The movie raises some good points and he interviews people that were fired after even mentioning ID. This is propaganda and lies? Hmmm.
Besides that, the primary point of the movie is that ID is not open for debate in the scientific community. If you doubt this and are in a position to test it, write an article or paper about ID and see what happens. Let us know how it goes. The fact is, evolutionary theory has problems, big problems, and any debate would expose such problems. Otherwise, why not debate the ID folks and send them to an early grave? The fact that evolutionary science has problems has nothing to do with ID -- those problems exists within the theory itself, therefore it cannot be debated because it cannot be fully defended.
My question: if evolution and global warming are the "consensus", why are there so many scientists devoted to these causes? Sure there should be a handful working on these topics, but there are many of them at every university around the world. Why so many for "settled science"? Fact is, there are more questions than answers on ID and global warming. How exactly is this settled science? Seems there is room for debate and alternative theories, rather than this fit-the-data-to-the-theory approach to science.
Never mind the fact that evolutionary science starts after the first cell. No one has a better answer than "God" for how that first cell came about. In the movie, Dawkins even concedes that ID is possible, by arguing that the first cells could have been "seeded" here by aliens. This is Intelligent Design, folks.
There is another "scientist" in the movie (I forget his name) that claims the first cells came about by mutations on the "backs of crystals"! This is science? This is somehow more scientific than allowing for intelligent design. Want to convert me to evolution and atheism? Grow me some cells (from nothing) on the backs of crystals!
And some Christians coordinate their attacks in church and in Bible study.
Unsubstantiated claim, no news stories, no evidence, just bigoted nonsense.
Simple - because you're a Christian, and you hate and fear Muslims. Obviously.
Gross generalization and bigoted nonsense, consequently you are doing exactly what you accuse me of doing -- painting all people of a faith with the same brush.
The ELF, incidentally, are pantheists.
Gross generalization and bigoted nonsense.
right here in this very post, where you attempted to excuse Christian terrorists because they're not as bad as ELF. It's abundantly obvious that you've found yourself completely rebutted by the facts, so now you're trying to play the "relative violence" game, where there's a level of violence that is acceptable and can't be criticized, and that level, coincidentally, is the level of violence Christians are responsible for.
Incidentally, your original post did just what you are accusing me of doing. In case you've forgotten, you posted an article about an abortion clinic bombing, supposedly carried out by an evangelical. You posted this article to a discussion about Muslim violence.
Oh, so now "reputable" is the basis on which you'll move the goalposts? Who, precisely, determines which leaders are "reputable" and which are not? And how is "reputability" determined for Muslims?
Let's define reputable as those that lead Muslim nations or large groups of Muslim believers. So, how about the leaders of Iran? The "leaders" of Palestine. The Taliban. Hell, even Osama bin Laden is revered by many Muslims. I personally saw a panel of four U.S. Muslim leaders on CNN a few days after the 9/11 attacks and they all justified the attacks, blaming U.S. foreign policy. I'm assuming if they are the leaders of a Muslim nation (that U.S. Democrats visit, by the way) or if they are on CNN that they would be reputable by most measures.
I can and do assert, quite reasonably, that a state that venerates the icons of leaders as though they were the real thing, to the extent that the military parades in front of a painting rather than in front of the leader
This is a moronic argument and is commonly employed by atheists to the point that the term "atheist/atheism" loses almost all meaning. By this argument, if you venerate anything (including your grandmother, sports heroes, movie stars, the Internet), you are no longer an atheist. If atheists truly venerate nothing and believe in nothing, how sad a life they must have. If you insist on defining "atheism" so narrowly, let's drop the use of the term and just acknowledge the people in question have "atheist tendencies".
Besides, your stupid example involves communist leaders who are human, even in death, and the people doing the venerating know they are human. There is no God element here, which is central to the other God based religions being discussed here. Never mind the fact that the leaders of the communist movement are not the ones marching in front of a painting -- they are leading, they are atheists, and they are the true murders in communist countries, since they order the murder of individuals based on nothing other than their religious beliefs.
Except, of course, for his attendance at a seminary. How many atheists do you know in seminary?
I know one -- Joseph Stalin. Never mind the fact that he wasn't in the seminary while leading a communist nation. Consider that there would be far fewer atheists if folks aren't allowed to change their beliefs (or disbeliefs, whichever it may be). He was at the seminary in his youth, probably forced to go. Here is a snippet from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin (probably entered by me):
Based on your logic? "Individuals acting as individuals."
Sure, whatever you say, as they go to their Mosque for inspiration and bomb making materials.
Sorry, but I absolutely won't provide links to any murder-list website.
Ooooo, clever. Your sense of decency is impeccable, or maybe it's because there is only one such site (the one your link referenced). Please, provide a link to the other sites -- we are all grownups here (and can even use words like "fuck" in our postings). BTW, there are anti-abortion Muslims, Jews, atheist, Buddhists, etc. Consider as well that the Earth Liberation Front is probably responsible for more terrorism than anti-abortion Christians. Since you are free to equate anti-abortion terrorism with Christianity, then I am free to equate ELF terrorism with atheism.
Naturally, since you're reflexive ideologue and bigot who continues to insist that your own religion is fundamentally different than all the others
Gee, I know. I've been meaning to work on that whole reflexive ideologue thing, but it's just so easy. Odd how you seem to be in the same boat, though, eh?
how absurd it is to claim that to be a Christian is to immunize oneself against the use of violence to one's ends, or that the rest of us have absolutely nothing to fear from organized, fundamentalist Christianity
Who is immunizing themselves, here? I really think we are having two different conversations. When exactly did I say violence is OK if you are Christian? For the record, it isn't. My initial point was that no Christian leader supports the type of violence in the article you cited. Please provide a single quote from a reputable Christian leader or a poll of Christians that says otherwise, and I will shut up. This should not require any murder-list web sites operated by Christians. But, then, those are so hard to avoid these days aren't they?
Communism is not, and has never been, a form of atheism... Atheism is blameless for the murders you refer to.
We can play word games all day, but you cannot avoid the simple fact that Communist Soviet Union practiced and Communist China currently practices State Atheism. Whether Stalin was an atheist (there is no evidence to the contrary) is immaterial -- he murdered millions of people in the enforcement of atheism. To simplify it for you, he killed people because they had religion. Whether communists were "pure" atheists is also inconsequential -- they killed to enforce atheism and were most likely atheists themselves. Maybe they just hated religion, who gives a fuck? It was murder in the name of atheism. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism, especially note the term "militant":
The Soviet Union had a long history of state atheism,[1] in which social success largely required individuals to proclaim atheism and stay away from churches; this attitude was especially militant under Stalin.[2][3][4] The Soviet Union imposed atheism over wide areas of its influence, including places like central Asia.
as a rule, Muslims do not commit bombings of any kind
Ummmm, right. Who is it that has popularized "suicide bombings"?
where a Christian extremist - with help from his community, make no mistake, they coordinate these murders on websites, share bomb-making knowledge
Please provide links to these websites and evidence or proof of this "community support". Recall, the article you cited doesn't even mention a religion, much less the culprit or the websites and community support he received. In fact, I contend it was a Muslim or atheist that committed the abortion clinic bombing -- please prove otherwise. For evidence of Muslim community support, here is a nice article about those peace loving Muslims (article title: "Poll finds some U.S. Muslim support for suicide attacks"):
I guess the positive side is that only "some" support it.
You're a racist. It's just that simple.
You do realize that "Muslim" is not a race, right? Even if I did hate all Muslims, which I don't, how exactly does that make me a racist? I would have to be racist against my own race. In reality, I couldn't care less about the so-called moderate Muslims (to me, "moderate" means they at least do not support suicide bombings). You, on the contrary, appear to harbor some serious hate and resentment toward Christians, which is seriously counter to your signature "I never have frustrations". I think you do have frustrations.
Also note that religion doesn't have the monopoly on violence -- atheism, in the form of communism, has killed more people than all religions combined over all time. You can find your own favorite article on that subject, but below is one that adds up atheist/communist murders to over 100 million. With China, Cuba, and Venezuela around, that number will continue to increase.
The cited article never mentions a religion. Maybe the bomber was discovered to be an evangelical at a later time, but not in this article. Either way, even as the article mentions, an anti-abortion protester at the scene called the attack "heinous" and the governor of Alabama (almost certainly a Christian of some denomination) condemned the attack. This was an individual acting as an individual.
Did any respected Christian religious leader justify this attack? If so, cite the article, otherwise, your argument doesn't apply to this discussion. Muslim suicide bombers do not act as individuals, in fact, they are encouraged and supported by their family, by their Muslim religious leaders, and indeed by entire countries. Recall Saddam Hussein's payments to the families of suicide bombers?
Besides, let's focus on the fact that Christian bombings are the exception, not the rule. When was the last clinic bombing by a Christian? I don't really know, but it probably has been years or decades (the article you cite is over 10 years old). When was the last Muslim suicide bombing/attack -- last week or two? The very fact that these attacks happen so infrequently is proof that this type of behavior is not condoned by the Christian community. Contrast that to the frequency of Muslim attacks of this nature.
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The movie raises some good points and he interviews people that were fired after even mentioning ID. This is propaganda and lies? Hmmm.
Besides that, the primary point of the movie is that ID is not open for debate in the scientific community. If you doubt this and are in a position to test it, write an article or paper about ID and see what happens. Let us know how it goes. The fact is, evolutionary theory has problems, big problems, and any debate would expose such problems. Otherwise, why not debate the ID folks and send them to an early grave? The fact that evolutionary science has problems has nothing to do with ID -- those problems exists within the theory itself, therefore it cannot be debated because it cannot be fully defended.
My question: if evolution and global warming are the "consensus", why are there so many scientists devoted to these causes? Sure there should be a handful working on these topics, but there are many of them at every university around the world. Why so many for "settled science"? Fact is, there are more questions than answers on ID and global warming. How exactly is this settled science? Seems there is room for debate and alternative theories, rather than this fit-the-data-to-the-theory approach to science.
Never mind the fact that evolutionary science starts after the first cell. No one has a better answer than "God" for how that first cell came about. In the movie, Dawkins even concedes that ID is possible, by arguing that the first cells could have been "seeded" here by aliens. This is Intelligent Design, folks.
There is another "scientist" in the movie (I forget his name) that claims the first cells came about by mutations on the "backs of crystals"! This is science? This is somehow more scientific than allowing for intelligent design. Want to convert me to evolution and atheism? Grow me some cells (from nothing) on the backs of crystals!
And some Christians coordinate their attacks in church and in Bible study.
Unsubstantiated claim, no news stories, no evidence, just bigoted nonsense.
Simple - because you're a Christian, and you hate and fear Muslims. Obviously.
Gross generalization and bigoted nonsense, consequently you are doing exactly what you accuse me of doing -- painting all people of a faith with the same brush.
The ELF, incidentally, are pantheists.
Gross generalization and bigoted nonsense.
right here in this very post, where you attempted to excuse Christian terrorists because they're not as bad as ELF. It's abundantly obvious that you've found yourself completely rebutted by the facts, so now you're trying to play the "relative violence" game, where there's a level of violence that is acceptable and can't be criticized, and that level, coincidentally, is the level of violence Christians are responsible for.
Incidentally, your original post did just what you are accusing me of doing. In case you've forgotten, you posted an article about an abortion clinic bombing, supposedly carried out by an evangelical. You posted this article to a discussion about Muslim violence.
Oh, so now "reputable" is the basis on which you'll move the goalposts? Who, precisely, determines which leaders are "reputable" and which are not? And how is "reputability" determined for Muslims?
Let's define reputable as those that lead Muslim nations or large groups of Muslim believers. So, how about the leaders of Iran? The "leaders" of Palestine. The Taliban. Hell, even Osama bin Laden is revered by many Muslims. I personally saw a panel of four U.S. Muslim leaders on CNN a few days after the 9/11 attacks and they all justified the attacks, blaming U.S. foreign policy. I'm assuming if they are the leaders of a Muslim nation (that U.S. Democrats visit, by the way) or if they are on CNN that they would be reputable by most measures.
I can and do assert, quite reasonably, that a state that venerates the icons of leaders as though they were the real thing, to the extent that the military parades in front of a painting rather than in front of the leader
This is a moronic argument and is commonly employed by atheists to the point that the term "atheist/atheism" loses almost all meaning. By this argument, if you venerate anything (including your grandmother, sports heroes, movie stars, the Internet), you are no longer an atheist. If atheists truly venerate nothing and believe in nothing, how sad a life they must have. If you insist on defining "atheism" so narrowly, let's drop the use of the term and just acknowledge the people in question have "atheist tendencies".
Besides, your stupid example involves communist leaders who are human, even in death, and the people doing the venerating know they are human. There is no God element here, which is central to the other God based religions being discussed here. Never mind the fact that the leaders of the communist movement are not the ones marching in front of a painting -- they are leading, they are atheists, and they are the true murders in communist countries, since they order the murder of individuals based on nothing other than their religious beliefs.
Except, of course, for his attendance at a seminary. How many atheists do you know in seminary?
I know one -- Joseph Stalin. Never mind the fact that he wasn't in the seminary while leading a communist nation. Consider that there would be far fewer atheists if folks aren't allowed to change their beliefs (or disbeliefs, whichever it may be). He was at the seminary in his youth, probably forced to go. Here is a snippet from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin (probably entered by me):
During his
Sure, whatever you say, as they go to their Mosque for inspiration and bomb making materials.
Sorry, but I absolutely won't provide links to any murder-list website.Ooooo, clever. Your sense of decency is impeccable, or maybe it's because there is only one such site (the one your link referenced). Please, provide a link to the other sites -- we are all grownups here (and can even use words like "fuck" in our postings). BTW, there are anti-abortion Muslims, Jews, atheist, Buddhists, etc. Consider as well that the Earth Liberation Front is probably responsible for more terrorism than anti-abortion Christians. Since you are free to equate anti-abortion terrorism with Christianity, then I am free to equate ELF terrorism with atheism.
Naturally, since you're reflexive ideologue and bigot who continues to insist that your own religion is fundamentally different than all the othersGee, I know. I've been meaning to work on that whole reflexive ideologue thing, but it's just so easy. Odd how you seem to be in the same boat, though, eh?
how absurd it is to claim that to be a Christian is to immunize oneself against the use of violence to one's ends, or that the rest of us have absolutely nothing to fear from organized, fundamentalist ChristianityWho is immunizing themselves, here? I really think we are having two different conversations. When exactly did I say violence is OK if you are Christian? For the record, it isn't. My initial point was that no Christian leader supports the type of violence in the article you cited. Please provide a single quote from a reputable Christian leader or a poll of Christians that says otherwise, and I will shut up. This should not require any murder-list web sites operated by Christians. But, then, those are so hard to avoid these days aren't they?
Communism is not, and has never been, a form of atheism... Atheism is blameless for the murders you refer to.We can play word games all day, but you cannot avoid the simple fact that Communist Soviet Union practiced and Communist China currently practices State Atheism. Whether Stalin was an atheist (there is no evidence to the contrary) is immaterial -- he murdered millions of people in the enforcement of atheism. To simplify it for you, he killed people because they had religion. Whether communists were "pure" atheists is also inconsequential -- they killed to enforce atheism and were most likely atheists themselves. Maybe they just hated religion, who gives a fuck? It was murder in the name of atheism. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism, especially note the term "militant":
Here is a nice line from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism, especially note the use of the term "violent":
Ummmm, right. Who is it that has popularized "suicide bombings"?
where a Christian extremist - with help from his community, make no mistake, they coordinate these murders on websites, share bomb-making knowledgePlease provide links to these websites and evidence or proof of this "community support". Recall, the article you cited doesn't even mention a religion, much less the culprit or the websites and community support he received. In fact, I contend it was a Muslim or atheist that committed the abortion clinic bombing -- please prove otherwise. For evidence of Muslim community support, here is a nice article about those peace loving Muslims (article title: "Poll finds some U.S. Muslim support for suicide attacks"):
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2244293620070522/
I guess the positive side is that only "some" support it.
You're a racist. It's just that simple.You do realize that "Muslim" is not a race, right? Even if I did hate all Muslims, which I don't, how exactly does that make me a racist? I would have to be racist against my own race. In reality, I couldn't care less about the so-called moderate Muslims (to me, "moderate" means they at least do not support suicide bombings). You, on the contrary, appear to harbor some serious hate and resentment toward Christians, which is seriously counter to your signature "I never have frustrations". I think you do have frustrations.
Also note that religion doesn't have the monopoly on violence -- atheism, in the form of communism, has killed more people than all religions combined over all time. You can find your own favorite article on that subject, but below is one that adds up atheist/communist murders to over 100 million. With China, Cuba, and Venezuela around, that number will continue to increase.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM/
The cited article never mentions a religion. Maybe the bomber was discovered to be an evangelical at a later time, but not in this article. Either way, even as the article mentions, an anti-abortion protester at the scene called the attack "heinous" and the governor of Alabama (almost certainly a Christian of some denomination) condemned the attack. This was an individual acting as an individual. Did any respected Christian religious leader justify this attack? If so, cite the article, otherwise, your argument doesn't apply to this discussion. Muslim suicide bombers do not act as individuals, in fact, they are encouraged and supported by their family, by their Muslim religious leaders, and indeed by entire countries. Recall Saddam Hussein's payments to the families of suicide bombers? Besides, let's focus on the fact that Christian bombings are the exception, not the rule. When was the last clinic bombing by a Christian? I don't really know, but it probably has been years or decades (the article you cite is over 10 years old). When was the last Muslim suicide bombing/attack -- last week or two? The very fact that these attacks happen so infrequently is proof that this type of behavior is not condoned by the Christian community. Contrast that to the frequency of Muslim attacks of this nature.