Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Well, for people that shoot themselves in the foot, this one had to an 
> RPG. PZ Myers, a fairly well known, but hardly world wide known, name in 
> the so called debate between 1 AD theology and 2008 AD science, and who 
> was interviewed, (or more like mugged), for the movie Expelled...

 From www.uncommondescent.com:

"So it really is pathetic of Dawkins, et al to complain that when they 
were interviewed for Expelled they didn’t know that the film was 
inherently unfriendly. These are interviewees who received pre-agreed 
questions, signed release forms after the interviews were conducted, and 
actually got paid for their time."

Regards,
John

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In article <web.47e49ba9bd0847b4fe19a56b0@news.povray.org>, 
nam### [at] gmailcom says...
> My problem with creationists and the ID people is that they should not di
tch
> science in favor of the Bible as it makes up for stupid arguments.  Inste
ad,
> they should understand what the Bible says under the light of science.  T
hey
> should embrace science and with such ammunition try to understand how God
 did
> it, instead of simply saying:  "The Lord said so and so it happened".  Th
at
> leads nowhere, it does not take us closer to an understandment of God's a
nd our
> own nature.
> 
Lots of past people, including St. Thomas Aquinas have said things 
*similar* to that, only to ignore their own good sense the moment that 
something sufficiently conflicted with their faith that they would have 
had to question what they believed seriously, or reject the existence of 
the thing that caused the conflict. "Liberal" Christians ranging from 
those that practice, like Atheist Jews, the cultural details of the 
religion while being all but certain the mythical bits are all 
gibberish, to those that, in general, try really hard to shoehorn some 
sort of god into a hole that one can't fit into, because they recognize 
that religion really doesn't do too well at describing the physical 
world (the two magisterium argument, which makes the convoluted claim 
that there is some other world we can't see, describe, know or 
understand entirely, so one can't expect proof of it, but which they all 
have *clear* proof and evidence of...) The "conservatives" range from 
those who where toe tip to drop with the truth, got scared out of their 
wits, and decided to cling to the diving board, rather than *at least* 
closing their eyes and pretending they didn't jump after they got out of 
the water, to those on the other extreme, who know they don't have a leg 
to stand on, fall prey to every sin and evil they claim their faith is 
designed to prevent, the project that idiocy on everyone that doesn't 
follow some self claimed "literal" reading. There are people in between 
the extremes on both sides, but those in the middle are in crisis, and, 
depending on who feeds them information, are going to fall off the 
diving board, and either end up in the water, or land on the cement. 
There doesn't seem to be any way to remain sane, even by the standards 
of the extreme right, and stand in the middle, between the extremes. 
Either you realize the Bible is full of holes, or you panic and hide 
some place under the covers, where a lot of kind, but equally ignorant, 
people pat you on the back and tell you, "Now, now. Don't cry. We'll 
just put a parachute and some floaties on you, and you can pretend that 
the kiddie slide is the high dive."

The people on that side of the fence are not interested in getting a 
closer understanding of anything, unless its the apologistics of their 
personal strait jacket. Its too scary to image a world without it, and 
often psychologically impossible for them to comprehend that most people 
are not as screwed up, paranoid, corruptible and afraid of the world as 
they are. And this isn't just me projecting my own view into the 
situation, this is what a number of ex-fundamentalists and ex-
literalists say about how they thought, and their own families often 
still do think. It took something profound poking holes in their 
floaties, or some aspect of the real world pointing out how dumb they 
looked standing at the kiddy pool and pretending to do swan dives was to 
shatter their positions. Some just find a bigger pillow to hide under. 
Other... start to question everything and learn things. A few eventually 
reach the point where they can say, "I can admit to how Christianity 
shaped the world and that it had benefits, but also that it could have, 
and maybe even might have been better, had something else shaped it, and 
I am no more certain of god actually being out there than the atheists 
are." And, BTW, most of them take a pragmatic approach to the subject. 
No believable evidence and no reason for one? It probably doesn't exist, 
nor is there any reason to think that believing in some random one 
picked with a coin flip will benefit anyone, but if it does exist, it 
doesn't pragmatically change a damn thing about what we **know**, nor 
can we make *any* valid progress in trying to claim which one if the 
right one, so Pascal's Wager is totally useless.

You can't, after all, win a wager if you don't know how many players you 
are betting on, which picks will get you in serious trouble, if any, or 
even if the guy running the game is seriously running some sort of game 
to bet on, or just a crook pretending to take bets, while taking all 
your money. Or, to put it in Homer Simpson's terms, "What if we are 
going to the wrong church ever Sunday and the real god is just getting 
madder and madder?" ;)

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In article <47e5baf2@news.povray.org>, evi### [at] hotmailcom 
says...
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
> > Well, for people that shoot themselves in the foot, this one had to an
 
> > RPG. PZ Myers, a fairly well known, but hardly world wide known, name i
n 
> > the so called debate between 1 AD theology and 2008 AD science, and who
 
> > was interviewed, (or more like mugged), for the movie Expelled...
> 
>  From www.uncommondescent.com:
> 
> "So it really is pathetic of Dawkins, et al to complain that when they 
> were interviewed for Expelled they didn?t know that the film was 
> inherently unfriendly. These are interviewees who received pre-agreed 
> questions, signed release forms after the interviews were conducted, and
 
> actually got paid for their time."
> 
> Regards,
> John
> 
All of which is a lie. They where told it was going to be for a 
completely different movie, which was going to be even handed, despite 
the fact that a) the movie site for the *real* title turns out to have 
been purchased by the producers *before* the interviews ever took place 
(a fact only uncovered much later), and b) trying to claim that 
evolution leads to atheist, which leads to Hitler is not even handed at 
all, even if you ignore the fact that 1) Hitler wasn't an atheist, so 
its stupid to start with or 2) that they don't either describe what 
Intelligent Design is in the movie, or get one single fracking thing 
they say about what evolution says right.

In other words, they lied about what the movie was going to be about and 
what the title was, then proceeded to make something that is nothing but 
a mind boggling rehash of standard creationist BS, while still trying to 
claim that its not about creationism, but some sort of science. Well. 
Well the frell is the science already, instead of the endless lies, 
historical revisionism, misquotes and absurd complaints about vast 
conspiracies?

That you are using uncommon-density as source material tells me all I 
need to know about how much you understand about the subject, or how 
badly distorting the ID view of it is. They can't even describe how they 
approached PZ and Dawkins without lying about what really happened, 
despite the fact that the chronological evidence, and the simple facts 
available, all say the opposite.

And, even if it was true, it still wouldn't change the fact that they 
intentional chose to misuse the statements of two prominent biologists, 
to make it sound like they meant things other than what they intended. 
That is illegal. But, as DI well knows, its not something you can 
successfully sue someone over unless you can prove actual damages. Since 
the point hasn't, so far, been to get Dawkins or PZ fired, or anything 
substantial, but rather to just misrepresent science, its just not worth 
wasting money and court time on fighting people, where words and facts 
are more useful, and where only Dawkins really has the money to sue, or 
the time to bother, in the first place.

Oh, wait.. I forgot, the secret cabal is paying PZ like some sort of 
high level Russian official, and got him a "trophy wife"... The people 
that run uncommondescent have trouble opening their mouths without 
lying. And I would be **quite** happy if one of them decided to sue me 
for saying so. Its only slander if its not true, and such a case would 
be fracking Dover all over again.

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> All of which is a lie.

How do you know?  Were you there?  Or did you read it among all those 
hate-mongering comments you pointed us to originally?

-- 
...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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wow, you covered all logical options and I have nowhere to run.  Time to hide
under my pillow again, ignorant and stupid as I am...

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In article <web.47e6c828bd0847b440c8c0cc0@news.povray.org>, 
nam### [at] gmailcom says...
> wow, you covered all logical options and I have nowhere to run.  Time to 
hide
> under my pillow again, ignorant and stupid as I am...
> 
Oh, get over your self. I am sick and tired of people like you thinking 
that, "You don't know enough about this subject to make a proper 
examination of it.", is automatically the same thing as, "You are 
stupid!" Its not. Being ignorant is often not the fault of the person in 
that state, unless they choice to remain so. If you plan to tell me that 
you don't want to learn anything, and just repeat the same BS, 
meaningless, irrelevant, and often unrelated arguments over and over 
(and this is the tactic the true hard core creationists use), ***then*** 
I will call you any damn thing that is appropriate, and willfully stupid 
is one of them.

NOTHING you said yourself implies to me in the least that you fall into 
that category, nor that you would use arguments buried decades (or even 
centuries) ago. You are not one of the people I am referring to when 
talking about how creationists act or think. However, I strongly suggest 
you climb down off the cross and stop whining about persecution that 
isn't taking place, before someone else mistakes you for one of the 
willfully ignorant, blind, faith drowned fools we where ***both***  
describing with regard to creationists and ID.

Someone explain to me why belief leads some people to to reading 
comprehension problems and an automatic assumption that any negative 
statements *must* be directed at them specifically?!? I just don't get 
it...

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In article <47e69cb7$1@news.povray.org>, ben### [at] pacificwebguycom says...
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
> > All of which is a lie.
> 
> How do you know?  Were you there?  Or did you read it among all those 
> hate-mongering comments you pointed us to originally?
> 
Snort. Try doing the same searches on domain name registration they did, 
for one. Then there are the emails they sent, etc. As for hate 
mongering... Try @#$@#$#@$ reading the shit posting on anti-evolution 
sites before you call the places I linked to hate mongering. Places like 
Uncommon descent and done everything from claim racism, totalitarianism, 
conspiracy, devil worship, plans of atheists to build concentration 
camps, and damn near every other piece of hate filled bullshit you can 
imagine about scientists. All we have ever done is say, "These people 
are wrong, they get the science wrong, they make things up and when none 
of that works, they sometimes lie, and here are the ****actual**** 
books, chapters, lines, etc. they copied the stuff they quoted from to 
prove it." How the hell hard is it to get that the people filled with 
hate are the ones that will, have, and continue, to quote entire 
chapters that say things like, "Fossil evidence is not sufficient to 
establish ancestry, but dozens of other methods, including...", then 
chop it up into something that says, "Fossil evidence is not 
sufficient...". ID proponents pull that all the time. They get called 
heroes. We point out that they cut out the entire rest of the sentence, 
or in some cases, **pages**, in between the place where the ellipses was 
placed, and that everything in between says the exact opposite, and get 
called, "hateful people that want to suppress the Truth(tm)."

Well, you know, when one side pulls this BS, doesn't let you comment 
even single sentences, never mind clear explanations, on their web 
sites, calls you liars and conspirators at every opertunity, and can't 
so much as describe their supposed alternate theory, never mind provide 
some way to test it, and tries to claim that everything from chicken 
soup to the big bang somehow disproves evolution, when they themselves 
have *accepted* the version of it (minus what ever the hell macro 
evolution is), that scientists actually study, you can imagine why 
people might get damn pissed off, and spend a bit of time laughing at 
their enemies.

Hate mongering.. What a laugh. If we are hate mongering then you should 
be damn happy someone doesn't come along that is also militant. Oh 
wait... been accused of that too, never mind that we are not the ones a) 
throwing people out of our sites, throwing people out of conventions, 
throwing people out of our movies... Wait, who is militant and Nazi like 
again? I am afraid the abject refusal to allow anyone to refute you, and 
the tendency to shut out, silence, forcefully expel and then slander 
everyone that doesn't agree with you kind of makes the picture look a 
bit skewed.

Ok, don't believe me. Go to just about *any* website run by one of these 
pro-ID groups. Make a new user name, pick some topic they are ranting 
about with regard to evolution, then post something relevant to it, that 
comes from the scientists side of things. Watch how fast you post, on 
most of them, gets deleted. I have done this many times, most of the 
time it was something simple, like saying, in one case, "Actually 
evolution doesn't imply completely random chance. While the mutation may 
be, the environment and the body itself prevent most mutations from 
doing anything. That is why its descent with modification, or natural 
selection, *not* random chance." That is all I said. I didn't rant, 
didn't call anyone an idiot, nothing. The post *never* appeared on the 
site.

Just try it. I don't care if you post your own comment, based on piecing 
together details from some place like talkorigins, or you copy 1-2 
sentences from there, without mentioning that you got it from that site. 
90% of creationist/ID sites will delete the comment, 50% of those won't 
even allow it to pass moderation, and about 20% of them will ban you, so 
you can't try to post anything again.

You people keep whining about level playing fields. The truth is, you 
don't want any such thing. You want a playing field where everything is 
stacked in your favor, you don't have to listen to opposition, you can 
shout down anyone that drops in to say something, and you can then claim 
that no one shows up at all, to rebut any of your arguments.

Why the hell shouldn't people hate those that pull this kind of crap?

Snort.. Why do I bother. Nothing I say is likely to get you to try what 
I suggest, take anything we say with enough respect to try to verify any 
of it, and the default argument, when ever someone tries to point out an 
error is to either ignore it, claim that your version of evolution is 
the right one (never mind that it fits **no** definition of it ever 
published, other than your own), or claim that the sites containing the 
information are some sort of vast propaganda campaign invented in the 
last few years to discredit ID. You will never look at PubMed for the 
original material, never mind verify how old much of it is. And while 
everyone else in the world considers the ability of science to recognize 
a mistake and correct it, and it has done so, even going so far as to 
reject *huge* amounts of what Darwin himself originally said, to you 
this is a sign of weakness, not strength. Fine. Wallow in ignorance. I 
don't give a #$@$@#. Just don't insist that everyone else join you in 
the damn mud.

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Ok, don't believe me. Go to just about *any* website run by one of these 
> pro-ID groups.

You seem to have visited quite a few of them.  What do you honestly hope 
to gain from doing so?

-- 
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www.pacificwebguy.com

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oh, come on!  You were calling all believers stupid and ignorant, no matter how
open they are to the scientific method.  "Oh, you have all this evidence of how
things work and still believes in a almight being behind all?!  Loser!"

Basically, unless someone drops to your side of the fence because of all
scientific evidence says so, they are stupid and ignorant and don't know any
better.  I don't agree with that.

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Man, calm down and stop snorting.  I think the scientific way of argumenting
should be by providing some concise math formulae rather than writing long,
boring rants about ranting people...

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