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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Now whether his faith meant more to him than his family is anybody's
> guess. I know it meant a lot to him and that nothing would shake it.
> And I'm certain that it gave him comfort just before he died.
>
For the person it comforts, this seems valuable. But... There is really
no way to respond to this, other than that, in general, there are
**lots** of things we no longer consider of value, because, well... they
don't really add any value to anything else. I certainly wouldn't try to
convince the guy he was wrong on his death bed, (though.. the same
compunction never seems to enter the minds of the other side, for some
reason), but I am not going to excuse it when mentioning it to someone
else either. Honor people for what they did that is "worth" honoring,
not the stuff that didn't help them, or anyone else.
Mind, a believer would likely imagine they where honoring them by
mentioning it, but then.. some of them are more than happy to make a
person's funeral about just about "anything" other than the dead person
too. They want to value it fine... The problem isn't that they value it,
many *think* that to value these things properly means to try to make
others value it, and even the ones that don't think that, will gripe
about people who point out that its "isn't" appropriate, even if they
wouldn't do it themselves.
>> Mostly.. He starts off
>> with "atheists believe in nothing, and need a lot of faith for that",
>
> Now that *is* funny. ;-)
>
Not the way he "intended" it though. lol
>> I mean... I don't even know where to start counting the flat out "wrong"
>> things.
>
> You don't, it's comedy, for entertainment purposes. You can't take every
> damned thing people say seriously. Or rather, if you do, you're going to
> be in for a pretty miserable time on this planet.
>
But, that is the point. Beyond the initial bit, the entire thing became
diatribe. Sorry, but, given the audience, the circumstances, and the
"way" he presented it, unless he admitted "Poeing" the whole thing, I
have to consider it "highly" probable that he took all of it 100%
seriously, and his use of the contents was *entirely* directed at an
audience he knew would either agree with him, or not call him on any of it.
>> If this guy was on a forum, instead of a stage, no one would be
>> laughing.
>
> Then it's a damned good thing he was on a stage. My point is, you can
> take many things that people say in jest and not change one word but
> change the venue and as such change the entire meaning. Context is
> important.
>
Did you watch it? Jest my ass. Like I said, the "initial" part was jest,
everything after was nothing but a rambling litany of things he thought
where true, using arguments that.. OK, fine. If I was ignorant,
clueless, right wing, had **never** heard any of it before, or more to
the point, why it was all bullshit, I **might** find it funny. But then,
some people probably thought the Bundy's from Married With Children
where not funny, because it was too "similar" to their own family...
> Well, I disagree, and it's quite easy to prove that if you put a bunch of
> people in a room together who disagree about nothing, they don't make
> progress. I've seen it many times at work in meetings, because I've been
> the one who has not agreed. When someone who has a different perspective
> introduces a new idea, sometimes that gets a "gee, I never thought about
> that". That idea might come in later, sure, but the point is that it
> comes in later, and that's a slowness in progress.
>
> It's bullocks to think that a bunch of people who think the same way are
> going to push themselves as hard as a bunch of people who are having
> their ideas challenged, even if the challenges are coming from idiots.
>
See, the problem is, they don't, "all think the same way", and never
did. That is the problem. The only people claiming they all "agree" 100%
of the time of the creationists. They are professional about it, but you
can see disagreement on details "all over the place". And I can see
that, even without being one of them. The only "complacency" was about
the very thing we are arguing about here, "What is the proper response
to people that lie about everything, including the supposed 100%
uniform, unchanging, and completely agreed upon 'conspiracy' to make
things up, claims it science and call it evolution." What scientists see
as reasonable conflict, over "details", creationists insist is either a)
a sign of fatal flaws, or b) making the theory stronger, but filling in
gaps. That the two directly refute each other... lol
But, unless you can site something to suggest that "anything" about
evolution underwent "huge" shifts in perspective, purely as a result of
this challenge, other than its advocacy and the aggressiveness of those
apposed to groups that seek to undermine it, I would love to see it.
>>> The lack of a challenge
>>> often leads to complacency and lazy thinking. But having to structure
>>> a debate, even against something that you and I think is patently
>>> ridiculous, helps science.
>>>
>> No, it just wastes time and money. The only thing that ID has done is
>> emphasize, at least to scientists, that science education in the US
>> isn't "bad", so much as, "terrifyingly bad",
>
> And it's a bad thing to highlight this reality?
>
Not at all. But, the central premise you suggested was that it helped
the ToE, not that it helped them see a danger to it more clearly. Your
suggestion was that something in how it was "looked at" internally
changed, or new ideas where derived from it. I see no evidence of this,
other than a lot of time spent trying to make "simple" explanations to
derail the most common fallacies. Even projects like Avida, which deals
with artificial life, existed, and showed the validity, of the rules of
the ToE, *years* prior to the *necessity* of even simpler programs, made
to disprove irreducibility and design.
The suggestion you made was... the equivalent of implying that someone
"needed" to build a hand held TV, since it was "simpler" for everyone to
see, before people could "reasonably" be expected to believe that a
1960's Panovision worked at all. The conclusion is consistent only with
the perspective of people that have seen "neither" and think its a new
kind of magic, soul stealing, box, like a camera. This is obviously a
falsified by all the TVs sold "in between". Just as all the various
conflicts, theories, ideas, tests, and adjustments going on over the ToE
show no "need" for some outside group to, "shake things up", with
respect to the idea itself.
Had you argued that the "shake up" was solely in the number of idiots
that still imagine that taking their picture steals their life force...
you would have had a valid point. lol
> Side note: As a BSG fan myself, it's "frakking". No "c", double 'k'. ;-)
>
Bah.. I am spelling it the Tauron way, not like you damn Capricans!
(Heh, any excuse in a storm. ;) lol)
>> and
>> sometimes that "means" saying things that some of their supporters, like
>> it or not, are going to see as "attacks".
>
> It helps if you don't start your counterargument with "well, they're all
> a bunch of frakkin' idiots". First, as I've said a few times, it puts
> them on the defensive and allows them to paint themselves as victims,
> which doesn't help you. Second, it doesn't exactly inspire some self-
> reflection on their part.
>
Don't know.. Works for House. ;) And, seriously, again, I don't see them
"starting" with that a lot. Well, not unless its the same twit showing
up for the 580th time to repeat the same nonsense.
>> Its like free
>> speech. Just because I have to let someone talk doesn't mean I have to
>> "like" them talking, or do nothing at all to try to stop people
>> listening too it.
>
> There's a fine line between convincing people to stop listening and
> suppressing the speech you don't like, though.
>
The line often being, "Shouting fire in a crowded theater". Some of the
BS comes damn close, or even "crosses" that line, if it was "anything"
other than a church saying it. They get by with **way** too much.
> Maybe not nicer, but having a better word choice. Instead of "they're
> all a bunch of idiots" (a personal attack), "the idea is ridiculous
> because..." (ie, refuting the idea rather than the person/people). Do
> you see the difference?
>
Yep. I do. Most other people do to. The only times I see most people
failing at it, is, as I said before, when its someone showing up with
the same arguments for the 580th time. At some point, you have to call a
spade a spade, and damn whether or not someone makes you dig a hole
with it.
>> Are we even talking about the same thing? I am not talking
>> about just showing up an calling someone names.
>
> I think we're talking about the presentation of ideas in a way so as to
> persuade, either the person the debate is with or those who are watching
> from the sidelines.
>
>> I am talking about
>> showing why they "deserve" some of the names.
>
> Then you're not debating the ideas, you ARE attacking them - which
> doesn't help in the debate about the ideas.
>
Sigh.. What ideas? These people don't have ideas, just a flow chart of
every failed argument to regurgitate ever invented.
OK, I admit, probably the "best" response would be to take a copy of the
"list" and all the responses, and every time they start wandering into
stupid land, just staple the list to the wall, tell them, "I'll be back
when you finish repeating things off this list, as though they are new,
or never refuted, assuming you 'ever' do." But, see, ironically, its the
"proper" response, but it still says, "You are an idiot." All you do by
trying to refute each damn thing on the list, one at a time, is run out
of your own time, and take longer calling them an idiot.
Its a bit like the group of fools that have "special classes" on how to
curse up a blue streak, using silly sounding words, with no meaning,
because it makes the world a "better" place, if you say shazbot, instead
of shit. Long winded is what they want. Time is on **their** side, not
yours in such "debates", because "you" have to actually present facts,
all they have to do is keep asserting things until you run away.
> If anything, when they decide to call you a monster, you get to play the
> victim card for a change.... ;-) (Yes, I know you're unlikely to, but
> those on the sidelines might be persuaded by the fact that those you are
> debating have turned you into a victim by starting to call names).
>
Doesn't work. They will spin it to make it sound like you where
"rightly" victimized, the press won't, usually, bother with your version
of events, and even if they do, there are 500 other agencies that are
more than willing to print the creationists version of events, to every
one who is willing to listen to yours, some of them, paid by the very
people you supposedly "debated".
>> Sigh.. Again, we tried that for "decades".
>
> Let me ask you a question.....What do you want out of your life?
>
Making things better for people in the future might be one. But, anyone
in that position needs to look at things in terms of what the enemies
resources are, not just what, in the short term, they look like.
>> You can't ignore or lose every "public" battle, other than the ones in
>> court, and expect to win the fracking war on the idea.
>
> No, but you can't fight every battle, either. You have to pick your
> battles, and pick ones that you can win. Then you have to apply a
> strategy that allows you to win. Sometimes that might mean taking a "win
> at all costs" stance, and sometimes it doesn't.
>
We don't get to "pick" the battles, they do. That is, at this moment,
the biggest problem. You can't ignore 50 battles you don't "want" to
fight, or which might, in the short term, make you look bad, hoping for
one "major" one, where everything will go right.
> The other is to get those 100 friends together and start lobbying the
> people who actually make the laws to change them. We have groups like
> the NRA who do that and get their way. The problem is that those of us
> who think that these kinds of tax breaks are bullshit aren't as organized
> as the people who got the exceptions into the tax code. Jumping up and
> down and being disruptive won't fix it, because the core problem with the
> people who want it to change is they're not organized enough to effect a
> change like that.
>
This is true. And, its kind of one of the critical issues. Fact is, most
of us either think, or "do", have better things to do, than wander
around waving silly signs, and we "certainly" don't have either
employers that would let us get by with it, or groups willing to "fund"
it, if they did. I know I can't even get days off I want, most times, at
my job, for "normal" stuff. If I said I wanted to join some protest
against creationist.. I would probably "misteriously" end up being on an
8 hour shift that day, because they "needed me", and.. its probably not
all that refutable.
Worse, the reason "they" can find 100 people to do this is because all
they have to do is go to their local church. Me.. I am lucky if I "know"
100 people closely enough to do that, never mind that all of them
"agree" enough with me to do such a thing.
> That's why Prop 8 in CA went the way it did. Those who were against it
> weren't organized enough, and the LDS Church (amongst others, but they
> were one of the largest organizations that put money into the advertising
> coffers) was organized enough to mobilize its membership to donate to the
> "Vote Yes on 8" groups.
>
Part of it was also "recognizing" that there was a clear, untapped
group, who held "religion" much higher than the general populous, and,
despite not being "radicals" in the same sense as the LDS, are "never
the less" more likely to side with religious "standards" than secular
ones, if someone pushes the issue hard enough.
> And those things can be corrected by using the idea of strength in
> numbers. We saw the start of the reversal of several Bush Jr. policies
> when Obama was elected. Not as many as I'd have liked, but it's a start.
>
> Personally, I agree with Bill Maher on this: Obama needs a little of
> Bush's swagger and certainty. At least he's got *good* ideas. Bush had
> certainty and bad ideas. That's a bad combination.
>
No, he needs to stop trying to be "both" a good guy for the religious
and a good guy for everyone else, at the same time. Half the stuff he
has done since in office pander to some of the stupidest ideas Bush Jr.
ever had, like "faith based initiatives", the other half.. fall short of
doing what they should, or barely qualify as progress, Ex: bailing out
companies so more people don't get fired, while "failing" to make it
clear that they "had" to stop being total idiots if they wanted to get
the money. I absolutely don't agree with all the moron protesters that
had their "tea-bag" party, since all the "problems" they had where short
sighted BS about who got money, if they should have, etc. ***No one***
was talking about how to avoid the problem again, in the first place,
and some where.. like your friend, convinced of just about everything
short of Obama being a Sleesack, and conspiring with space aliens to
replace the government with Illuminati. In fact, in most cases, more
than half the people there "insisted" that the very things that caused
the problem would "solve" it. Yeah.. like more credit cards, loans and
people unable to pay for the crap they want to buy, was going to "fix"
the issue...
> It's fortunate that should that happen we have the bill of rights to back
> up our right to dissent, and we have laws in place that prevent us from
> having a dictator for too long. What's needed is organization of those
> who agree that these are bad ideas - I've said it before in this message,
> but that's the way to effect change - by recognizing the strength in
> numbers.
>
Its unfortunate that their "interpretation" of that document is about as
consistent as their understanding that Lemarckian, and other "early"
theories, as the same as Darwinian evolution, and constantly misquoting
the former ones, as part of the later. They would, and have, happily,
quoted lines from everything from letters by "some" founders, which
vaguely relate to the values of religion, or the declaration's
statements about divine rights, with what is "actually" in the constitution.
As they say, history is written by those who win, and these people have
been "revising" history among their own so much that many are
"convinced" that half the founders where evangelical literalists, and
the documents "proving" this, and their "real" intent in writing the
Bill of Rights, was something other than what it is, are either hidden
some place, to be revealed then they have power, destroyed soon after
found by communist, secular, atheists, or "hidden away some place, in a
vault, so the truth will never be known."
What we have is the "original" Iraq "does", or "did", or "would have
had", WMD. The Bill of Rights, doesn't mean much, if the people who get
the power can present "proof", or the "suggestion of proof" that its
misunderstood, doesn't apply to X groups, or parts of it where, "not
what the founders intended". Its only paper, and an idea, and you can
destroy both, with enough power.
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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