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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?"
Defending? What?
ID can not be defended, it's not a theory, it's just a religion. Moreover, it contradicts reality. Thus all defenders of ID are invariably stupid morons. I've not yet seen a good argument in favor of ID.
PS: I do not include guided evolution (which is nicely unfalsifiable, but at least somewhat saner) in "ID".
Do not mistake the unaccredited bible school "Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary" for a "College" please.
As long as the students fully disclose that they are doing this for a class requirement, this could be a good thing
As long as creationist trolls are honest? Man, that's a looooooooong "as long"!
You can't take the sky from me...
Unfortunately a lot of science is dogmatic as well. If I were to claim that I invented a machine that produced more energy than I put in, would I get a fair hearing?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Can someone explain what is dogmatic about hypothesizing & testing theories, that there was an intelligent force that initiated the universe, rather than a set of random events?
While we are at it can someone go into the dogma of darwinism?
Peter Corcoran
First, thank you for an intelligent response. I haven't seen any responses that are not emotionally charged either way. It's good to see someone can have a conversation about the issue without ending up calling each other Nazis.
I do like your point, it's challenging and interesting. The only issue I see is that a lot of science is still in a theory state, (which young earth theories, intelligent design, and creationist theories are also). Science does not promote something to a law until we know without a shadow of a doubt that it is true.
This is why darwinism/evolution has remained (and probably always will until a time machine is built), a theory.
It is dogmatic of the scientific community to categoricatlly reject anything else. At least let's view intelligent design (or what ever we call it) objectively and find some tests that we can run.
Peter Corcoran
Frankly, this sentiment disgusts me.
Your disgust amuses me. Please, tell us more.
Actually, the problem is more fundamental then that. The entire intelligent BS design was started because some people were attempting to us Science to disprove religion which it cannot do (for reasons you already stated).
Also the problem is that it is being done so in schools that people are mandated by law to attend. If there wasn't people out there saying there is no God or magic man in the clouds waving their hand, then it wouldn't even be an issue. But in a free society that has freedom of religion, when the government, though some ill intentioned science teacher at a place that people are compelled by law to attend send little Johny home with the Idea that God and religion is a lie, there is going to be problems. Evolution and the big bang is not fact, it can be wrong, there are several different theories within the subjects (like the bubble theory of evolution), and it says nothing about the existence of a god or not or anything about what that god has supposedly done or not.
Have you forgotten about the prediction of microbes, bacteria and viruses? Yes, the early laws in the old testament said quite a bit about washing, being clean, and spreading of diseases 1500 years before man had the concept of germs.
Nope, sorry, it was interesting at first, and almost a successful troll, but it was too many insults.
Tone it back a bit, and also put in some biblical and historical cites.
Also, it's a bit silly to tell me what I'm 'sprouting' when I have not, in fact, sprouted anything at all. In fact, what you needed to do here was lure me into stating my beliefs clearly, as it is entirely possible the part of Christianity I believe is just the existence of Paul or something. You can't really mock my beliefs until you know them a bit more.
Also, don't state that I'm 'desperate' somehow, when my post doesn't really sound desperate. Considering that I'm responding to a post that is itself complaining about a strawman, and I'm agreeing with that post. To be 'desperate', I'd, at least, have to be disagreeing with someone, not agreeing with someone that 'my side' has, itself, put up a strawman. It's rather hard to be desperate about that. (WE'RE FIGHTING A STRAWMAN! AAARGGH! RUN FOR THE HILLS!) You can exaggerate what I say in trolls, but ascribing things to me that others won't see at all is a dangerous game, and can reveal you're trolling.
And it repeated a lot, especially in that huge paragraph near the end. Be sure to work on editing, and use a thesaurus....there's a lot of 'idiotic' and 'imaginary friends' and 'fairy tale'. How about 'stupid' and 'voice in your head' and 'myth', offhand? Use multiple ways of saying the same thing.
And think about where each paragraph is going, start off reasonable-ish with a premise most people will agree with, and then say something partially wrong, insult someone, and come to a bogus conclusion. And then, next paragraph, do the same thing on another topic. I know people don't like to follow a format, but it's tried and tested for trolling.
For topics, I recommend, as an example for my post if you want to try again. In a reasonable order:
Stupidity of Christians in general (Throw in politics here. Presume all Christians are right-wing loons.)
History of Christianity and how that makes Christians bad people (Here's where the historic cites come in.)
Stupidity of me in accepting part of the bible.(You did this paragraph basically correct, with the 'I mean, you know most of the bible stories are bullshit.' paragraph. Use that as an example.)
Wondering how I know which part to accept (Don't go too far here, that one's easy to overextend on. Trust me on this even if you don't know what I mean.)
Delusions of all religious people, with implied insanity (Scientific cites are useful.)
And finish up with the big topper: Evil of God in allowing evil to exist, and how you wouldn't want to worship him if he did exist
I'll give you a B- on what you have. Solid effort, needs getter style. Seriously, you're doing pretty good. Try again and see if you can incorporate my ideas.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Not really. Science can suggest alternatives but it cannot prove it. The age of the world is only longer then 6000 years because we want to understand it that way, not because any proof that exists. Now there is evidence that fits into place with out current understanding but then again, there is evidence that can suggest a much shorter time too.
Proof as in this is a fact. Sure there is all kinds of evidence support the idea but the evidence is not proof- it is just evidence to support an idea.
Such as what? You mean the ancient cultures like the Aztecs who have dinosaurs on their garments and pottery and jewelry despite being thousands of years older then our current understanding of dinosaurs or what they look like. I suppose that is just coincidence. Anyways, we have seen with flash flooding and dam bursting that much of the geological formations like the Grand Cannon, the dead sea, and the badlands can be caused over extremely short periods of time in like days and weeks. That's just one, Fossil collections at some sites are another, sedimentary rings and rock formation in various parts of the world are others.
You should really look into it. It's not exactly going to say the earth is 6000 years old, but it will force you to keep an open mind on the millions being claimed.
There are no fossils that are proven to be older then 6000 years without making assumptions about them which could be incorrect. Even radio carbon dating which is only accurate to about 26,000 before present relies on assumptions about perfect environment and no contamination. It's possible to say it's likely this is older then a certain age, but it's not a fact that it is. And no, just because we treat our assumed age and a fact in factoring other things, it does not make it a fact.
What you are forgetting is that evidence forms our opinions but does not prove anything. In fact, Science doesn't really prove anything besides the possibilities of something.
Now I never asserted the world was only 6012 years old, I just asserted that you prove it wasn't, only that we think it's older.
Nonono. If you want me to rate you again, you're going to have to go back to my original comment and start over, not post a response to my grading.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?