More people have DIED over religious wars than any political war..
However, if you take the time to include the tens of millions butchered by prominent atheist Josef Stalin, and the tens of millions butchered by prominent atheist Mao, it turns out that atheists are responsible for so much more wholesale slaughter in the world's history that it's not even worth comparing to anything or anyone else.
I was afraid no one else was going to take exception to Katz's prattling about this fact. As Tolkien said himself:
"I should like to say something here with reference to the many opinions or guesses that I have received or have read concerning the motives and meaning of the tale. The prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them....As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical." [emphasis added]
In short: Tolkien had no intentions whatsoever to make any fine points about war or about class. The story may be applicable to such things, but that is a very different thing from saying that it is "about" them.
This is nonsensical. The fact that no one else makes an OS for the Mac in no way makes Apple a monopolist, unless of course you think that Ford is a monopolist because no one else makes engines for Fords.
In a commodity market, differentiation is a major way to lure customers. "Computers" is the commodity here, and the Mac is just one part of the market for computers. Apple protects those things by which they attempt to differentiate their products. Love it or hate it, that does not constitute monopolist action.
Only a punch-drunk leftist with the ethical standards of Mao is incapable of discerning the evil of communism. Your tired (and feeble) attempts to make the US into as big and bad a thug as the PRC are a waste of our time and your energy. Save it for your meetings of Sandinistas Anonymous, okay?
Exactly! I agree wholeheartedly. Massive amounts of dialogue are omitted from the movie; it seems to be moving at breakneck speed the entire time.
Now, I'm not saying this to suggest that I dislike the movie, and I certainly sympathize with the problem the movie makers had: to keep all the dialogue would probably have doubled the movie's length. So I can't fault them for it, and I think that they did as fine a job as could be expected.
I loved it. It's a fabulous movie. I think I would have liked it better if I wasn't so familiar with the books, though, which I too have read at least a dozen times, simply because I would not have had expectations about all that missing dialogue.
I don't see you yet admitting that you were repeating lies and misquotes of what Gould had to say.
There are two reasons for this. First: I didn't repeat any lies. I quoted the man. Secondly, with respect to the "misquote" issue: I said that of course the man is not surrendering any turf, and that of course the man has what he thinks is a good explanation as to why there aren't more "transitional" fossils. I then went on (twice, IIRC) to demonstrate that even if he thinks he *does* have "transitional" fossils, he still hasn't actually proven it -- and thus all he has are inferences, which is exactly what he said in the quotation that I cited.
The long and short of it is that I don't think I've abused the man at all, inasmuch as a) I quoted him correctly, and b) I have interacted with what he says he was arguing in the context.
BTW, as far as I'm concerned Gould has no place for whining anyway, when people accept his admissions of fact but reject his mass of inferences offered to rationalize the facts.
Crying out that you need absolute proof is a quick way to demonstrate that you want to shut off your brain and eyes.
(Aside: yet this is always what evolutionists demand of theists. Physician, heal thyself)
I did not ask for "absolute proof". I asked for an actual demonstration of biological descent. That is hardly the same as "absolute proof", in the absurdist way that you are using the phrase. Gould wants us to believe that critter X is biologically descended from critter Y in the fossil record, and yet he cannot prove it. To be quite honest, I don't think it would be possible to prove it: no contemporaneous observers. But he wants us to believe it anyway, and to believe it with a certitude that brooks no dissent. I don't grant that on the basis of inferences that are as groundless as his are.
And babbling about his alleged admissions about "provisional knowledge" is silly. He is a naturalist. He has not "provisionally" rejected theism; he has rejected it out of hand and refuses to even provisionally consider it.
So you have a Book which contradicts itself.
Incorrect. The Bible does not contradict itself, and it certainly doesn't do so with respect to the field of blood - nor how it got its name, nor how Judas died. In the first place, it is a common thing in the Bible for a thing to have multiple names (e.g., Jacob == Israel), and for them to be given even the same name multiple times: see, for instance, how many times "Havoth Jair" gets the exact same name. So different people call a thing the same name for different reasons in the Bible? That's hardly novel! And it certainly isn't contradictory. In the second - with respect to the purchase of the field: the chief priests bought the field in Judas's name - since it was his money, which they declined to receive back from him. So it is not contradictory for Acts to say that Judas bought it, when it was purchased with his money.
Lastly, with respect to how Judas died: again, no contradiction. Acts does not say "Judas did not hang himself." It doesn't even say that "Judas died by xxx" (where 'xxx' != 'hanging himself'). It says that he 'fell' and that his guts spilled out. Falling does not preclude prior hanging, and one may certainly fall upon being cut down from the rope used to hang him.
Conclusion: no contradictions.
And based on that you say that scientists should disregard the evidence of their eyes that they just dug through 20 times more history than you think exists?
No. I am saying that they need to reinterpret the evidence, because their interpretation of the evidence is incorrect, and they would admit this if they were not adamantly in rebellion against God. Evidence is interpreted -- always.
Evolution has been checked over and over again.
Evolution has been checked over and over again by people who are utterly committed to the denial of God's existence. They are committed to any and every conceivable "explanation" they can fabricate that will do away with the possibility of his existence, because they do not like the obvious conclusion that if God created them, then they owe him something (namely, love and obedience). To tell me that evolution has been "checked" by such obviously dishonest people doesn't really do much to sway my opinion.
One of the biggest lies that has been perpetrated by scientists is that scientists are "disinterested observers". That, friend, is B as in "B", S as in "S". Everybody's interested in something, and most scientists are in the vanguard of the anti-theism brigade.
It's not even worth interacting with your "response" because it's obvious that you didn't even read what I said.
I said:
Rubbish. No "transitions" have been caught anywhere. For this to be actually verified, you would have to have a fossil from every generation between parent and "evolved", "transitional" child. You would furthermore have to be able to demonstrate that what you have are actually direct biological descendants, or else Gould's "proof" is nothing but post hoc nonsense.
So what Gould has -- as he actually said -- is inference, and nothing more.
Do you get it, friend? I am denying that Gould's defense of his admission has any weight whatsoever. He hasn't got any "transitional forms" of anything. He is claiming that he does, but he would have to prove that critter X is a direct lineal descendant of critter Y, or else he is resorting to inference.
And this he cannot do. It's tantamount to lining up a bunch of different breeds of dogs and saying that the Norwegian Elkhound "evolved" from the Chihuahua (in fact, it's worse, since he can at least show that Elkhounds and Chihuahuas are the same species). It's like showing me a gecko and a gila monster and saying that one "evolved" from the other. Okay, fine: prove it. And he can't. He can only make inferences. Inferences ain't proof, pal. This is blatantly fallacious post hoc nonsense. This is fideism of a transcendent order.
The only ones being intellectually dishonest are Gould & Co., when they assert as "proofs" of evolution stuff that doesn't even pass the smell test, never mind actual scientific examination. Evolution is fideist at its core.
Sputtering nonsense without reading what I say makes you and evolutionists look dumb. Please try harder.
I misquoted nothing. Did he say it or not? No one is going to pretend -- certainly I am not -- that Gould is not utterly devoted to his evolutionist fideism. So it would be ludicrous to even think that Gould would not attempt to explain away the facts he admits in the quotation. Of course he makes the attempt. Duh.
actually caught - in the fossil record - the critical transitions.
Rubbish. No "transitions" have been caught anywhere. For this to be actually verified, you would have to have a fossil from every generation between parent and "evolved", "transitional" child. You would furthermore have to be able to demonstrate that what you have are actually direct biological descendants, or else Gould's "proof" is nothing but post hoc nonsense.
So what Gould has -- as he actually said -- is inference, and nothing more.
It was a joke, friend. Hence the ';-)' at the end.
If you insist upon being serious, your real issue is willful rebellion against God, as manifested in your denial of the truth that you were created by God. Willful rebellion isn't corrected by understanding something correctly; it's corrected by stopping the rebellion.
Rather than waste a lot of time beating around the bush, I'll cut to the chase: evolution is intrinsically irrational, because it undermines the possibility of rationality. More: it completely destroys the possibility of rationality.
Why? Because if the evolutionist is correct, then what you and I say are "thoughts" are really nothing more than highly complex chemical reactions. Yes?
So please tell me how a chemical reaction can make statements of truth or falsehood.
Answer: it can't. Chemical reactions are incapable of that; it's absurd to even suggest the possibility. It's like asking fermentation its opinion about the next presidential election: it makes no sense to even ask the question, let alone hope for an answer.
So why on earth would it be sensible in any way to suggest that the chemical reactions in your brain are in any epistemologically significant way superior to fermentation? It isn't sensible. Impersonal things don't make truth claims. Only persons do that. But at root evolution means that we are just bags of chemical reactions - and so at root we aren't persons. So we can't make truth claims.
So, on your erroneous terms, rationality is destroyed. So you can't even be consistent to your own framework and at the same time tell me that it is "right" or "true" or "correct" - because your framework doesn't allow for such categories. Because there is no "you" available: there's just a bag of chemical reactions.
But, of course, there are persons. And that is why evolution is wrong. It requires that the false be true: it requires that we are just bags of chemicals and not persons.
Do you selectively answer what I say just for fun, or did you just not come up with your own definition of "homolog" yet?
Pot, kettle, black, friend. You were saying something about "tremendous support for evolution" in the fossil record. I refuted it. You selectively ignore it. I suggest that you take your own suggestion, and then maybe I'll consider this a credible issue.
calling evolution religious was cute at first, but its just old and tired now.
If you can think of a better phrase that accurately describes the religious faith known as evolution, I'll consider it. As it is, the evolutionist denies he is a fideist, but his framework is so utterly dependent upon faith claims -- and certainly not upon actual science, since it has never been observed or reproduced -- that it's really special pleading to do so.
Oh, and in any case, inference is a hell of alot better than believing what voices in my head tell me, which is what much of religion is founded on.
My apologies, but I'm unaware of a single religious tradition that is founded upon what the voices in your head tell you.;-) Seriously, though - you have gone from "tremendous support in the fossil record" to "inference is a hell of a lot better" [than this caricature of theistic belief that you've invented for yourself]. That's quite a retreat you've just engaged in. Why not go the whole nine yards and just abandon it completely? You'll be a lot better off.;-)
I am not sure what you mean. What I was subtly getting at was that the theory of evolution has evolved (pardon the pun) since Darwin's day to a point where his work (while obviously instrumental to the creation of this theory/movement/whatever) is somewhat inconsequential now.
What your other correspondent was getting at is that evolution is nonscientific because it has never been observed and is not reproducible.
And while I'm at it, let's make sure we understand each other: by evolution I mean the development of new species out of existing ones as a result of natural selection, genetic mutations, etc. I would appreciate it if you would state what you are referring to when you speak of "microevolution", because it is not evolution in the sense that I mean - if I understand you.
There are fossil records with tremendous support for evolution.
This is not the case: the fossil record does not contain "tremendous support" for the transitional forms that evolutionary doctrine demands. It ain't there. Even Stephen Jay Gould admits: "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils."
Got that? You've got no evidence. You've got inference. That ain't evidence, friend. It's argument, and that of course is precisely what we should expect of a religious outlook like evolution.
False. The evidence is all around you (and in fact you are part of the evidence).
2 there is no reason for a god to exist
False.
3 based on our conception of logic, a god cannot exist
To the contrary, rationality depends upon the existence of God.
4 we know why, when and how the stories of gods were made up and propagated
This, at least, is partly true. It is true, in that we know that evil men in times past refused to worship the true and living God, and instead fabricated false gods for themselves.
5 we know why and how the stories of gods were accepted and used, and for what purposes
You're repeating yourself.;-)
Far from being "undermined" by belief in God, as the evolutionist fantasizes, rationality is actually dependent upon God. On the other hand, rationality is undermined and utterly demolished by evolution.
I'm sitting at a humble (K6-2 450MHz, 128MB RAM, 8GB HD) box that ran for 230 days on RH7, and I never noticed speed issues with it...until installing RH 7.2 with ext3.
The box is definitelyslower doing disk access now. It's a little disappointing, but I'm not really concerned: I'd rather have the protection of the journaling and I'm willing to pay with a little speed tradeoff. Eventually I'll get a bigger/newer/faster HD for this thing, and that will probably help as well.
My perceptions may be skewed; my main box for the last year has been a PIII-750MHz with a 30GB drive, and that bad boy sings, so it may be that I just don't remember precisely what performance is "supposed" to be like on this one.
Which of the following alternatives would you guys recommend as the best way to become reasonably proficient in ancient Greek in a short time? A university course or self-study using a good text book?
I think you can learn it yourself adequately well, using a good book (like, for instance, Machen's New Testament Greek for Beginners - if you're interested in the Koine Greek used in the New Testament; I have no recommendation for Classical Greek). Taking it at a university gets you certification ("I took a class on this") but little else, and it's not terribly relevant unless you're seeking further certification associated with the language (of course, there's always the discipline associated with taking a class that should not be ignored, either...). I took it in school, but I think that the texts available are more than adequate for the average man's casual reading of Greek.
I apologize for the delay in replying (you may not even read this...:-), but I hope it may be helpful.
California's electrical power industry was NOT deregulated.
California's power companies are forbidden to pass along to customers any increase in the cost of electricity. That's what precipitated their blackouts last year: price controls (price ceilings) always, always, ALWAYS result in shortages of the goods subjected to the controls.
Far from a case of deregulation run amuck, California's idiot experience is a textbook case of what can go wrong when the government starts meddling in the economy.
Technically, the word transliterated as "'autou" is ambiguous. It is a pronoun that may have either a masculine or neuter referent, so context must determine which is in view (and there are both neuter and masculine possibilities in this particular sentence in the Greek).
However, it's basically clear from the context that the referent is in fact the beast (so it's neuter in Greek).
On a more significant level: this number has been over-hyped by the devotees of Hal Lindsey, as though it referred to someone who has yet to appear in human history. This turns out not to be the case. It's historically likely that the beast was actually a reference to Nero (or else the Roman Empire itself).
What Genoaschild lacks is intellectual honesty. He/She/It pretends that he/she/it doesn't believe in ethics. This is ludicrous on its face.
Anyone so self-deceived as this is not worth your time. You'd be better off arguing with a rock: the rock won't change its mind either, but it won't lie to you about what it claims to believe.
What a self-serving, arbitrary, ethically vacuous definition that is. Run away, Dr. Mengele. We know what you thought about your research, and we aren't interested.
Oh please. Don't lie to us, and don't lie to yourself.
Is it good or evil for me to pour boiling water on your head?
Were the Nazis good or evil?
The rest of your post isn't worth the time of day when you can't even be honest enough to admit that like everyone else you too have ethical categories.
Come back when you're willing to deal with the issue honestly.
This is really not difficult, whether you agree or not.
There is NO fundamental difference between killing babies for research and making use of Nazi medical research performed on the Jews. If you accept the one, you have no moral reason to despise the other.
People who oppose the slaughter of unborn babies for the sake of extending the lives of others ask this question: Should we do evil that good may come?
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However, if you take the time to include the tens of millions butchered by prominent atheist Josef Stalin, and the tens of millions butchered by prominent atheist Mao, it turns out that atheists are responsible for so much more wholesale slaughter in the world's history that it's not even worth comparing to anything or anyone else.
"I should like to say something here with reference to the many opinions or guesses that I have received or have read concerning the motives and meaning of the tale. The prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them....As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical." [emphasis added]
In short: Tolkien had no intentions whatsoever to make any fine points about war or about class. The story may be applicable to such things, but that is a very different thing from saying that it is "about" them.
This is nonsensical. The fact that no one else makes an OS for the Mac in no way makes Apple a monopolist, unless of course you think that Ford is a monopolist because no one else makes engines for Fords.
In a commodity market, differentiation is a major way to lure customers. "Computers" is the commodity here, and the Mac is just one part of the market for computers. Apple protects those things by which they attempt to differentiate their products. Love it or hate it, that does not constitute monopolist action.
Only a punch-drunk leftist with the ethical standards of Mao is incapable of discerning the evil of communism. Your tired (and feeble) attempts to make the US into as big and bad a thug as the PRC are a waste of our time and your energy. Save it for your meetings of Sandinistas Anonymous, okay?
Exactly! I agree wholeheartedly. Massive amounts of dialogue are omitted from the movie; it seems to be moving at breakneck speed the entire time.
Now, I'm not saying this to suggest that I dislike the movie, and I certainly sympathize with the problem the movie makers had: to keep all the dialogue would probably have doubled the movie's length. So I can't fault them for it, and I think that they did as fine a job as could be expected.
I loved it. It's a fabulous movie. I think I would have liked it better if I wasn't so familiar with the books, though, which I too have read at least a dozen times, simply because I would not have had expectations about all that missing dialogue.
There are two reasons for this. First: I didn't repeat any lies. I quoted the man. Secondly, with respect to the "misquote" issue: I said that of course the man is not surrendering any turf, and that of course the man has what he thinks is a good explanation as to why there aren't more "transitional" fossils. I then went on (twice, IIRC) to demonstrate that even if he thinks he *does* have "transitional" fossils, he still hasn't actually proven it -- and thus all he has are inferences, which is exactly what he said in the quotation that I cited.
The long and short of it is that I don't think I've abused the man at all, inasmuch as a) I quoted him correctly, and b) I have interacted with what he says he was arguing in the context.
BTW, as far as I'm concerned Gould has no place for whining anyway, when people accept his admissions of fact but reject his mass of inferences offered to rationalize the facts.
Crying out that you need absolute proof is a quick way to demonstrate that you want to shut off your brain and eyes.
(Aside: yet this is always what evolutionists demand of theists. Physician, heal thyself)
I did not ask for "absolute proof". I asked for an actual demonstration of biological descent. That is hardly the same as "absolute proof", in the absurdist way that you are using the phrase. Gould wants us to believe that critter X is biologically descended from critter Y in the fossil record, and yet he cannot prove it. To be quite honest, I don't think it would be possible to prove it: no contemporaneous observers. But he wants us to believe it anyway, and to believe it with a certitude that brooks no dissent. I don't grant that on the basis of inferences that are as groundless as his are.
And babbling about his alleged admissions about "provisional knowledge" is silly. He is a naturalist. He has not "provisionally" rejected theism; he has rejected it out of hand and refuses to even provisionally consider it.
So you have a Book which contradicts itself.
Incorrect. The Bible does not contradict itself, and it certainly doesn't do so with respect to the field of blood - nor how it got its name, nor how Judas died. In the first place, it is a common thing in the Bible for a thing to have multiple names (e.g., Jacob == Israel), and for them to be given even the same name multiple times: see, for instance, how many times "Havoth Jair" gets the exact same name. So different people call a thing the same name for different reasons in the Bible? That's hardly novel! And it certainly isn't contradictory. In the second - with respect to the purchase of the field: the chief priests bought the field in Judas's name - since it was his money, which they declined to receive back from him. So it is not contradictory for Acts to say that Judas bought it, when it was purchased with his money.
Lastly, with respect to how Judas died: again, no contradiction. Acts does not say "Judas did not hang himself." It doesn't even say that "Judas died by xxx" (where 'xxx' != 'hanging himself'). It says that he 'fell' and that his guts spilled out. Falling does not preclude prior hanging, and one may certainly fall upon being cut down from the rope used to hang him.
Conclusion: no contradictions.
And based on that you say that scientists should disregard the evidence of their eyes that they just dug through 20 times more history than you think exists?
No. I am saying that they need to reinterpret the evidence, because their interpretation of the evidence is incorrect, and they would admit this if they were not adamantly in rebellion against God. Evidence is interpreted -- always.
Evolution has been checked over and over again.
Evolution has been checked over and over again by people who are utterly committed to the denial of God's existence. They are committed to any and every conceivable "explanation" they can fabricate that will do away with the possibility of his existence, because they do not like the obvious conclusion that if God created them, then they owe him something (namely, love and obedience). To tell me that evolution has been "checked" by such obviously dishonest people doesn't really do much to sway my opinion.
One of the biggest lies that has been perpetrated by scientists is that scientists are "disinterested observers". That, friend, is B as in "B", S as in "S". Everybody's interested in something, and most scientists are in the vanguard of the anti-theism brigade.
I said:
Rubbish. No "transitions" have been caught anywhere. For this to be actually verified, you would have to have a fossil from every generation between parent and "evolved", "transitional" child. You would furthermore have to be able to demonstrate that what you have are actually direct biological descendants, or else Gould's "proof" is nothing but post hoc nonsense.
So what Gould has -- as he actually said -- is inference, and nothing more.
Do you get it, friend? I am denying that Gould's defense of his admission has any weight whatsoever. He hasn't got any "transitional forms" of anything. He is claiming that he does, but he would have to prove that critter X is a direct lineal descendant of critter Y, or else he is resorting to inference.
And this he cannot do. It's tantamount to lining up a bunch of different breeds of dogs and saying that the Norwegian Elkhound "evolved" from the Chihuahua (in fact, it's worse, since he can at least show that Elkhounds and Chihuahuas are the same species). It's like showing me a gecko and a gila monster and saying that one "evolved" from the other. Okay, fine: prove it. And he can't. He can only make inferences. Inferences ain't proof, pal. This is blatantly fallacious post hoc nonsense. This is fideism of a transcendent order.
The only ones being intellectually dishonest are Gould & Co., when they assert as "proofs" of evolution stuff that doesn't even pass the smell test, never mind actual scientific examination. Evolution is fideist at its core.
Sputtering nonsense without reading what I say makes you and evolutionists look dumb. Please try harder.
I misquoted nothing. Did he say it or not? No one is going to pretend -- certainly I am not -- that Gould is not utterly devoted to his evolutionist fideism. So it would be ludicrous to even think that Gould would not attempt to explain away the facts he admits in the quotation. Of course he makes the attempt. Duh.
actually caught - in the fossil record - the critical transitions.
Rubbish. No "transitions" have been caught anywhere. For this to be actually verified, you would have to have a fossil from every generation between parent and "evolved", "transitional" child. You would furthermore have to be able to demonstrate that what you have are actually direct biological descendants, or else Gould's "proof" is nothing but post hoc nonsense.
So what Gould has -- as he actually said -- is inference, and nothing more.
If you insist upon being serious, your real issue is willful rebellion against God, as manifested in your denial of the truth that you were created by God. Willful rebellion isn't corrected by understanding something correctly; it's corrected by stopping the rebellion.
Why? Because if the evolutionist is correct, then what you and I say are "thoughts" are really nothing more than highly complex chemical reactions. Yes?
So please tell me how a chemical reaction can make statements of truth or falsehood.
Answer: it can't. Chemical reactions are incapable of that; it's absurd to even suggest the possibility. It's like asking fermentation its opinion about the next presidential election: it makes no sense to even ask the question, let alone hope for an answer.
So why on earth would it be sensible in any way to suggest that the chemical reactions in your brain are in any epistemologically significant way superior to fermentation? It isn't sensible. Impersonal things don't make truth claims. Only persons do that. But at root evolution means that we are just bags of chemical reactions - and so at root we aren't persons. So we can't make truth claims.
So, on your erroneous terms, rationality is destroyed. So you can't even be consistent to your own framework and at the same time tell me that it is "right" or "true" or "correct" - because your framework doesn't allow for such categories. Because there is no "you" available: there's just a bag of chemical reactions.
But, of course, there are persons. And that is why evolution is wrong. It requires that the false be true: it requires that we are just bags of chemicals and not persons.
Great! Now read it in English again, and this time go for understanding. ;-)
Pot, kettle, black, friend. You were saying something about "tremendous support for evolution" in the fossil record. I refuted it. You selectively ignore it. I suggest that you take your own suggestion, and then maybe I'll consider this a credible issue.
calling evolution religious was cute at first, but its just old and tired now.
If you can think of a better phrase that accurately describes the religious faith known as evolution, I'll consider it. As it is, the evolutionist denies he is a fideist, but his framework is so utterly dependent upon faith claims -- and certainly not upon actual science, since it has never been observed or reproduced -- that it's really special pleading to do so.
Oh, and in any case, inference is a hell of alot better than believing what voices in my head tell me, which is what much of religion is founded on.
My apologies, but I'm unaware of a single religious tradition that is founded upon what the voices in your head tell you. ;-) Seriously, though - you have gone from "tremendous support in the fossil record" to "inference is a hell of a lot better" [than this caricature of theistic belief that you've invented for yourself]. That's quite a retreat you've just engaged in. Why not go the whole nine yards and just abandon it completely? You'll be a lot better off. ;-)
What your other correspondent was getting at is that evolution is nonscientific because it has never been observed and is not reproducible.
And while I'm at it, let's make sure we understand each other: by evolution I mean the development of new species out of existing ones as a result of natural selection, genetic mutations, etc. I would appreciate it if you would state what you are referring to when you speak of "microevolution", because it is not evolution in the sense that I mean - if I understand you.
There are fossil records with tremendous support for evolution.
This is not the case: the fossil record does not contain "tremendous support" for the transitional forms that evolutionary doctrine demands. It ain't there. Even Stephen Jay Gould admits: "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils."
Got that? You've got no evidence. You've got inference. That ain't evidence, friend. It's argument, and that of course is precisely what we should expect of a religious outlook like evolution.
False. The evidence is all around you (and in fact you are part of the evidence).
2 there is no reason for a god to exist
False.
3 based on our conception of logic, a god cannot exist
To the contrary, rationality depends upon the existence of God.
4 we know why, when and how the stories of gods were made up and propagated
This, at least, is partly true. It is true, in that we know that evil men in times past refused to worship the true and living God, and instead fabricated false gods for themselves.
5 we know why and how the stories of gods were accepted and used, and for what purposes
You're repeating yourself.;-)
Far from being "undermined" by belief in God, as the evolutionist fantasizes, rationality is actually dependent upon God. On the other hand, rationality is undermined and utterly demolished by evolution.
An anonymous coward (or, really, anyone on Slashdot) actually gets it!!
Thank you!
The box is definitelyslower doing disk access now. It's a little disappointing, but I'm not really concerned: I'd rather have the protection of the journaling and I'm willing to pay with a little speed tradeoff. Eventually I'll get a bigger/newer/faster HD for this thing, and that will probably help as well.
My perceptions may be skewed; my main box for the last year has been a PIII-750MHz with a 30GB drive, and that bad boy sings, so it may be that I just don't remember precisely what performance is "supposed" to be like on this one.
Goodness! You don't have very much imagination, or you don't have very much appreciation for history.
The French Revolution was born out of intense antipathy for religion, and became a bloodbath.
Stalin butchered millions, and it wasn't in the name of God; Mao slaughtered something like 50 million in the Cultural Revolution.
Atheism has quite a colored history, my friend. Wake up and smell the atrocities.
I think you can learn it yourself adequately well, using a good book (like, for instance, Machen's New Testament Greek for Beginners - if you're interested in the Koine Greek used in the New Testament; I have no recommendation for Classical Greek). Taking it at a university gets you certification ("I took a class on this") but little else, and it's not terribly relevant unless you're seeking further certification associated with the language (of course, there's always the discipline associated with taking a class that should not be ignored, either...). I took it in school, but I think that the texts available are more than adequate for the average man's casual reading of Greek.
I apologize for the delay in replying (you may not even read this... :-), but I hope it may be helpful.
California's power companies are forbidden to pass along to customers any increase in the cost of electricity. That's what precipitated their blackouts last year: price controls (price ceilings) always, always, ALWAYS result in shortages of the goods subjected to the controls.
Far from a case of deregulation run amuck, California's idiot experience is a textbook case of what can go wrong when the government starts meddling in the economy.
However, it's basically clear from the context that the referent is in fact the beast (so it's neuter in Greek).
On a more significant level: this number has been over-hyped by the devotees of Hal Lindsey, as though it referred to someone who has yet to appear in human history. This turns out not to be the case. It's historically likely that the beast was actually a reference to Nero (or else the Roman Empire itself).
Don't buy Hal Lindsey's snake oil.
Anyone so self-deceived as this is not worth your time. You'd be better off arguing with a rock: the rock won't change its mind either, but it won't lie to you about what it claims to believe.
Like I said: you're lying to us, and you're lying to yourself. Get off your pseudo-philosophical rocking chair and grow up.
What a self-serving, arbitrary, ethically vacuous definition that is. Run away, Dr. Mengele. We know what you thought about your research, and we aren't interested.
Oh please. Don't lie to us, and don't lie to yourself.
Is it good or evil for me to pour boiling water on your head?
Were the Nazis good or evil?
The rest of your post isn't worth the time of day when you can't even be honest enough to admit that like everyone else you too have ethical categories.
Come back when you're willing to deal with the issue honestly.
There is NO fundamental difference between killing babies for research and making use of Nazi medical research performed on the Jews. If you accept the one, you have no moral reason to despise the other.
People who oppose the slaughter of unborn babies for the sake of extending the lives of others ask this question: Should we do evil that good may come?
No.