College Credits For Trolling the Web?

Jafafa Hots writes "Some undergraduate and masters level courses at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary require trolling as part of their requirements. In William Dembski's classes on Intelligent Design and Christian Apologetics, 20% of the final grades come from having made 10 posts defending Intelligent Design Creationism on 'hostile' websites. There seems to be no requirement that the posts contain original writing; apparently cut-and-paste jobs are sufficient. Is this the first case of trolling the net being part of course requirements?"

Comments

Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing

[supersloshy]

People like you need to understand that there is no point refuting Evolution. Evolution is the glue that holds Biology together, and without it we wouldn't have: Paleontology, Micro-biology, Medicine, Genetics, among other fields.

Here's a simple thought experiment: If Evolution is false, what created swine flu? The only other possible explanation is that God is a dick, and I don't believe that.

I believe you're confusing Evolution with Natural Selection. Natural Selection makes absolute perfect sense, and a man would be a fool to not believe it (its like denying gravity's existence). On the other hand, the assumption that everything descended from a common ancestor, which the Theory of Evolution says, is still open to debate. Sure, there's "evidence" to support these claims, but has it been 100% proven? No! So I suggest shutting your mouth and getting your vocabulary straight before you criticize creationists. Thank you.

Re:It's unclear why this is a bad thing

[sumdumass]

Citation needed - which US schools, that children were required to attend, were teaching that God doesn't exist or that religion is false?

I don't need to cite anything. If you had been paying attention instead of only caring about people believing that evolution as stated today is fact and will never change, you would have seen where this is happening and the reasons why religions are attempting to muck around the science classes.

This is being done by poorly trained science teachers who like you, need some help.

The only case this might indirectly apply is when it comes to the falsifiable disproven beliefs (e.g., the story of Genesis). When it comes to the ones that can't be disproven, I know of no school that has claimed they are false.

First of all, science never has disproved Genesis. It can't do that at all. Second, what science did was provide a concept that allows other aspects of theories fit into place. These theories are supported by evidence but are not fact and can change when a better explanation comes along, even if it is a magical man in the clouds waving his hands and the evidence shows it.

Evolution is a fact, and the fact of evolution is explained by the theory of evolution.

repeat after me. Evolution is not fact, evolution is not fact, evolution is just the best explaination we have come up with that seems to fit the evidence we have found. Evolution can also be split into two categories, macro and micro, with the difference being a real speciation. We have never observed speciation unless we butcher the definition of species and add artificial restrictions. Unfortunately, they restrictions do not hold true when generically applied. This is true despite your biased website pushing evolution over anything else or your clear misunderstanding of science.

But hang on - if you really believed that science isn't incompatible with religion, why did you try to discredit scientific facts (that have overwhelming amounts of evidence supporting them, btw)? If your religion is incompatible with scientific facts such as evolution or the big bang, then it's no longer true to say that science can't disprove it!

Science isn't incompatible with religion, it is just one avenue of understanding that may or may not agree with religion. But science doesn't do religion except for people who seem to have made science their religion and believe everything to be more then what it is (hmm.. Like you). And no, I did not ever attempt to discredit scientific facts. I put them in their proper understanding and perspective which you are failing at.

Fairly good post btw, but could do better. Maybe we'll see improvement in your other 9 posts.

I guess reading comprehension really isn't your strong suit is it? The article said the posts had to be on Hostile websites. While there are idiots and hostile people on slashdot (me probably being one of them), it is not hostile to religion and wouldn't qualify. But this is a good thing, now you know where your flaws are and can work on them to become a better person.