate hocus pocus about the Second Law of Thermodynamics forbidding evolution.
It doesn't matter if the ISP thinks it's appropriate, when they get the take-down notice their hands are tied and it has to come down, when they get the counter-claim again their hands are tied and it goes back up and the matter becomes between the two complainants. At this point the two complaintants can either beat their chests and make a lot of ineffective noise, or they can go to court and either put up or shut up.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81XolzElwR4&NR=1
The way they handled this (with banning the rational guys) is going to mean they can't have both.
The problem was actually the so-called "rational response" response to the DMCA request: they posted an apparently libellous video in which they accused a named individual of criminal actions while making it clear that this was largely on the basis of supposition about what had happened: they didn't know who had made the requests, they were just guessing.
YouTube did the right thing in this case, and the summary of this article is very misleading.
As a self proclaimed "creationist" you are automatically kicked off the island of rational thinkers. Why even bother asking "why?" Obviously you have failed to exercise any critical thinking skills.
There is *no* rational argument that requires an acceptance of "You have to have faith." Religion, ID and/or creationism is a form of brain cancer akin to the neutron bomb. While it doesn't produce physical destruction, it breaks down the rational ability to evaluate facts and reason.
Do not accept without fact.
Do not believe without reason.
I am an atheist. When you figure out why you DON'T believe in Thor, Oden, Zeus, et. al you will understand why we don't believe in yours. Run along little boy and worship the easter bunny, santa clause, or what ever little nonsense you want, but keep it to yourself.
Geeze, while you're at it, you ought to at least provide a link to the site MC Hawking's Crib.
Im sure voltaire or whomever said it didnt intend it to mean that ideas, philosophies or thoughts that seek the abolishment of reason, freedom, democracy should be covered by it.
The quote in question is from a biographer of Voltaire, as a summary of Voltaire's attitude. As many of Voltaire's debating opponents did seek such goals, I would find it surprising that such a summary could be made of his attitude if he hadn't believed that free speech was that important. He lived in a different world to us, where all of these things had to be fought for. And only by sticking absolutely to those principles could he hope to show what they could achieve. Yes, I'm sure he would have defended the free speech of opponents of democracy. And of free speech.
The article stating that he is in jail for tax evasion is a blatant red herring. It has no bearing on the group's DMCA claims whatsoever.
Actually it does. The DMCA claims were aimed at silencing criticism of him that stemmed from his imprisonment.
"Show me a miracle!"
Life itself is a miracle.
"A proof of miracles, or God, would be fine."
There is no proof. This point was conceded long, long ago. People who believe in God have faith.
"Faith relies upon, "well, you can't prove it isn't true.""
No, faith accepts something as true regardless of proof.
"intellectual stupidity"
What? These two words together convey no meaning.
"the "reality" of the bible? Hogwash."
Of course, this would make the Torah and the Koran, among others, trash too. Nice of you to betray your anti-Christian bigotry!
Zealots abound. I've personally witnessed hostile anti-creationist myself:
http://www.geocities.com/tablizer/evozeal.htm
Excerpt: "Plus, they were extremely rude, calling me every name in the book and even registering email accounts in my name to try to intimidate me."
(I'm not anti-evolution, but did present an idea that rubbed some anti-creationists the wrong way.)
Table-ized A.I.
'Thou shalt not bear false witness'?
Technoli
Exactly. Evolution is a scientific theory, whereas "intelligent design" is an attempt to justify people's rejection of science in favor of mythology.
Use an attorney.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
These don't really conflict, one is an attempt to explain how life on earth began (Creationism), the other, Evolution is an explanation of how life on earth has changed over time (or evolved), they don't deal with the same subject, only in the USA do we really see this big conflict, in most of the world peopl are able to accept that both may be true.
Susceptibility to superstitious concepts has more to do with gullibility than it does intelligence,
Susceptibility to superstitious concepts has the MOST to do with upbringing and indoctrination. "Gullibility" is an unkind word, because all children are credulous. Credulity is a biological necessity, as it turns out.
Children are adapted (evolutionarily programmed, you might say) to believe their parents and elders. This is an important survival trait in a species that passes information socially. Because they implicitly believe their parents, children don't need trial and error to learn important survival information like "avoid that toxic plant!". Other species use instinct, and we do too, but we deal with too much information and flexibility for instinct to be sufficient - language and vertical information transfer between generations adds greatly to our ability to survive.
Think back on how many things you believe because a parent or teacher, or even an authoritative book, told you as a child. I'm constantly realizing things I "know" are not at all scientific, they're merely something I was told when I was still credulous and impressionable. Now that I am a critically thinking adult, I have to reevaluate those beliefs one by one as I discover them.
The side effect of childhood credulity is that people tend to believe what their parents do, or failing that, their elders and peers. Unnecessary/untrue/extra beliefs about the supernatural don't generally cause a fitness decrease: whereas not believing your parents about the poisonous plant will kill you, believing that Zeus is responsible for lightning bolts doesn't kill you. So we err on the side of being too credulous, and the more-or-less harmless beliefs accumulate over centuries. In fact, within societies that persecute or kill heretics and apostates (as many have), being credulous about the supernatural can be an important survival mechanism!
This is a pretty strong reinforcement mechanism. Some people break away, but in truth the universal best predictor of belief is parental belief. And often with those who do break away you'll find that their parents were lip-service religious more than deep believers.
When the rubber hits the road, religion ultimately has to retreat from explanations where science has achieved better/more supportable ones. It's painful, because our credulity for doctrine runs deep. But given time, it happens. It has long since happened for the weather (Zeus does not throw lightning bolts, electrostatic buildup in the clouds produces them) and for the structure of the universe (the Earth is not the center of things). For most of us, the age of the universe and the origin of species has left the religious purview as well, while a few holdouts entrench and struggle to cling to their sinking ship of explanation.
Mostly, religion has now retreated to "matters of the spirit", but this will also eventually fall as understanding of the human brain, body, psychology, and mind become more complete. The evidence is growing progressively compelling that the entirety of human consciousness and behavior can be explained as functions of our brain and body. No mysterious, undetectable "spirit" is necessary for us to be us.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
This is an obvious violation of the Cthurch of Scientology's trademark, trade secret, copyright and patented techniques for dealing with its critics. How dare they!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Oddly enough I don't have to imagine what will happen when the process comes to an end, the bible tells me. :-D
2nd Peter Chapter 3
10] But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
12] Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
That's a pretty good description of what will happen to the earth in about 5 billion years when the sun's gravity well collapses and it expands enough to intercept the earth's orbit isn't it?
Now how DID pesky ol' St. Peter know about this a good 19 centuries before we did? Think on that for a while, let it roll around in your mind. No particular outcome of your thought is necessary, just the thoughts themselves.
I'm a Christian and even I'll say that most of the fundy ones are nuts...and hypocrites of the first order. That doesn't mean that scripture doesn't have some intriguing insights contained in it.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
-Isaac 'Obviously not a rational thinker' Newton.
Case in point, my co-workers. We're having drinks after work and the conversation turns to pothead cosmology, i.e. the stuff that sounds profound when you're 14 and blitzed on something mind-altering. Direct quote: "Man, how do we even know that we're what people say we are? This whole solar system could just be an atom in a booger in the nose of some giant." I swear to God, direct quote. This is the point at which I bowed out of the conversation. Previously the question was "Like how do the scientists even know what they're saying, like space is really expanding?" Redshift, I reply. "Yeah, but how can you really know?" Redshift, it's the doppler shifting of light from radiant stellar objects as they recede into the distance. How do we know that atoms aren't just miniature solar systems? Firstly, the whole electrons as planets around a nuclear as sun model is 19th century. Electrons are actually in zones of probability, the electron cloud. Furthermore, matter does not scale down to the atomic scale and retain all the characteristics we're used to. It's the same reason why "shrinking man" stories won't work, a human whose entire body, including atoms, is reduced to the size of an ant would not be able to breathe normal-sized air molecules, the gas could not exchange in the lungs. A miniature-sized human would need to breathe miniaturized air. "Ok. Well dude, could you imagine what the fourth dimension would be like?" It's time. Length, width, height, time. Four dimensions. You'll get people arguing some strange stuff off of string theory with 11-dimensions but I don't think anybody really understands what's going on there. Quantum mechanics makes grown men cry.
There's so much stuff out there that we don't know, that's completely mindblowing to contemplate, and most people are content getting slackjawed and starry-eyed over shit we already know the answer to. Go figure.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Gullibility is indeed a negative concept; it describes the (unfortunate) carryover of credulity from childhood into adulthood, where it is no longer very closely associated with fitness, and in fact tends to lower fitness. I wasn't addressing the credulity of children, I was addressing the gullibility of adults. This is precisely why I said what I said, the way I said it.
As for the rest, I really don't disagree.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
That is the best self-pwn ever. Aside from the usual Bush speech.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Please please stop making the rest of us look like knee jerk reactionary idiots. -Sincerely, A Closet Christian who doesnt object to Science, Evolution, or a million other things that are perfectly logical.
Well, in the United States at least, which group is most likely to instill fear of repercussion (legal if not otherwise), the atheists or the creationists? How much of this has to do with some of the people running those corporations agreeing with the creationists?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I know Kent. He's a great guy, if a bit of a conspiracy theorist. He IS right about both evolution and taxes though.
ANYWAY, they do not have a leg to stand on. He disavowed his right to copyright. I have told him in a long detailed email one day that this his copyright disclaimer is foolish; that he should instead choose a copyright notice combined with a distribution license, such as Creative Commons, some of which allow for free unlimited distribution (which was his goal) but restrict derivative works. This can also stop others from trying to find some legal loophole to strike a claim on copyright since he did not actually release the work into public domain, but declared that his works are not copyrighted. Slight difference, but I've wondered that if by disclaiming any and all copyright protection, if someone cannot find some way to step in and claim to own the copyright to those works? It's one thing to stake a copyright and then donate it to public domain, but what if one explicitly waives all copyright claims?
Bad move. Those DMCA requests are in the wrong. I may agree with Kent's viewpoint on a lot of things, but I think he was extremely foolish because they CANNOT pursue any copyright infringement claim whatsoever, and cannot control derivative works, even if they are constructed maliciously or taken out of context to paint him in a certain light. He can pursue defamation of character or slander or libel, but those are more difficult and costly claims to pursue.
Newton was a genius, but not very rational, no. Let alone humble. Dabbling in alchemy, strong believer in God, declaring that the three body problem was unsolvable (by him) and that therefore the balance in the solar system was actively maintained by God. Nope, not very rational at times. Excellent brain, weak mind.
It requires no blind faith at all. You don't believe that there is a celestial tea pot - an actual tea pot in space floating about the Sun between the orbits of Mars and Earth. I don't believe it either. Most people don't. Yet, it's certainly possible, isn't it? We can't disprove it, can we? Such a tea pot would be very hard to detect with our current technology.
Atheists by and large are technically "weak atheists". That is, they realize that gods may exist, but have as of yet not a single reason to suppose that they in fact do exist. We simply do not believe until we have reason to do so. And you do the same, with virtually every other aspect of your life. When you open your front door, you don't jump over invisible fire-pits because it is not impossible that such a pit could exist, you don't reach for cups that aren't there (but might be, albeit invisible), and so on.
Atheists are skeptics who don't make exceptions for gods.
Actually, the idea of a tea pot up there is far more plausible based on everything we know thus far than any supernatural universe creator...
The "atheism takes faith" bit is an oft repeated, but utterly silly, pronouncement.
That's also what faith is, belief without any evidence, or belief despite contrary evidence. However...
You don't choose your faith, it chooses you.
FalconShould there be a Law?
...to only use "honest weights and measures" and in no way, manner or form is the current federal reserve scam IOU note an honest bit of money, because it is backed by nothing and the entire process of their creation is "closed source" and "we the people" have zero say in it,plus, they even stopped issuing their pitiful M3 stats of any importance, meaning we don't even have a half assed way to "measure" them. They make diebold look like a charity collection agency run by the most pious folks in the land. Nor is the IRS Inc. in any way, manner or form anything but an example of bribed off congress way back and the primary tool whereby the "elite" globalists who own you outright keep their serf herds under control and under their perpetual thumb and boot using the carrot and stick approach, again, nothing honest about it at all.
Not that I think there's much to ID at all, nothing, but cherry picking out of the Bible won't work, you have to look at the big picture. This "rendering unto Caesar" crapola only applies if Caesar is honest and righteous, and the stuff to be rendered really is his, when it ain't, well, there's some precedent, example, Jesus kicked money changers ass, even the prince of peace proved he could get annoyed enough with conmen fucktards.
Creationism is a load of fucking bullshit, and so is the DMCA. Seems reasonable that both should be assaulted. I'm certainly not afraid of someone "flaming" me over my disgust at the intellectual prostitution of Creationism, nor at the feeble legality of the DMCA. Sounds like peanut butter and chocolate, except with a light flavoring of BULLSHIT. Two horrible tastes that go together.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
Actually, good old Isaac was pretty irrational. Great at math, but kind of a dick.
Or his views on subjugating weaker animals to violent death for entertainment
At first when Ted Neugent came out with safaris for hunting large animals I was appalled, however logically it makes sense. If poor people, and many if not most people living where this occurs are poor, have a reason to preserve animal life then they will. By offering limited hunting opportunities at a high price, these people can earn money then they will have a good reason to preserve animals and still be able to make a living economically. This is because if they know they can make money then they'll know they can only make money by making sure there are animals to hunt.
This however is much different than the Bush Meat trade, which is decimating gorillas and other animals in places like the Congo.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Unfortunately, isn't there an internet law floating around stating that it's impossible to tell the difference between a real fundamentalist and a parody in an online posting?
P.P.S. I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.
that's confirmation bias. like reading your horoscope every day until it happens to get something right and going "that proves it works" whilst ignoring all the stuff it gets obviously wrong, or the times it contradicts itself.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Someone set up a listing of those that are issuing the DMCA notices. Then begin to issue DMCA notices to them. Also it would be good to issue counter complaints against those issuing the notices. That's your right. It works too.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Creationists are deceitful, dishonest assholes with the intellectual integrity of a common streetwalker. Who knew?
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
Just give them another variant on the old joke (as I've done before): The Earth rests on the back of a giant, flaming atheist. Then, when they ask you what the giant, flaming atheist rests upon, you tell them...
you have it absolutely correct - Thus we still call evolution a "theory".
AH, you bring up something many don't understand about science and theories. Yes evolution is theory, specifically it's Scientific Theory, which has a totally different connotation to what many people take "theory" as meaning, how it's used colloquially. When we say evolution is a scientific theory part of it's meaning is that it has not been proved scientifically false as of yet. Then if and when it is proven false the theory is modified to account for the discrepancy. If there are too many discrepancies, it's tossed out and research starts over with a new Hypothesis.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Okay, you're correct, but just because I'm feeling pedantic today I'd like to point something out:
the Second Law predicts that in a closed system the entropy and disorder only increases
The second law only predicts that in a closed system the entropy (the unusable energy in a system) increases. It says nothing about disorder. If you had a closed system that was nothing but carbon, the stuff that turned into a diamond would be highly ordered and would never become disordered. Thus entropy would increase but the system's order would sit still.
The 'disorder' or 'randomness' argument is generally discouraged because it has led to wholesale confusion that the YECs like to exploit. It takes energy to create order, sometimes it takes energy to maintain order. As entropy increases the energy available to create and/or maintain that order becomes less and less. That's where the disorder argument comes from. As you have correctly stated, we have a large source of energy that rises every morning here.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
Fellow Christians, what are we doing? Science, Scientific endeavors, and the scientific mind are good things. According to Genesis, God assigned the task of naming all creatures to Adam. What is that but blatant scientific observation and classification. I think it's obvious that God expects our honest and thorough attention in our attempts to understand the world He created. We should never discourage honest scientific research and discovery, especially when it CONTRADICTS the Bible. Why, because anything else would be a Lie to what we've witnessed. And we should never condone or encourage that. Would we ask an honest scientist to alter his/her findings to attain our favor? Seriously, that's pathetic. Our understanding of the Natural world is far from perfect. And our understanding of God and his ways is even less complete (He actually tells us that). Therefore, we should never be scared of contradictions between the two disciplines, but encouraged that there is still more for us to discover. I personally love the theory of Evolution. I find it elegant, and I've never understood any part of it that seriously contradicted the Bible's history of creation. We need to lighten up and support Scientists in their good work. While it may trouble us that they do not share our love for Christ Jesus. Discouraging them from performing the one task they love (and assigned to them by God, if we believe the Bible that we claim to) is not the answer. And suppressing their findings via the DMCA, laws, or school boards only displays our lack of faith, respect for their work, and disinterest in Gods creation.
stopped clocks, etc.
Actually, I always thought that evolution was a law of nature and natural selection was a theory.
I could be wrong on that.
That is an extremely naive and disingenuous viewpoint. Certainly there were many issues; but slavery was prominent among them and to claim otherwise denies enormous parts of the historical record. For both the north and south, it was an economic and social hard-line issue. Several of my ancestors died fighting for, or otherwise assisting, the north. One while assisting illicit transport of slaves out of the south. Others fought for the south. I have diaries, photos, artifacts and newspaper accounts that attest to the highly volatile and key nature of the issue for the time, and that's just in my own genealogical work. If you actually dig into history in general, you'll find an enormous amount of corroborating material.
On top of all this, the issue of slavery remains a very sore point with many people, as does more recent prejudice that descends directly from the attitudes of the very worst slaveholders. Because of that, the wearing of a confederate flag is a downright dumb thing to do; the symbol today is a veritable magnet for the very worst in human nature, specifically involuntary slavery. It makes no more sense than to wear a sign that says "I hate niggers" and then try to explain that what you meant was you hate "ignorant people", or to wear a swastika, and try to explain you're just waving an old Christian symbol about. These things mean what society decides they mean; and both you and Mr. Nugent should know that without anyone having to explain it to you. So the rest of us assume you do know, and attribute the common meaning to your use of symbols.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
under penalty of pergy>
You get the-most-creative-spelling-of-perjury award.
Richard Dawkins is about as rational as any of the hoplophobes at the VPC. Anyone who professes to be an atheist has voided any claim at rationality, period. It requires just as much, if not more, blind faith as any actual religion.
An atheist is just an agnostic who has concluded that the probability of encountering valid proof of the correct god (e.g. not the one that the other half of the world believes in) within his or her lifetime is so low that continuing to evaluate supposed evidence for a god is a waste of time. It's the same reason sane people are no longer searching for the philosopher's stone or the fountain of youth.
Don't take that as a knock against religion or belief in god either; evolution can make use of absolutely any variation in population to improve fitness. I am not convinced that religion is useless. It's quite possible that it was (or is) a necessary social mechanism required to move beyond simple hunter-gatherer tribal systems and develop technology. It is probably not irreplaceable.
>see Ted Neugent and/or Ozzy Osbourne for prime examples of strong musical talents
> without significant indicators of intelligence)
Nugent played a good guitar. What exactly is Ozzie's?
He doesnt play an instrument and he howls like a cat in heat.
Nowadays people who are so talentless have a name: rappers.
In the end God will win.
Even if you do get your YouTube account unbanned, it will be little comfort when you're burning up in hell.
Religion largely concerns itself with claims about states of consciousness, which to attain and how to attain them.
The only religions I know this can be applied to is Buddhism, Jainism, and Taoism.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Clark wears glasses, which fools Lois Lane, and intelligent design wears a lab coat, which fools you.
You can't take the sky from me...
Inara: You have a strange sense of nobility, Captain. You'll lay a man out for implying I'm a whore, but you keep calling me one to my face.
Mal: I might not show respect for your job, but he didn't respect you. That's the difference.
Another one I like is where Mal says "it feels stronger".
If you are really open to other beliefs and facts, take a read here, but be warned -- not for the faint of heart, and you most certainly will lose some faith when you read that. Have a copy of your Bible ready...
Thanks for the link, now whenever some Bible thumper gets in my face I know just where to go to show how evil their "God" is.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
Poe's Law. Mostly, it's used at this very site and at Christianforums.com; it isn't a wide Internet thing (and the explanation thereof was repeatedly deleted and later banned and history-deleted from wikipedia as being too niche).
It still appears on this page, unlinked: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_adages_named_after_people
RRS vs. Hovind?
It's like Sophie's Choice, only backwards.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
I'm catholic but this whole suppression of other viewpoints shit is bullshit. It's supposed to be a religion, not a fascism. Also notice this isn't the pope's doing; as usual, there's little sub-organizations spawned from individual loonies.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Richard Dawkins is about as rational as any of the hoplophobes at the VPC
Wow never heard that term. Quick search, The term sheeple has also come to be used to describe hoplophobes and other similar persons - people with an illogical fear of weapons, fire, cars, machinery etc, and certain other things such as men in camouflage or ethnic minorities. In this sense it is used particularly amongst gun and knife enthusiasts.
You must be kidding. From the Wikipedia
Clinton Richard Dawkins (born March 26, 1941) is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and popular science writer who holds the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.
Dawkins moved to England with his parents at the age of eight, and attended Oundle School. He then studied zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was tutored by Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen. He gained a BA degree in zoology in 1962, followed by MA and DPhil degrees in 1966, and a DSc in 1989.
From 1967 to 1969, Dawkins was an assistant professor of zoology in the University of California, Berkeley. In 1970 he was appointed a lecturer, and in 1990 a reader in zoology in the University of Oxford. In 1995, he was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, a position endowed by Charles Simonyi with an express intention that Dawkins be its first holder. He has been a fellow of New College, Oxford since 1970.
Berkley, Oxford, Yep they churn out and promote as many irrational people as Liberty U. Pfft. Anyone who professes to be an atheist has voided any claim at rationality, period
Umm, I profess it, and for purely rational reasons. Ever do any comparative religion studies. No, I thought not. That would be rational, for you to explore the alternatives and weigh out the evidence rather than blindly follow what you were told. It requires just as much, if not more, blind faith as any actual religion.
No, actually it requires critical thinking, reasoning, and consideration of the presented evidence. Have you done so? Do you have some new theological supernatural evidence for me to consider? I'll wait.
....
...
... Maybe some evidence backing up your claim that I require blind faith to come to my conclusions.
No, Well I have some for you. http://video.google.com/url?docid=-5036418388026112799&esrc=sr1&ev=v&len=625&q=Atheism%3A%2BA%2BRough%2BHistory%2Bof%2BDisbelief&srcurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DuhsMKQF1ROE&vidurl=%2Fvideoplay%3Fdocid%3D-5036418388026112799%26q%3DAtheism%253A%2BA%2BRough%2BHistory%2Bof%2BDisbelief%26total%3D33%26start%3D0%26num%3D10%26so%3D0%26type%3Dsearch%26plindex%3D0&usg=AL29H21-PwyzEntJXt5TFWxNQ_OtK85sCw
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1579120088897504565
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgKTVPNW2kE
Obviously I could go on all day, just with video links. I could very easily bury you in a mountain of books and papers. And your counter "evidence" is always going to be just one fictional book. Evolution is almost enough evidence of the non-existence of a supernatural GOD. This is why it frightens so many creationist. Tough.
Most people are atheist with respect to all the other religions of the world. I just go one GOD more.
BTW, Have you actually read anythi
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Disclaimer: IANAL.
That said...wouldn't this be a place where the SLAPP statutes come into play?
Enquiring minds, etc....
All the world's an analog stage, and digital circuits play only bit parts.
when you get around to the free trade vs. protectionism issues.
--
Never knowingly understood.
Considering the fact that for nearly 2,000 years, the best scientific thinkers thought the Earth the center of the Universe, if not flat, a healthy skepticism in Darwinism is warranted. If it turns out to be wrong, it wouldn't be the first time science has been wrong on such a fundamental question.
Yes, science corrects itself. Eventually.
Problem is, most people, many slashdotter included, have a penchant for truth. We'd rather know for certain that something is true than believe in a tentative explanation which could be later shown false through the discovery of additional data. And for questions such as the meaning of life and mankind's role in the universe, and in relation to each other, science has no answers, indeed, it cannot answer such questions. The issue of creation is important to religion, because our understanding of how we came to be influences how we think of ourselves and our sense of purpose. A "coming into being" without the involvement of an almighty God implies that human existence is futile, a mere utilitarian existence without any binding morality whatsoever; the actions of mankind cannot be judged according to what is right and wrong, but rather, what is most expedient.
That is why creationism matters. And also why some people so vehemently object. The debates is less about science than it is about our perceived relationship to God, and even to the subject of God's very existence.
Now, some of us who have considered the problem do not find a problem with a God who directs evolution, or even one who *designed* evolution to produce human beings (wouldn't it be smarter for God to have let matter do the work for him?). However, in the interest of those less well informed, we do no one any favors by continuing to beat the drum of evolution in the faces of those who do not have the capacity to properly evaluate ideas beyond those espoused by authority. Believe it or not, many people believe Creationism not because of reasoned evaluation, but rather, because their gut feeling tells them evolutionists are out to destroy their religion; they have been so poorly educated that they trust not their own reason, but only the reason of others to provide them with their own opinions. And sadly, on the first count (that is, evolutionists out to destroy religion), they are right more often than not. In the end, the debate only damages the credibility of science and religion alike, and, like most internet discussions, often generates more heat than light.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Let's have more of these stories!
How about Sony making a console and MS making its operating system ?
Also one about scientologists saying the GPL is anti bussiness.
And obviously, make one about Jack Thompson and Dvorak writing a book together.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
P.P.S. I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.
These flagging have been carried out by Dr Dino's son Eric Hovind. The RSS got involved after RabidApe got suspended and Sapient was basically sticking up for RabidApe. Eddygoombah and co have also been on the receiving ends of takedowns but as far as I know, the RSS and RabidApe are the only ones that have actually been suspended as a result of Hovind's illegal activities.
I have yet to have any of my videos flagged, but I know many people that have. We are really pissed to say the least
Oh and Eric Hovind sent an email to Sapient asking him to "call" Hovind. Sapeient replied that under the circumstances it would be best to talk via email and say any reply will be publicly shown and can be used in a court of law and any reply would be a verification of that. Hovind has yet to reply.
All video's that have been taken down were in full compliance with "fair use". To make matters worse for Hovind, all material used was public domain anyways, the copyright archives (http://www.copyright.org/records) contain no filings reflecting any change from public domain to copyrighted material.
Check out http://www.rationalrespnders.com/ to keep updated on the situation.
Make SELinux enforcing again!
Mark my (anonymous) words - When their attempts at persuasion, threat, cajolery, legal action and outright lies fail these people will resort to violence. They're bitterly opposed to anything which might take precedence in people's minds over the literal word of the bible, and they won't be content with just our schools -- they would create a Christian theocracy every bit as murderous and oppressive as the Ba'ath party.
We don't have to look too far into Christianity's past to see the horrible kinds of things people can do to each other when they're under the influence of the literal words of the bible undiluted by any sort of rational thinking.
The country's very oath invokes the Christian god. The pledge of allegiance
The phrase "under god" in the USA Pledge of Allegiance was only added to the pledge around 1959 while Ike was president.
The expectation in the courtroom is that I swear to god
You're not required to swear to "god" in a US court. If you aren't Christian or otherwise object to swearing on a bible they have to allow you some other sort of swearing in.
My own taxes are being directly funneled into "faith-based initiatives."
Yeap, King George has taxpayer dollars going to his faith based organizations. What's more, though I haven't verified it yet, is that only Judaic, Christian, and Muslim groups are given money. In 2004 Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, "confirmed that no direct federal grants from his program had gone to a non-Christian religious group. This kind of religious favoritism is exactly what the Constitution's establishment clause was put in place to prevent."
I'm all for your religious scientists pursuing ID
Just don't try to have it taught in schools as a science, it's not.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You need to understand the Dawkin's just claims that without any evidence the God as described by the various existing religions is non-existent. Just like you are an atheist with respect to the Greek and Roman Gods he is an atheist to the God of the Bible.
Here is a Dawkin's quote that illustrates the point.
Intelligent design can be stated as "it's all too hard to understand - the God ate my homework". I've heard it's really bad pagan style theology too - if everything has been designed the devil is in the details, especially some of the stuff insects get up to.
There's no reason for it to be on there, but there's also no reason to take it off, since that would incur extra expense as the plates they use to print money were re-done.
There is no extra cost in removing "In God We Trust" from US currency. Take a look at some US money, both coins and bills have the year it was printed or coined, so the plates and molds used are changed yearly anyway. Also every bill has a serial number printed on it, a different one for each bill.
Similarly, why care about the pledge of allegiance? It's one small line, and you can omit it if you wish.
Perhaps you didn't see or experience yourself but I experienced as well as saw other children having a ruler forcibly applied to my and their hands in a public school because we refused to say the pledge with "under god". Me, I refused to say it because at that tyme I considered myself Buddhist. And some Christians refuse to say it because to them it's calling the Lord's name in vain, which is one of the 10 commandments.
I also don't have a problem with faith-based initiatives, simply because the idea is that the money is for charitable works.
There's a problem if those getting the money require those they help to have the same faith the organization has or if it is used to try to convert people to that faith.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Why do intelligent men follow religions? I offer two explanations:
1) They actually follow their own, modified, interpretation of the religion which makes saner claims.
2) Their religious beliefs are such a significant part of their self-structure that they are psychologically incapable of applying sound reasoning to them. Each time they try, defense mechanisms arise to obfuscate their reasoning process, and make them see all kinds of irrationality as being perfectly rational (but only in the context of their specific religion, they remain quite capable of ripping other religions to logical shreds).
In either case, any debate as to the veracity of the religion eventually winds up with a discussion about faith, and some interesting equivocations.
Is faith "belief when there is no evidence?" If that is what faith is, then it is clearly not at all rational (if there is no good reason to believe something, then believing it anyway is obviously silly), nor is it virtuous (accepting an unsubstantiated story as fact isn't morally similar to helping a person in need, for example). If it is neither rational nor virtuous, then we can clearly reject it as any sort of sensible foundation for a life-leading belief system.
The counter given by religious practitioners usually involves some demonstration of the actual presence of evidence for their religion. This, they say, demonstrates that faith is not simply "belief without evidence." However, whenever one counters that the scope of the evidence is insufficient (verifying that Luke did, in fact, write the Gospel of Luke does not even begin to prove that Jesus did, in fact, walk on water, which itself does not begin to prove that Jesus is, in fact, an all-powerful being, nor that our souls are in danger and in need of saving by him, etc). When THAT is pointed out, the need for "faith" is re-iterated. However, if "faith" is being used to fill in the gaps of unsubstantiated beliefs, then we are again using it to mean "belief without evidence."
Hence the equivocation: sometimes "faith" means "belief without evidence" and sometimes it means "well-founded belief in the presence of evidence." Any faith-based argument in the defense of a religion plays this equivocation, using it to have one meaning in one premise, and the other meaning in another premise. Arguments based on logical fallacies are irrational, and can be safely rejected.
Note, I have not dis-proven any religious beliefs...I have merely demonstrated that this whole faith business is not a good reason to accept any of them. If you have met Jesus yourself (or had some other sort of religious experience which inclines you to walk a spiritual path) then by all means continue believing. You have no need to see the above demonstration as a threat to your "faith," because what you have instead is first-hand experience.
Anyway, good luck finding your path.
Religion has never existed for the purpose of offering explanations for natural phenomenon. If you really think the Zeus mythology was invented to explain lightning, or that Isis, Osiris, or Horus were invented to explain the motion of the sun, then YOU are the victim of gullibility, and have a non-critical willingness to believe in the abject irrationality and absurdity of your forebearers of just a couple hundred generations before you. These matters have always pertained to spirit. Those who have seen nothing other than literal stories are those who never examine them, and don't care to think about such things more deeply. The idea that the understanding of psychology and the mind is "becoming more complete" is likewise gullible wishful thinking. There is just as much lack of critical thinking in science as in religion. Correct thinking should be applied to both, but it's rare to find it in any context.
The idea that religion is explained by people who never question what their parents have told them is silly. While I don't have statistics, most religious people I know, rejected the beliefs of their parents, either permanently, or to later find truth in it as adults.
My explanation for atheists is that they have never been exposed to anything but the most simplistic religious thought, and are too anxious to feel intellectually superior to religious people to seriously investigate anything that isn't condoned by the scientific hierarchy and their peers.
Very rational? So was Jim Jones. Well, according to his followers, anyway. Thing is, anyone can be rational when they're the ones defining the word. Dawkins, by traditional reasoning, not all that rational.
I am saying that banning one of the two groups is the problem.
The natural give and take of "this is DMCA violation", take it down, "No this is not a DMCA violation" , put it back up. would respect both groups of users.
Banning the second group was the problem in my view.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
You have a good point.
Christian religion is treated in an odd fashion.
Some groups are very disrespectful to it ("Piss Christ") while others constantly try to sneak it into civil life (Prayer at a high school football game, the ten commandments in a court). It doesn't get the hands off treatment that islam does tho.
The others in this thread have a good point- if the rational group freaked out and got rude instead of just following appropriate procedures then they may have been banned for being asshats more than because religious people at google and youtube spiked them.
I look forward to finding out more about this one.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Nuff said
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Tax evasion is more like scientology than intelligent design :)
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
I personally don't understand all the furor on the issue of evolution vs creationism. For example, I often hear evolution as the "atheist" argument, which is really silly if you think about it. There's absolutely no reason why someone would have to be an atheist to agree with the principles of evolution. In fact, I cannot see *any* real reason why christianity and evolution are mutually exclusive. If evolution is true, that doesn't for a moment mean that christianity is undermined. At least if you define creationism as "creation by God" and not "creation ex nihilo. If you leave creationism in the realm of the metaphysical where it belongs, then evolution is very compatible with the idea. In fact, God could (and must) follow any natural principle to bring about something.
I guess according to many of these folks on both sides of this issue, I must not exist. Because I am a creationist who believes in evolution. I also am someone who believes in God, yet thinks that teaching "intelligent design" in schools is not a good idea. While I believe God brought about the universe, it's up to science to tell us how it came about. I'll leave the "how" to the scientists (and evolutionists), and keep the "why" open for discussion.
I've never heard of getting part credit for 2+3=4.
Part Credit and "Not as Correct as it could be" involve multi-step processes. And this is fair, because it also shows that sufficiently large problems are iterative.
Getting too much deeper into this becomes an education theory discussion though.
A bigger question is people who can indeed correctly tell you the third derivative of a function, but then also hold a fundamentalist religious view. Some faiths are in fact flexible enough to allow for newer refinements to older ideas. (Usually Eastern.) However, both Fundamentalist Christian and Fundamentalist Islam depend heavily upon the immutable nature of the scripture. It's basically a religious explosion waiting to happen.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
In this way the various organizations claiming to be religions has to either be showing their colors or be dismissed as a religion.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Or, more likely, because any fool can see that the Earth is flat. No need to investigate the obvious, right? Imagine yourself in the middle ages insisting the Earth is round - you'd be roundly ridiculed by even the most inveterate idiot.
You know what gets me? That we are not immune to such idiocy. I can't help but wonder if some theory will replace evolution that will make evolution look just as stupid as the flat Earth theory. I doubt it will be Creationism in its current form, but it does occur to me that things taken as obvious are not necessarily correct. Even though evolution seems to be the best explanation now, there are problems with it as a theory. In fact, the round-Earth theory was known long before medieval Europe, yet Europe through its ignorance of history continued to believe the flat-Earth theory. It's very possible that the in the future we'll discover evidence which bolsters the logical problems with the theory of evolution, and people will regard evolution-believers with the same disdain our society reserves for the flat-Earthers.
In retrospect, the correct understanding is always obvious, once something has been properly explained. People who ridicule flat-Earthers in the middle ages forget that at the time, it made the most sense given the data. The fact that it was ridiculously incorrect should serve as a warning to those who trust science; the discovery of additional data can easily overturn what the scientific community, and the population at large, believe to be correct.
My problem with the evolutionists is not that it is science, but rather, that people hoist their religious beliefs upon the fragile framework of science. Yes, I've met people who don't believe in God because of evolution. That makes as much sense as believing in a flat Earth. Science is limited to a tentative and often incorrect theory of how the universe operates. When evidence shows a theory false, it is discarded; but what will happen to those who chose not to believe in God because of the errors of science? It's not a religion, and you shouldn't treat it with the authority of truth. Sure, we can use science to inform us of how to build a bridge or put a man on the moon, but when it comes to matters of eternal significance, it is utterly insufficient. The fact that people take evolution as gospel only damages the credibility of those scientists who are actually doing good work in their fields, and understand the limitations of their discipline.
I think the real question is not a matter of what if, but rather when, evolution is shown to be incorrect, will you still believe in it? If so, you're more a religious fanatic than a rational person. The fact that someone doesn't believe in evolution might just be an indication they're thinking in bigger terms than you.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
That's exactly what he meant. But that doesn't mean that reason and freedom should be abolished, you should be able to speak about it. Free speech? Oh and all that stuff is also protected by the statement so by defending them you also present a strong, hypocrisy free, defence for yourself. It might seem nice to censor the absolute whackjobs, thing is someone might think you're an absolute whackjob.
Cue the unimaginative cheapshots against creationists and other religious groups. It's nothing more and nothing less than intolerance in abundance.
Ehmm guys?
I think he is being sarcastic.
Which explains the relative geographical stability of religious beliefs over ti..oh, wait, no. The other thing. Doesn't explain.
A search for "deconversion" on Debunking Christianity yields several counterexamples:
Arrrggh, how could I forget? Sam Harris (who has a degree in philosophy), as well as the population of Category:Atheist philosophers at Wikipedia.
Hi. Good for you, and I really mean that. I disagree with you about the existence of God, but that's really a minor issue compared to our mutual respect for the standards of evidence and basic intellectual honesty. I'm ex-Christian and I'm glad to see Christians like you speaking up.
I'd just like to call your attention to terminology. You are not a "creationist" in the English that is recognizable by any Brit, Ozzie, Canuck, or Youessian. The word does not mean "I believe that God _created_ us", but rather it refers to a very narrow inerrantist reading of the creation story. Even as not all evangelicals are fundamentalists, not even all fundamentalists are creationists; the term is a subset of even that group. You may like the word "creationist", but please recognize that it was claimed and defined by a virulent sect before you were born and there really isn't much you can do about that unless you own a very large news corporation, at the very least on the scale of Murdoch's.
You are a "theistic evolutionist", and you may qualify that as "Christian evolutionist" if you like. Good to hear from you. Don't keep quiet. We (the set of all honest people) could use your help every single day.
You guys are too kind. The 500 ton elephant here is that the creationists actually believe in evolution all too well. All religions practice eugenics. They control their subjects reproductive activities to produce progeny who are designed to be subservient to and supportive of their religious masters. Of course, this is a statistical outcome, taking a long time and many generations to produce what nature would not, basically zombies. The activities such as TFA refers to are subterfuge to keep the focus on creationism and away from eugenics, a crime against humanity.
...cheat on his taxes, or god wouldn't have had enough for his truck payment.
misinterpreting the intent of scriptural soundbites is one thing, but manifestly illegal acts done in the name of the lord seem to degrade rather than serve his plan.
It's Richard Dawkins that is complaining. I have no problems accepting your scenario as true, as this is exactly the way Dawkins behaves.
Dawkins and his followers do more damage to scientific rationality than the Creationism/ID crowd, IMO. Their petulance tends to scare people off, and their total unwillingness to engage in debate with even rational believers is a sure sign of a fundamentalist mindset that is just as bad as the one they accuse their opponents of.
Professor Dutch, a professor of geology at the University of Wisconsin, and definitely not a lover of pseudoscience, puts it much better than I can.
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
We can't directly and distinctly perceive magnetism
Ordinarily.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
What you say presumes that the people who are defending democracy will always be stronger and therefore democracy, freedom will not get abolished.
fallacious.
when one of the factions/ideas that seek abolishment of freedom gets the upper hand, if only slightly at any point in time, freedom will get abolished. thats exactly what happened on krystalnacht in berlin in 1933.
Read radical news here
hate. let it out, fundie.
Unlike you, I do have a big problem with faith-based initiatives. I'll explain:
As you may or may not know, Bush is using his muscle to channel foreign aid to faith-based initiatives, contrary to all that "just a piece of paper" separation of church and state. This administration sees to it that foreign aid money goes (more) to groups who profess to be Christian. No big problem there yet.
The problem is here: Money is consistently refused to foreign aid institutions who condone or practice sex education, especially birth control.
As a result of US faith-based policy, poor black people in Africa (and South America, and...) are practicing unprotected sex, having more offspring than they can feed and keeping deadly diseases in circulation.
Put in starkly simple terms, I think it could be demonstrated that together, with their stance on condoms, George Bush and the Pope are responsible for more deaths than Hitler.
Quibble about numbers or details; people are dying because of political decisions poorly informed by faith. If you were aware of this and don't have a problem with it, then you're not a caring human being.
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel
Up until a few days ago CSE's website had this disclaimer: "None of the materials produced by Creation Science Evangelism are copyrighted, so feel free to copy those and distribute them freely."
This would not surprise me. However... the Wayback Machine seems to have a decent collection of content from the CSE website at DrDino.com; my quick sampling indicates they started asserting at least some copyright in 2005, and didn't turn up any quote on those lines. Care to point to a particular page from the WBM?
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Actually, the link between 'heresy' and 'hearsay' is interesting to speculate on...
Heresy: Etymology: Middle English heresie, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin haeresis, from Late Greek hairesis, from Greek, action of taking, choice, sect, from hairein to take (source)
Hearsay: "hearsay is 1532 from phrase to hear say" (source); hear: Etymology: Middle English heren, from Old English hIeran; akin to Old High German hOren to hear, and probably to Latin cavEre to be on guard, Greek akouein to hear (source); say: Etymology: Middle English, from Old English secgan; akin to Old High German sagEn to say, Lithuanian sakyti, Greek ennepein to speak, tell (source).
Alas, no fun at all.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
If they're filing false take-down notices, then CSEministry committed perjury, which means they can be fined and/or imprisoned for up to five years.
IF you can find a prosecutor with jurisdiction and willingness to prosecute. In many jurisdictions, getting a Christian ministry prosecuted for perjury can be as hard as getting police prosecuted for gross civil rights violations.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Hi, while this may be "flame bait" and I have no doubt that some may see it as such, but we have to get some scientific perspective.
Anyone who believes in "Intelligent Design" or "Creationism" is a fool. It is absolutely no different than the tooth fairy, Santa Clause, Easter Bunny, Thor, Oden, Zeus, Apollo, Rama, etc. It is all foolish nonsense that falls under fantasy and superstition. Any one who disagrees has to have accepted an irrational concept with no supporting evidence.
Is "science" right? Always, are the generally accepted scientific theories always right? No, but there is a fundamental rational for why we accept them as true. When the facts no longer fit the rational, we change our minds. We do not continue to believe despite the facts.
Evolution is a fact. It has been proved beyond any reasonable doubt. Has the exact process by which our species evolved been discovered? Hell no! We continue to learn more an interesting things about evolution each year. Evolution is the single greatest leap of human understanding over superstition.
"science" is often wrong when we use conjecture as theory, and theory as fact. Alchemy is an example of this. SCIENCE is typically unassailable when facts are documented and experiments confirm the facts.
Why does God need the DMCA?
I have nothing to add to this thread except to note that Kent Hovind was my science teacher for about four months in middle school. He taught standard middle school science -- "Memorize the bones of the human skeleton" that kind of stuff. The course didn't get into any of his "special" areas. My original science teacher was called back to the National Zoo to tend to the giant octopus shortly after the second semester began, and Hovind was brought in as a long-term sub.
In person he can be very charismatic, as you might imagine. But he, like a lot of folks here in Pensacola, has some pretty interesting ideas about the legal system and the running of the government. As everyone knows, Christian Conspiracy Theory can go down the rabbit hole a long way (we have people who believe that CIty/County Charter Government is a tool of the United Nations). So, it wouldn't surprise me if he and his family's opinions about copyright law were also interesting.
That said, remember that a work is copyrighted at creation these days (for the last decade or so) and just because you casually claim that your work isn't copyrighted doesn't necessarily make it so without some legalese.
And her so called followers suck even more. I've never seen in my entire life an atheist or agnostic using lawyers to silence a believer; this makes me so happy to be an atheist.
My explanation for atheists is that they have never been exposed to anything but the most simplistic religious thought, and are too anxious to feel intellectually superior to religious people to seriously investigate anything that isn't condoned by the scientific hierarchy and their peers.
All you show with that statement is your own deep ignorance.
Everyone is born an atheist. Some of us aren't brainwashed by our parents into believing something so stupid and ridiculous. Others manage to throw off the brainwashing.
The fact is that there is nothing nonsimplistic about religious thought.
It has nothing to do with feelings of intellectual superiority. It's just that there is nothing at all rational about believing in fairy tales. If there was anything the least bit rational about beleiving old silly superstitions, then it wouldn't have been necessary to spread it by torture and murder and it wouldn't be necessary today to keep spreading it by brainwashing innocent children with a screed of hatred.
I guess they are getting desprate, since they there nonsense has been beaten to death more then once. Creatonist, like any other relgion group is unetical and dosent care about the truth. Since they do live on the lie and the cash that brings.
Now, can someone please remove the creatonist videos off youtube, they actually kill brain cells.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
I know you're out there.
I can feel you.
I know that you're afraid.
You're afraid of us.
You're afraid of change.
I don't know the future.
I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end -
I came here to tell you how it's going to begin.
I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people
what you don't want them to see.
I'm going to show them a world- without you.
A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries.
A world where anything is possible.
Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.
Scenario one: The Jury contains Christians. I walk in, they offer a bible. I decline. They fall back to non-biblical swearing. The Christians are thinking... what?
Neither you nor anyone else can say definitively all jurors are Christians. but I would bet there are people of other faiths as well as those of no faith who serve on juries. Though I never did serve on a jury I have been called up twice for jury duty> I am Christians, but not in the way most people take being Christian means. If such a person did exist, then I believe he was a great teacher, much like others such as the Buddha, Lao Tzu, and Zoroaster.
FalconShould there be a Law?
See my small cartoon:
http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/09/intelligent-dmc.html
Bye,
Oliver
Why is this even on Slashdot? It's argument-bait if I've ever seen it. I agree that anyone using the DMCA improperly to pull down arguments against them is underhanded but this has turned into a Creationism vs Evolution argument like so many before. There are very little posts here about the actual DMCA challenge. It's time for Mods to close this one down or get it back on topic.
John C Wright
There is a whole emerging literature documenting anomalous mental-physical interactions, up to and including religious/mystical experiences. Irreducible Mind is a textbook-quality tome which is expensive, but a good place to start.
The evidence of the honestly miraculous is out there, if you choose to look. A word of warning, though, if you do decide to investigate this stuff, it will get inside your head.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Mmmm hmmm, sure. It's "Confirmation Bias" now but what was it 100 years ago when no one knew what it meant?
The way you use the term it would apply to anything that you suddenly discovered the meaning of.
You have to give them points for being creative...
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
"Jesus Christ Almighty. The same thing yesterday, today and forever more."
IX CCXLIX XVII II CLVII CXVI CCXXVII XCI CCXVI LXV LXXXVI CXCVII XCIX LXXXVI CXXXVI CXCII
(Sorry sorry, SUBset, yes.)
Yes. Anyone who tells you that their religion predicts the future is, of course, being disingenuous. Religions, typically, provide (often quite impractical) advice on how you should behave, and (often quite cynical) advice on how people in general behave, and may tender some speculation as to what comes next - but if you read closely (rather than listening to the rantings of demagogues) you will find far more disclaimers about not knowing the mind of god than you will predictions. I suspect you are confusing the claims of the (sometimes unscrupulous) salesmen with the product itself.
Nope, that qualifies as semantic confusion. To "accept something on faith" means that you must, a priori, believe either it or them. If you don't, you don't. Sometimes it is not unreasonable to trust the guidance of your friends; if I tell you that I used to know this great guy, Revay, who I met in an office building, who was a real whiz with APL, and who you would probably like, you might even believe me, minute though our contact is. Evidently, if I told you about this great guy, Jesus, who I kind-of met in a bus once while I was in an extremely odd state of consciousness, you would not go for it. That's your call. That's what it actually means, in English, when someone says that something must be taken on faith. It means precisely that they cannot persuade you. "Belief" is when soemthing is in your head, and you hold it to be true. "Knowledge" is when something is in your head, you hold it to be true, and you know how to persuade a skeptic. It's that simple.
And it's interesting that you should say this. If you read theology, you will realise that no two theologians in fact believe quite the same thing. If you read church history, you will find that the articles of faith are hammered out in committee meetings, and are the result of ugly political compromises. If you speak to believers, you will discover that no two of them have the same religious experience, although there are interesting commonalities (your call, of course, if that's 'just' to do with biology, or if it's to do with biology 'as god chose to make it'). And it's especially interesting that you speak of "the big three" - remember that Jesus was a Jew, and a prophet of Islam. The "big three" of which you speak form one example of what you are talking about.
Ignore the political power plays and the petty manipulations. They don't give a true picture of anything. If you based your views of science on the shrillest, most ignorant, most money-hungry and most manipulative of its proponents it would seem pretty scary, too. Religions are methods of organising human experience, both communal and, more importantly, private. They provide a number of services to the non-specialist, including ethical calculi, cultural identities, and a reassurance that there is pattern to the world - in terms you might appreciate, that science is worth doing. It's all pre-theoretical stuff, and with the right tools, everyone knows you can do better now than we could one, or two, or four thousand years ago.
Only the salesmen say otherwise. Don't trust the salesmen. Even they know they're lying. By all means research the product, and buy it only if you want to!
When the rubber hits the road, religion ultimately has to retreat from explanations where science has achieved better/more supportable ones. It's painful, because our credulity for doctrine runs deep. But given time, it happens. It has long since happened for the weather (Zeus does not throw lightning bolts, electrostatic buildup in the clouds produces them) and for the structure of the universe (the Earth is not the center of things). For most of us, the age of the universe and the origin of species has left the religious purview as well, while a few holdouts entrench and struggle to cling to their sinking ship of explanation.
I don't see it this way, unfortunately. What I see is actually a very large and growing number (many millions) of people joining the Creationist camp, especially here in the USA, not a decrease as this implies. Now whether this is just a short-term (historically) anomaly that will reverse itself, I don't know, but within my lifetime the number of believers in this stuff has hugely increased, and the number is still growing as more and more Americans latch onto fundamentalist Christianity.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
The sun is a cruel trickster- it makes a handy scapegoat in global warming arguments, but with the other hand it undermines this illiterate hocus pocus about the Second Law of Thermodynamics forbidding evolution.
Do you not see the extreme irony in this statement? The same "I want to believe therefore I do" creationist logic has permeated the man-made global warming alarmists (and apparently you, since you only want to use the sun as evidence when it suits your agenda. Otherwise it's a "scapegoat"). Just challenge a MM global warming alarmist and see what you get; name calling, not science. Scientists should be skeptics, not believe first, then be closed to all other evidence. The global warming crowd has a lot in common with the creationists.
In short, I think they are both religion-based psuedo science. Unfortunately, the MM global warming crowd (who tend to be the first to mock ID'ers) don't see their own belief first, science second similarities to ID'ers.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
traditional reasoning? What like Religious Traditions? Lets do some basic homework, shall we?
Wikipedia: Rationality as a term is related to the idea of reason, a word which following Webster's may be derived as much from older terms referring to thinking itself as from giving an account or an explanation. This lends the term a dual aspect. One aspect associates it with comprehension, intelligence, or inference, particularly when an inference is drawn in ordered ways (thus a syllogism is a rational argument in this sense). The other part associates rationality with explanation, understanding or justification, particularly if it provides a ground or a motive. 'Irrational', therefore, is defined as that which is not endowed with reason or understanding.
Rationality contra logic A logical argument is sometimes described as "rational" if it is logically valid. However, rationality is a much broader term than logic, as it includes "uncertain but sensible" arguments based on probability, expectation, personal experience and the like, whereas logic deals principally with provable facts and demonstrably valid relations between them.
Dictionary.com:
rational -adjective
1. agreeable to reason; reasonable; sensible: a rational plan for economic development.
2. having or exercising reason, sound judgment, or good sense: a calm and rational negotiator.
3. being in or characterized by full possession of one's reason; sane; lucid: The patient appeared perfectly rational.
4. endowed with the faculty of reason: rational beings.
5. of, pertaining to, or constituting reasoning powers: the rational faculty.
6. proceeding or derived from reason or based on reasoning: a rational explanation.
--Synonyms 2. intelligent, wise, judicious, sagacious, enlightened. 6. See reasonable.
--Antonyms 2. stupid. 3. insane.
Sounds like an apt description of Professor Dawkins to me. Maybe you could point me to some evidence of his irrationality? I have this great clip of Pastor Ted from "The Root of All Evil?" giving a classic example of Irrational behavior if you need a reference. I have a ton of material from Professor Dawkins that is extremely rational, according to above descriptions.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
My original comment to this post was removed. The eugenicists win!
I dont think you really understand the concept of confirmation bias.
If i tell you i am a clairvoyant and then make 10 claims about what will happen tomorrow, and only 1 of them comes true, and does so only in a vague interpretive way, it is clearly blind luck. But if you then look only at the 1 i got right and ignore all the others and say "ahhh, but how could he have known.... mull on that for a while" then you are clearly falling foul of confirmation bias, because a rational response would have been to say: "he barely got anything right, and the one prediction he got right was a bit vague and only kind of fits the facts if your trying to make it do so, he clearly isn't clairvoyant."
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Wise, but perhaps not Erudite.
The WBM seems to be giving me trouble at the moment, however there is a CSE mirror site here that didn't get the memo I guess.
And that is sufficient info to find some Wayback Machine versions; indicating that any video created prior to the end of 2003 has had copyright renounced. (There may be later versions on another page, too.)
Thank you; you may now resume your gathering of torches and pitchforks....
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
I just read the section titled "The Dawkins Wing" and for the life of me, I can't figure out what you're talking about. Dutch appears to be attacking what he sees is the logic Dawkins uses, but I can't see how any of it supports your claim of petulance or otherwise inappropriate behavior.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Plus people forget that even in a closed system it is the TOTAL entropy that must increase. It is very possible given enough energy and the right conditions to form order in localized areas at the expense of greater disorder elsewhere. The second law does not state that order is impossible. lol.
Tell me someone didn't seriously try the 2nd law canard. Are there seriously that many people out there that haven't noticed the sun yet? I mean, sheesh, I noticed that puppy years ago.
I've read quite a bit of Richard Dawkins' work, thank you very much.
This statement however makes me wonder if you actually have read any of his work. Dawkins does empathically not treat religious ideas as ideas to be evaluated. He dismisses them outright and refuses to debate them based on his a priori dismissal of religion as not worthy of serious debate.
Dawkins does not debate. He attacks.
And if you don't see what is wrong with Dawkins behaviour in the piece quoted by prof. Dutch, I suggest that you go back and take a closer look, this time without your rose-coloured glasses.
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
For example?
I'm going to take every Dawkins quote that I can find out of the Dutch piece. Maybe you or somebody else here can point out what I'm missing:
Then
And finally
Seriously, what an ass, huh?
So I guess my question is, are you referring to something else Dawkins wrote, or are you really that sensitive?
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Plus people forget that even in a closed system it is the TOTAL entropy that must increase. It is very possible given enough energy and the right conditions to form order in localized areas at the expense of greater disorder elsewhere.
They mistake entropy for an intensive property like pressure or temperature when it's an extensive one like volume or energy. It's like using the Great Depression to prove Daddy Warbucks couldn't have been rich. I have to wonder how many of these idiots are sitting in air conditioned rooms when they paste their proof that air conditioning is physically forbidden by the laws of nature.
Yeah, the DMCA is teh Bad and all, but I'm having a hard time caring about one bunch of crazy Christian evangelicals using it to attack a bunch of crazy atheist evangelicals. This just isn't the poster child case that will sway public opinion against the law.
Oh sod off. One cannot read a single scientific journal in a related field or a general one for a couple of months, without coming across a single Dawkins article. Then there is his blog. And I have read some of his books. The man is not shy of self-promotion. Your question is nothing more than an attempt to turn this into an ad-hominem mud-slinging match. Sorry, but I am not playing. If Dawkins does behave as I say, a simple lookup online of a few articles of his would be enough to prove or disprove my point, so how much I have actually read is irrelevant to his behaviour.
And sensitive? You call calling a spade a spade (Richard Dawkins is a jerk) being sensitive? The facts are there, the man even attacks fellow evolutionary biologists as helping creationists when they merely support a different mechanism of evolution instead of the gradualist mechanism he espouses. What's with this passive-aggressive bollocks of yours?
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
That's what I was trying to get you to do. Hint: I've read a lot of Dawkins and I disagree with you so I was thinking that maybe we could delve into why we disagree. Apparently we disagree because I'm wrong and I'm an asshole like Dawkins. I'm glad we could clarify that.
Passive aggressive? I'm not even entirely sure that we're speaking the same language here. I'm getting the impression that you think that a lot of people are attacking you when they're really just disagreeing with you. Another hint: If everybody is a jerk except you, you might want to reconsider how you're assessing people.
You made a rather rude assertion and I asked you to back it up. You backed it up essentially by repeating your assertion. Forgive me if that leads me to believing that you're simply parroting the views of people who dislike Richard Dawkins or that you're just hyper sensitive and see anything contrary to your views as an attack.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"