1001. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #167254 by Goldy on April 23, 2008 at 7:24 pm

If you are so confident of your evolution THEORY, why allow me to rile you up so much

1002. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #167163 by Goldy on April 23, 2008 at 5:17 pm

Ask your resident guru scientist Mr. Zara about the horses tooth. One of many in the name of evolutionary science.

1003. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #167160 by Goldy on April 23, 2008 at 5:12 pm

You live past 40

Wow, that's science

Wow, that's science

Wow, that's science

Wow, that's science

Wow, that's science

Wow, that's science

Wow, that's science

Wow, that's science

Wow, that's science

Wow, that's science

Wow, that's science

1004. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #167158 by Goldy on April 23, 2008 at 5:09 pm

Come on. You must be aware of the prehistoric beast discovered in which the whole skeletal body was created. Unfortunately it didn't stand up to scrutiny since the only thing dug up turned up to be a horses tooth. That's it. One horse tooth and you get a whole skeletal creature. Wow, that's science. Why don't you educate yourself.

1005. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #167157 by Goldy on April 23, 2008 at 5:08 pm

Cretinism is just a theory too. Flawed and without a good back up of evidence (well, no real evidencial back up at all!).
Mind you, maybe his only version of evolution is that of Lamarck. In which case, yes, it is flawed. Luckily there are more than one evolutionary theories to ponder :-)
Can Mr IDiot give us non-religious ID source materiel? Something with graphs and numbers and years of research and peer reviewed - nothing too difficult.

1006. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #167146 by Goldy on April 23, 2008 at 5:00 pm

No wonder your THEORY is deep deep trouble.

1007. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167143 by Goldy on April 23, 2008 at 4:59 pm

And I never said that they did. Is it a reading comprehension problem, intellectual dishonesty, or a straw man that leads to your misrepresentation of what I wrote?

Do tell us about the non-existent scientific experiment where single-celled life was created from non-living materials without intelligent intervention

1008. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #167139 by Goldy on April 23, 2008 at 4:53 pm

IDiot - do you go with this micro/macro-evolution thing?

1009. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #167137 by Goldy on April 23, 2008 at 4:52 pm

We need to think about how to spread the message further; how to collaborate to ensure that religion does not stifle education.

What fossil record. The fossil discovery that already has be debunked or the discovery that is yet to be debunked or exposed. Anyone find a horse tooth recently?

1010. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #167101 by Goldy on April 23, 2008 at 4:02 pm

Thus evolutionary arguments can usefully be used as hints to suggest possible lines of research, but it is highly dangerous to trust them too much

1011. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167029 by Goldy on April 23, 2008 at 2:52 pm

Oh, dear. I tried, I really did. Up to where Remmers pisses off for the night (day?) and left a bunch of proofs, a lot of which involved Jesus. Honestly, Paul would be please such a simple man was so taken in.
A cretinist who has no concept of theory (it's so new to him he has to capitalise it). Does he not know if cretinism has to be taught, it too would be a theory? Or, in his case, a THEORY? And one with so much less evidence than evolution. Hell, it has less evidence than Lamarckian evolution :-)
Oh, hang on, I see he's still writing :-)

Do tell us about the non-existent scientific experiment where single-celled life was created from non-living materials without intelligent intervention

1012. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166227 by Goldy on April 23, 2008 at 2:50 am

Philip

So let me get this straight, you believe that God took 6 days to create EVERYTHING from scratch, including a human male made from clay and a woman made out of that man's rib.

1013. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166139 by Goldy on April 22, 2008 at 7:41 pm

The Peanut Gallery: Way to go Steve! You kicked his ass!

1014. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166128 by Goldy on April 22, 2008 at 7:17 pm

Kardy.....Jesus? As a break from time travel...

1015. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166127 by Goldy on April 22, 2008 at 7:14 pm

Accept Christ and all will be well.

1016. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166125 by Goldy on April 22, 2008 at 7:11 pm

Rem,

Truth is truth

1017. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166073 by Goldy on April 22, 2008 at 5:53 pm

The laws of nature did not exist until God created them. He is not subject to them. God is eternal. God is not limited by time. At the creation event, space, time, matter, and energy were created. God created time, He caused time. He is outside of time.

1018. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165970 by Goldy on April 22, 2008 at 4:23 pm

Something from nothing, life from no life - Remmers, you don't believe this?
Where does that leave Genesis? Or how did spirits tell you to translate that?

1019. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165967 by Goldy on April 22, 2008 at 4:21 pm

Remmers, what do you think of this tree?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7353357.stm

1020. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165964 by Goldy on April 22, 2008 at 4:19 pm

I said that an unbeliever cannot properly interpret Scripture without guidance from the Holy Spirit. You have not only proven that, you have also proven that you have a problem with reading comprehension as well.

1021. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165954 by Goldy on April 22, 2008 at 4:09 pm

Sure you do, the big bang (something from nothing), life from no life,

1022. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165895 by Goldy on April 22, 2008 at 2:28 pm

I'll give you a pass since your ignorance of what the Bible teaches is so blatant. I do have to admit that it is humorous to watch an atheist get all befuddled by their lack of Biblical knowledge though.

1023. Resentment Over Darwin Evolves Into a Documentary

Comment #165674 by Goldy on April 22, 2008 at 2:58 am

No one I know has even heard of this movie. If it comes to NZ, I dare say those that went to see Mr Hinn might be stupid enough to pay money to see it. No one else will.
I'm with Lucas - too much typing has been done on this site about it. The Mecca Meridien Time story is much more interesting.
Babrock, love your comments but I'm with Steve. Just say "the". Please!
Let's let this movie bomb quietly. Why give any credibility to it by even discussing it?

1024. If God Is Dead, Who Gets His House?

Comment #165671 by Goldy on April 22, 2008 at 2:39 am

Ummm, why don't they just go to the pub or something? Athiest church? What a silly concept!

1025. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165630 by Goldy on April 22, 2008 at 12:51 am

Some evolution has served a purpose.

You have acknowledged that humans have continued to evolve up until the present day.

1026. Mecca should become core to measure time zones: scholars

Comment #165596 by Goldy on April 21, 2008 at 6:47 pm

Islamic scholar, Zaghloul al-Najjar, said that the West did not like the scientific proofs that "Mecca was located in the centre of our planet, but nevertheless we will go on our research to establish it as a truth".

1027. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165595 by Goldy on April 21, 2008 at 6:43 pm

Theists, I have found Gr8hands, are like Chinese nationalists (being topical, of course - ALL nationalists are the same). Truth is what they want to believe. Facts are an inconvenience best ignored or rubbished.

1028. Mecca should become core to measure time zones: scholars

Comment #165574 by Goldy on April 21, 2008 at 5:47 pm

Yep, this caused a few laughs at the start of the day (I wake up to the BBC). I heard this and knew the world was an OK place to live :-)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7359258.stm

1029. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165517 by Goldy on April 21, 2008 at 2:50 pm

I grew up in a God-loving culture that doesn't believe in killing innocent babies or euthanizing the worthless. We don't start wars, we finish em'!In fact, my predecessers enjoyed killing Darwin-loving Nazis wherever they could find them. My Family considers it an Honor to give your life for others. And if God asks me (once again) to defend the innocent against the likes of you - I'll be seeing you soon....

Eugenics and the United States, 1890sâ€"1945
One of the earliest modern advocates of eugenics (before it was labeled as such) was Alexander Graham Bell. In 1881 Bell investigated the rate of deafness on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. From this he concluded that deafness was hereditary in nature and, through noting that congenitally deaf parents were more likely to produce deaf children, tentatively suggested that couples where both were deaf should not marry, in his lecture Memoir upon the formation of a deaf variety of the human race presented to the National Academy of Sciences on 13 November 1883.[28] However, it was his hobby of livestock breeding which led to his appointment to biologist David Starr Jordan's Committee on Eugenics, under the auspices of the American Breeders Association. The committee unequivocally extended the principle to man.[29] Like many other early eugenicists, Bell proposed controlling immigration for the purpose of eugenics, and warned that boarding schools for the deaf could possibly be considered as breeding places of a deaf human race.[citation needed]

Eugenics was supported by Woodrow Wilson, and, in 1907, helped to make Indiana the first of more than thirty states to adopt legislation aimed at compulsory sterilization of certain individuals.[30] Although the law was overturned by the Indiana Supreme Court in 1921,[31] the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a Virginia law allowing for the compulsory sterilization of patients of state mental institutions in 1927.[32]

Beginning with Connecticut in 1896, many states enacted marriage laws with eugenic criteria, prohibiting anyone who was "epileptic, imbecile or feeble-minded" from marrying. In 1898 Charles B. Davenport, a prominent American biologist, began as director of a biological research station based in Cold Spring Harbor where he experimented with evolution in plants and animals. In 1904 Davenport received funds from the Carnegie Institution to found the Station for Experimental Evolution. The Eugenics Record Office opened in 1910 while Davenport and Harry H. Laughlin began to promote eugenics.[33]

During the 20th century, researchers became interested in the idea that mental illness could run in families and conducted a number of studies to document the heritability of such illnesses as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. Their findings were used by the eugenics movement as proof for its cause. State laws were written in the late 1800s and early 1900s to prohibit marriage and force sterilization of the mentally ill in order to prevent the "passing on" of mental illness to the next generation. These laws were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1927 and were not abolished until the mid-20th century. By 1945 over 45,000 mentally ill individuals in the United States had been forcibly sterilized.[citation needed] All in all, 60,000 Americans suffered from sterilization.[34]

In years to come, the ERO collected a mass of family pedigrees and concluded that those who were unfit came from economically and socially poor backgrounds. Eugenicists such as Davenport, the psychologist Henry H. Goddard and the conservationist Madison Grant (all well respected in their time) began to lobby for various solutions to the problem of the "unfit". (Davenport favored immigration restriction and sterilization as primary methods; Goddard favored segregation in his The Kallikak Family; Grant favored all of the above and more, even entertaining the idea of extermination.)[35] Though their methodology and research methods are now understood as highly flawed, at the time this was seen as legitimate scientific research.[36] It did, however, have scientific detractors (notably, Thomas Hunt Morgan, one of the few Mendelians to explicitly criticize eugenics), though most of these focused more on what they considered the crude methodology of eugenicists, and the characterization of almost every human characteristic as being hereditary, rather than the idea of eugenics itself.[37]

Some states sterilized "imbeciles" for much of the 20th century. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1927 Buck v. Bell case that the state of Virginia could sterilize those it thought unfit. The most significant era of eugenic sterilization was between 1907 and 1963, when over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States.[38] A favorable report on the results of sterilization in California, the state with the most sterilizations by far, was published in book form by the biologist Paul Popenoe and was widely cited by the Nazi government as evidence that wide-reaching sterilization programs were feasible and humane. When Nazi administrators went on trial for war crimes in Nuremberg after World War II, they justified the mass sterilizations (over 450,000 in less than a decade) by citing the United States as their inspiration.[34]


A pedigree chart from The Kallikak Family meant to show how one illicit tryst could lead to an entire generation of imbeciles.The idea of "genius" and "talent" is also considered by William Graham Sumner, a founder of the American Sociological Society (now called the American Sociological Association). He maintained that if the government did not meddle with the social policy of laissez-faire, a class of genius would rise to the top of the system of social stratification, followed by a class of talent. Most of the rest of society would fit into the class of mediocrity. Those who were considered to be defective (mentally retarded, handicapped, etc.) had a negative effect on social progress by draining off necessary resources. They should be left on their own to sink or swim. But those in the class of delinquent (criminals, deviants, etc.) should be eliminated from society ("Folkways", 1907).


Anthropometry demonstrated in an exhibit from a 1921 eugenics conference.Eugenics is today often associated with racism and both W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey supported eugenics or ideas resembling eugenics as a way to reduce African American suffering and improve stature.[citation needed]. However, methods of eugenics were applied to reformulate more restrictive definitions of white racial purity in existing state laws banning interracial marriage: the so-called anti-miscegenation laws. The most famous example of the influence of eugenics and its emphasis on strict racial segregation on such "anti-miscegenation" legislation was Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned this law in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia, and declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional.

With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, eugenicists for the first time played an important role in the Congressional debate as expert advisers on the threat of "inferior stock"[citation needed] from eastern and southern Europe. This reduced the number of immigrants from abroad to 15 percent from previous years, to control the number of "unfit"[citation needed] individuals entering the country. While eugenicists did support the act, the most important backers were union leaders like Samuel Gompers[39]. The new act, inspired by the eugenic belief in the racial superiority of "old stock" white Americans as members of the "Nordic race" (a form of white supremacy), strengthened the position of existing laws prohibiting race- mixing.[40] Eugenic considerations also lay behind the adoption of incest laws in much of the U.S. and were used to justify many anti-miscegenation laws.[41]

Various authors, notably Stephen Jay Gould, have repeatedly asserted that restrictions on immigration passed in the United States during the 1920s (and overhauled in 1965 with the Immigration and Nationality Act) were motivated by the goals of eugenics.[citation needed] During the early 20th century, the United States and Canada began to receive far higher numbers of Southern and Eastern European immigrants. Influential eugenicists like Lothrop Stoddard and Harry Laughlin (who was appointed as an expert witness for the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization in 1920) presented arguments they would pollute the national gene pool if their numbers went unrestricted.[citation needed] It has been argued that this stirred both Canada and the United States into passing laws creating a hierarchy of nationalities, rating them from the most desirable Anglo-Saxon and Nordic peoples to the Chinese and Japanese immigrants, who were almost completely banned from entering the country.[42] However, several people, in particular Franz Samelson, Mark Snyderman and Richard Herrnstein, have argued, based on their examination of the records of the congressional debates over immigration policy, Congress gave virtually no consideration to these factors. According to these authors, the restrictions were motivated primarily by a desire to maintain the country's cultural integrity against a heavy influx of foreigners.[43] This interpretation is not, however, accepted by most historians of eugenics.

Some who disagree with the idea of eugenics in general contend that eugenics legislation still had benefits. Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood of America) found it a useful tool to urge the legalization of contraception. In its time eugenics was seen by many as scientific and progressive, the natural application of knowledge about breeding to the arena of human life. Before the death camps of World War II, the idea that eugenics could lead to genocide was not taken seriously.

1030. Ben Stein Vs. Sputtering Atheists

Comment #165027 by Goldy on April 21, 2008 at 12:05 am

Meanwhile, in the Indian subcontinent (not including Pakistan) and in China, men and women rub their hands in glee. After all, big name scientists bring prestige and money. Don't forget, the inventions and discoveries stay in their country. Yes, they love religion - it's sapping the progression of the one country that stands in their way....

1031. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164932 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 9:18 pm

I'll dig one out and PM it over.
Got to do the fundy god-bod number 10 right now and make a move homeward. If you don't hear from me tomorrow (my time) it's because I've had an accident. Or I've gone to bed with typical male pain reaction (you know, whimpers and general patheticness...)
G'nite - and remember, always wear PPE (personal protective equipment)!

1032. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164929 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 9:12 pm

RD.net gets some traffic, eh? How many people do you suppose have read my deranged rantings?

1033. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164924 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 8:59 pm

Shite. Sorry to hear it. FWIW, I understand that eyes are remarkably robust organs.

1034. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164922 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 8:58 pm

Nip over to the McGrath thread and leave a comment :-)

1035. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164919 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 8:56 pm

Did you get LASIK Goldy?

I don't buy that other universes are created by this process

1036. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164914 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 8:52 pm

If anyone else harbors the same question it is because of the weak grandfather paradox... Anytime you change the past, however trivially, you will change the future. You don't need to kill your granddad to affect your future self, so by definition 'you' cease to exist in the new, updated universe, even though a being much like you may take your place.

1037. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164908 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 8:43 pm

Does it bother you, Goldy.

1038. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164907 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 8:42 pm

Because He recreates Himself. The old one, the first one, no longer exists. A new one comes about with similar capabilities, but perhaps different attributes.

1039. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164899 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 8:30 pm

Ah well, no warp drive this year.

1040. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164895 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 8:27 pm

Every time that God goes back He ceases to exist, at least in His prior form

God didn't stop the first time... he has to optimize it.

A better question is to focus on the first time, and what came before it.

1041. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164837 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 6:28 pm

Still not sure how this works. If God does a whoopsy and ceases to exist, how can he come back and correct the mistake?

But the good news is, that once it happens, an arbitrarily powerful and clever God will be able to tune it to make His existence arrive sooner and sooner after t=0... even with the Adversary playing his own game.

1042. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164827 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 6:18 pm

Widenerd - argumentum ad stalinum/hitlerum doesn't further your point any. Go and read a bit before putting your foot delicately in your mouth.

What perplexes me beyond measure is why he is so angry with religion.

1043. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #164825 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 6:15 pm

Also long before the Christian religion was invented Neanderthals were caring fore each other...

1044. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164765 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 4:59 pm

But the good news is, that once it happens, an arbitrarily powerful and clever God will be able to tune it to make His existence arrive sooner and sooner after t=0... even with the Adversary playing his own game.

No Goldy. Jesus is patient. There is a dependency missing. It involves the discussion of the secular apocalypse...

1045. The simple falsehood at the heart of Expelled

Comment #164760 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 4:54 pm

One thing I know: Jesus Christ changed me, gave me the ability to love, rescued me from addiction that would have killed.

1046. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164755 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 4:50 pm

Kardy, is the following your apocalypse?
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html

1047. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164747 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 4:45 pm

This physical universe. I find the concept of the multiverse to be more unsettling than sacrificing causality.

In the mean time, perhaps you'd like to take a crack at the secular apocalypse. Chimeras, gray goo, nuclear holocaust, global warming, the so-called "singularity" (artificial intelligence)... do you think we'll make it to the next century, Goldy?

1048. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164729 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 4:10 pm

Oh, and my question regarding Jesus - you have never answered it...

1049. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164728 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 4:10 pm

That's ok, Goldy. I wouldn't want to derail your weekly regimen of lsd and habenero enemas.

You didn't apologise for being late this time, Goldy. What gives? I can see we'll need to work up a fresh guilt trip.

I hope you managed to sneak a quaff of communion juice since last we talked.

1050. Religion is 'the new social evil'

Comment #164726 by Goldy on April 20, 2008 at 3:59 pm

I am a christian, I believe in God and that the Bible is a representation of absolute truth. I choose to be so not because I was spoonfed these ideals, but because at some point in the past I made a careful decision based on independent observations. To be dismissed as "weak-minded" or "stupid" for holding to heart a set of absolute principles, I find quite amusing, given my own background and contributions to genetics and oncology, as well as the courage to go against the grain of societal pressure. Many commenting on this issue are not philosophically inclined. Most cannot even challenge the precepts they've internalised since early childhood through a liberalist education and media. The reactions below almost mimic coping patterns, and are quite predictable; seven or eight years or so back I would probably have done the same.

Jim, London, UK