OT: Huckabee, Ughh

"Joe AutoDrill" wrote

> You missed the point during your sarcastic reply. If there are no long
term
> consequences or higher moral standards for people to follow, many would
> degrade into selfish, self-serving oxygen theives under (and maybe even
> without) the infleunce of power. Why do you think that congress / the
> government is so corrupt? There are no real consequences for them other
> than embarassment.

Agreed ... formula below:

(Ignorance of Adam Smith capitalism with moral base/"economic man" as moral
man) + (Law school curriculums blurring distinction between morality and
legality) + (lawyer politician/lawmakers) + (corporate greed) = (Corrupt,
morally and economically bankrupt, culture)

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 12/14/07
KarlC@ (the obvious)

I'm really glad to see such civil discourse. I really wanted to speak
out but was quite worried that is would generate flames.

On Jan 4, 7:29=A0am, dpb <[email protected]> wrote:
> SonomaProducts.com wrote:
> > The "Wall of seperation" was penned by Thomas Jefferson during his
> > term as president. It was in a letter in response...speaking to the prot=
ection of
> > the church and their religious freedom and not the protection of the
> > state. More specifically to the churches right to organize and be
> > active in civic affairs (vote in their guy). And they both stress
> > that it is the civic duty of the religious to exercise their "natural
> > right" and their "right to conscience" commonly interpreted to mean
> > they should be active in civic affairs such as campaigning, etc. So I
> > would contend that the legislative intent of the first amendment is
> > at least equally strong in both the establishment and restrictive
> > clauses.
>
> ...
>
> By coincidence I've been reading memoirs of W T Sherman -- last night
> got to point where the Union had recaptured Fort Sumter. =A0On the day of
> the fourth anniversary of its surrender, there was a major observance
> during which the specific flag which had been flown at the time of
> surrender was re-raised, salutes in tribute and acknowledgment were
> fired from the same batteries which had performed the bombardment and
> there was a program. =A0The order of the program was to open w/ prayer and=

> the address was by an ordained preacher. =A0The "separation" so extolled
> by the present-day folk as a tenet is, as noted above, absolutely not
> the same thing as most now take it to be.
>
> It was, of course, simply that there was a strong aversion to the
> founding of an actual state-sponsored and/or required religion and/or
> church, _not_ that there should be no religious observation.
>
> --

On Jan 5, 1:22=A0am, Mark & Juanita <[email protected]> wrote:
> Robatoy wrote:
> > On Jan 4, 6:19=A0pm, Mark & Juanita <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Meet the first family:
>
> >http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o290/Robatoy/huckfamily.jpg
> > That is NOT photoshopped.
>
> > He reminds me of him:
> >http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o290/Robatoy/gomer2.jpg
>
> > Is that what you want, Mark? Really?
>
> =A0 As opposed to this?
> <http://www.zombietime.com/really_truly_hillary_gallery/Hillary55.jpg>
>
> =A0 Reminds me of: <http://www.scaredwhitewitches.com/pic5.jpg>

Touch=E9.

LOL. I thoroughly despise Clinton. She's a neo-con.... even worse than
that Bilderberger Edwards.
Obama is by far the best the dems have. My gut instinct tells me he's
a moral man will good intentions. In relative terms, you understand.


>
> =A0 Absolutely. =A0
>
> =A0 Huckabee isn't my top pick, but looking at the other side's alternativ=
es,
> he is head and shoulders above that.

"At the other side's alternatives" I'll give you that without the head
and shoulders and Obama.

>
> =A0 In general, winning Iowa doesn't really mean that candidate is going t=
o
> win the nomination.

Therein lies the hope for Ron Paul. I think he has as much moral fibre
as Huckabee without the disastrous track record. Huck's pardon record
tells me something... he wants to be liked a little too much. If you
drop party lines, you want a guy that is up to the job of putting your
great country back on track. You also want a guy who you can't mess
with. McCain is such a guy. You can scare Huck too easily.

As an outsider, and for purely selfish reasons which include ending up
with a nice neighbour, I'd pick Paul, Obama, McCain in that order for
a myriad of reasons.
>
> =A0 What I really want is a true conservative to win, most of the leaders
> right now fall more into the populist camp than the conservative camp.

The liberal/conservative line is so damned blurry, let's just hope for
a guy who can do the job.
In a stretch of reality: An Obama/Paul ticket would be as cool as
anything. (As opposed to a Paul/Obama, which couldn't get elected) And
give the Sec Defence to Wesley Clark, maybe Edwards for AG (mmmmm he
worries me with that Bilderberg shit.). Bill Clinton for State?
=2E..and make Christopher Walken head of the CIA. *G*

BTW, I think Obama/Paul would be one helluva team. But who has those
kinda gonads, eh?

On Thu, 3 Jan 2008 21:08:17 -0500, "GarageWoodworks" <.@.> wrote:

>I am referring to the Iowa Caucuses. :^(
>

*starts practicing speaking in tongues*

On Jan 4, 7:45 am, "Joe AutoDrill" <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> Christian right (CR) is locked in. I was hopeful that Guliani would win
> >> for the Reps because he wouldn't pull as much of the CR.
> >> Former preacher as Pres? "Wall of Separation" between church and
> >> state???? Scary.
>
> > Check your constititution, no "wall of separation" between church and
> > state is even remotely mentioned. The idea is patently absurd as it would
> > require people elected to office to operate in a manner inconsistent with
> > their conscience.
>
> > What the constitution does say is that "Congress shall make no law
> > regarding the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise
> > thereof" Pretty straightforward
>
> Agreed... I'm not pushing for any one candidate jsut yet. I want to see
> what floats to the top or sinks to the bottom at this point... But... The
> separation of church and state was to keep the state out of the church, not
> the other way around... Morals and concience are based on religion for many
> people. Remove the religion and you might as well have a free-for-all
> because there is no long term accountability beyond the human aspect of
> life.


If the only thing that keeps you from killing ppl is a belief in an
Invisible Sky King then, by all means, keep believing...

On Sat, 5 Jan 2008 02:39:21 -0800 (PST), Robatoy
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On Jan 5, 5:23 am, "Rod & Betty Jo" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Robatoy wrote:

>>
>> Why?......While having a very successful "sue them till it hurts"
>> career.....his gift is with juries not necessarily the law.... If he could
>> pick voters like he picks juries he might go somewhere President wise but he
>> can't.
>
>I was more thinking of him going after corrupt contractors and such
>with the same vigour he used to nail the tobacco companies. He
>preaches a corporate clean-up.
>>

LOL, kind of like his esteemed colleague Dickie Scruggs.


Frank

"GarageWoodworks" <.@.> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Christian right (CR) is locked in. I was hopeful that Guliani would win
> for the Reps because he wouldn't pull as much of the CR.
> Former preacher as Pres? "Wall of Separation" between church and
> state???? Scary.
>

GW:

Quite. There was a newspaper story about him holding up a disaster relief
bill in
his state for a month because he refused to accept inclusion of the ancient
legal
phrase "act of god".
Add that to another one that pointed out his interference in the parole
process of
a violent felon whom he had prayed with. Though he denies instructing board
members
what to do in this case, they refute him. After the criminal got out, he did
a murder which
checking may show also involved a rape.

Regards,

Edward Hennessey

GarageWoodworks wrote:

> Christian right (CR) is locked in. I was hopeful that Guliani would win
> for the Reps because he wouldn't pull as much of the CR.
> Former preacher as Pres? "Wall of Separation" between church and
> state???? Scary.

Check your constititution, no "wall of separation" between church and
state is even remotely mentioned. The idea is patently absurd as it would
require people elected to office to operate in a manner inconsistent with
their conscience.

What the constitution does say is that "Congress shall make no law
regarding the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof" Pretty straightforward

--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough

"GarageWoodworks" wrote:

> Christian right (CR) is locked in.

IMHO, best thing that could happen to the Democrats.

The country is looking for meaningful change, not a continuation of
the "My way or the highway" literal interpretation religious
rhetoric.of the far right religious group.

We had tried that way the last 7 years.

Lew

Larry Blanchard wrote:
> On Thu, 03 Jan 2008 21:51:52 -0800, [email protected] wrote:
>
>> And just
>> today Georgie said that he though the theories of evolution and
>> creationism should be taught side by side so the students can pick
>> and choose what they believe.
>
> Equating a scientific theory with an unsupported belief is not a sign
> of evenhandedness, it's a sign of ignorance.


Merely slapping "scientific" on a theory does not indicate something other
than ignorance as well.......It takes no greater leap of faith to believe in
religion than it does for a belief in evolution. There is absolutely no
factual or observed basis of one specie becoming another nor is there any
basis for life springing forth from a chemical soup......belief in either
whether true or otherwise requires faith. Without these, evolution merely
demonstrates (with reasonable proof) than a given organism can change or
adapt.....a far cry from life springing forth from rocks and the problem as
well of the origin of the rock....... Rod

Jeff wrote:

> On Jan 3, 10:16 pm, Mark & Juanita <[email protected]> wrote:
>> GarageWoodworks wrote:
>> > Christian right (CR) is locked in. I was hopeful that Guliani would
>> > win for the Reps because he wouldn't pull as much of the CR.
>> > Former preacher as Pres? "Wall of Separation" between church and
>> > state???? Scary.
>>
>> Check your constititution, no "wall of separation" between church and
>> state is even remotely mentioned. The idea is patently absurd as it
>> would require people elected to office to operate in a manner
>> inconsistent with their conscience.
>>
>> What the constitution does say is that "Congress shall make no law
>> regarding the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise
>> thereof" Pretty straightforward
>>
>
> It's also pretty straight forward that "no religious test shall ever
> be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the
> United States." Yet what we've seen - at least on the Republican side
> - is precisely that. Romney felt compelled to comment on his religious
> views, to tell the faithful that his Jesus was Jesusy enough. No
> matter. Iowa Republicans went with the most Christianly candidate they
> could find.
>

Yet you are applying a religious test of your own. Because Huckabee is an
open person of faith, you are indicating that he is unworthy of holding
office and are projecting upon the citizens of Iowa that the only reason
they are choosing him is because of religion.



--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

> NoOne N Particular wrote:
> <SNIP>
>
>> To those who want to vote for Ron Paul, he is just the Ross Perot of
>> 2008. Not a chance in hell of winning, but every chance of insuring a
>> Democrat victory.
>>
>> Wayne
>
> So what? There isn't all that much difference between the Rs and the Ds
> anymore. Different dogs, same fleas...

You can really say that with a straight face? You honestly don't believe
that a Hillary, Obama, or Edwards would be a bigger disaster to this
country's freedoms and underpinnings than a win by Gulianni, Romney,
Huckabee, or Thompson?


--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough

Robatoy wrote:

> On Jan 4, 6:19 pm, Mark & Juanita <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Meet the first family:
>
> http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o290/Robatoy/huckfamily.jpg
> That is NOT photoshopped.
>
> He reminds me of him:
> http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o290/Robatoy/gomer2.jpg
>
> Is that what you want, Mark? Really?

As opposed to this?
<http://www.zombietime.com/really_truly_hillary_gallery/Hillary55.jpg>

Reminds me of: <http://www.scaredwhitewitches.com/pic5.jpg>

Absolutely.

Huckabee isn't my top pick, but looking at the other side's alternatives,
he is head and shoulders above that.

In general, winning Iowa doesn't really mean that candidate is going to
win the nomination.

What I really want is a true conservative to win, most of the leaders
right now fall more into the populist camp than the conservative camp.

--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough

Robatoy wrote:

>And give the Sec Defence to Wesley Clark,

Why would you think he would be competent for any post? The last decade of
his career and subsequent comments surely don't inspire such confidence.

>maybe Edwards for AG (mmmmm he
> worries me with that Bilderberg shit.).

Why?......While having a very successful "sue them till it hurts"
career.....his gift is with juries not necessarily the law.... If he could
pick voters like he picks juries he might go somewhere President wise but he
can't.



>Bill Clinton for State?

Why? His softball take few risks, promise lots, defer anything difficult to
succeeding administrations while delivering little and appeasing Muslim's
at will administration is no poster boy for successful foreign policy.
Rod

Larry Blanchard wrote:
>
> Don't know about Jeff, but I'm applying a reality test. Anyone who
> says the Earth is only 6000 years old has a very tenuous grip on
> reality.


Very few Christians believe that the earth is only 6000 years old and
apparently neither does Huckabee .....he does however believe in a creative
process if I may quote.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3140255
Huckabee said he has no problem with teaching evolution as a theory in the
public schools and he doesn't expect schools to teach creationism.

"We shouldn't indoctrinate kids in school," he said. "I wouldn't want them
teaching creationism as if it's the only thing that they should teach."

Also, students should be given credit for having the intelligence to think
through various theories for themselves and come to their own conclusions,
he said.

He said it was his responsibility to teach his children his beliefs though
he could accept that others believe in evolution.

"I believe that there is a God and that he put the process in motion,"
Huckabee said.

The former Arkansas governor said about the evolution question: "I'm not
sure what in the world that has to do with being president of the United
States."



Oddly in the creator Vs evolution debate generally the evolutionists are
intolerant, wish absolute control of the message and generally ridicule
contrary views...surely not a path to great science.....Rod

> Tim Daneliuk wrote:

This guy has more lives than a cat.

Put him in the kill file, you guys keep dragging him back.

Give me a break.

As long as you keep playing with crap, you're going to get some on you.

Lew

"Fred the Red Shirt" wrote:
> Plenty of people said that after 4 years, just
> not enough. As in 2004, we may see the
> majority of voters voting against the other
> candidate, instead of for 'theirs'.

After the events in Iowa last week, it is clear that "the winds of change"
are blowing.

The general population is just fed up with the current situation.

As the old saying goes, "A new broom sweeps clean".

I have the distinct feeling there is going to be a lot of "sweeping" in the
upcoming election.

Lew

Fred the Red Shirt wrote:
>> Tis an age-old argument.
>
> Is man inherently good or inherently evil?
>
> I opt for good. Most people left free to make their own decisions
> avoid hurting other people. People will argue and fight with each
> other, but it takes a believe in a higher authority (e.g. fascism,
> communism, or religion) to get them to unite in mass murder.


And Rwanda was which of the three?

Rod

J. Clarke wrote:
> Rod & Betty Jo wrote:
>> Fred the Red Shirt wrote:
>>>> Tis an age-old argument.
>>>
>>> Is man inherently good or inherently evil?
>>>
>>> I opt for good. Most people left free to make their own decisions
>>> avoid hurting other people. People will argue and fight with each
>>> other, but it takes a believe in a higher authority (e.g. fascism,
>>> communism, or religion) to get them to unite in mass murder.
>>
>>
>> And Rwanda was which of the three?
>
> One reason Africa gets ignored and efforts to "help the Africans" fail
> is that it doesn't fit in with what "enlightened" people want to
> believe.
>
Rwanda was originally proffered to dispel the silly point Fred attempted to
make....

I don't know whom these enlightened people are but I'd think the problem
lies a bit closer to home......anything short of overwhelming exterior force
require local participants to make the right choices.....akin to the drug
addict or the alcoholic, recovery starts within. Rod

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
> Rod & Betty Jo wrote:
> You are being very "transgressive" and "culturally insensitive".
> I suggest you get more PC by reading:
>
> http://philip.greenspun.com/zoo/index

I'm so ashamed......I'll try to make a determined effort to forget
everything I know including facts, truisms and reality<G>....Rod

GarageWoodworks wrote:
> Christian right (CR) is locked in. I was hopeful that Guliani would win
> for the Reps because he wouldn't pull as much of the CR.
> Former preacher as Pres? "Wall of Separation" between church and state????
> Scary.
>
>
The number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin is somewhat
greater than the entire sperm whale population of northwest Nebraska.

boop.
jo4hn

Larry Blanchard wrote:

> On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:57:26 -0600, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>
>> But the R-E method has real limits - notably an
>> inability to comment on First Cause
>
> Thus the only possible comment is "I don't know."
>

Thus, your position for the origin of the universe has not and cannot
solve that primary problem: first cause. Therefore, your position is also
reduced to the same position as any other religion. At least religion
recognizes that a cause must have been present for an effect to occur. As
others have pointed out, this is a totally consistent position because the
theological position is that God is eternal having no beginning nor end,
thus not needing a cause to exist or come into existence.

You can dress up all the esoteric math you want, the fact of the matter is
that if you have nothing, and do nothing, it doesn't matter how long that
nothing sets there, nothing will happen. If one postulates that something
must happen without a cause, then one of the fundamental tenets of science
and logic has just been suspended. But, that is the primary element of the
Big Bang theory of modern cosmology that essentially states: nothing +
nothing + lots of time = everything.


> This discussion is going nowhere - count me out as of this post.

--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough

GarageWoodworks wrote:

>> You can dress up all the esoteric math you want, the fact of the matter
>> is
>> that if you have nothing, and do nothing, it doesn't matter how long that
>> nothing sets there, nothing will happen.
>
> Wrong. I encourage you to read about Hawkings "Vacuum Fluctuations".
> This from a NASA website:
> http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/research/warp/possible.html
>
> "Zero Point Energy (ZPE), or vacuum fluctuation energy are terms used to
> describe the random electromagnetic oscillations that are left in a vacuum
> after all other energy has been removed. If you remove all the energy from
> a space, take out all the matter, all the heat, all the light...
> everything -- you will find that there is still some energy left. One way
> to explain this is from the uncertainty principle from quantum physics
> that implies that it is impossible to have an absolutely zero energy
> condition."
>
> More here on Vacuum Fluctuations from Hawking: Taken from :
> http://www.braungardt.com/Physics/Vacuum%20Fluctuation.htm :
>

But even here you are describing phenomena in the existent universe, not
the condition prior to the postulated origin of the universe. Even in this
case, you have a problem in that you have no way that a pre-universal
singularity could have existed in stasis for an infinite amount of time
prior to the big bang.


> "There are something like ten million million million million million
> million million million million million million million million million (1
> with eighty [five] zeroes after it) particles in the region of the
> universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is
> that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the
> form of particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of
> where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the
> universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of
> positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity.
> Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than
> the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to
> separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them
> together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy.
> In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can
> show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive
> energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is
> zero. (Hawking, 1988, 129) "
>
>>If one postulates that something
>> must happen without a cause,
>
> Negated above.
>

No, not at all. You have created an even greater problem for yourself
because now your cosmic egg could not exist in stasis. If it could not
exist in stasis it had to have an origin. If it had an origin, you have no
modern theory of cosmology.



>> then one of the fundamental tenets of science
>> and logic has just been suspended. But, that is the primary element of
>> the Big Bang theory of modern cosmology that essentially states: nothing
>> + nothing + lots of time = everything.
>
> Big bang doesn't state that nothing + nothing ... It states that the
> universe is expanding PERIOD. Based on the theory, if everything is
> expanding, we must assume that it was once all together (non-expanded).
> The question becomes "where did all that stuff come from that eventually
> expanded?" God?
>

By your commentary above, you have not addressed the issue of origin at
all.


> Enter: The Conservation of Mass-Energy (See Hawking above)

--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough

On Jan 5, 7:13 pm, "J. Clarke" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Larry Blanchard wrote:
> > On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 11:41:46 -0800, SonomaProducts.com wrote:
>
> >> I agree you can say many of the founding fathers had a dim view of
> >> "Religion" but that should not be construed to support any
> >> contention
> >> that they weren't "God fearing Christians". They surely were
> >> believers in public and private.
>
> > Sorry, wrong. Most were deists. Read their writings. Certainly
> > Jefferson was, and I think Paine and Franklin were as well.
>
> http://www.adherents.com/gov/Founding_Fathers_Religion.html
>
> Three does not a majority make. Further, deists _are_ "believers".
>

True enough, but it does NOT imply Christians, as hard as that is for
many Christians to understand.

Rod & Betty Jo wrote:
<SNIP>

>
> Oddly in the creator Vs evolution debate generally the evolutionists are
> intolerant, wish absolute control of the message and generally ridicule
> contrary views...surely not a path to great science.....Rod


1) It is not a path to great science. But whereas science itself
is bias free (when done properly), *scientists* and science groupies
are not.

2) The debate should never be creation vs. science. They address rather
different questions. The only people who have this problem are:

a) Literal 7-day creationist (who have some other exegetical problems -
I know, I was educated among them)

b) Scientists who prostitute science to make it the be-all and end-all
of human knowledge.


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On Jan 5, 10:23 am, "Rod & Betty Jo" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Robatoy wrote:
>
> ...
>
> >Bill Clinton for State?
>
> Why? His softball take few risks, promise lots, defer anything difficult to
> succeeding administrations while delivering little and appeasing Muslim's
> at will administration is no poster boy for successful foreign policy.
> Rod

While on the subject of appeasing Muslims, just weeks after Osama
bin Laden was identified as the mastermind behind the bombing of
the Cole:


"The State Department officially released its annual terrorism report
just a little more than an hour ago, but unlike last year, there's no
extensive mention of alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. A
senior State Department official tells CNN the U.S. government made a
mistake in focusing so much energy on bin Laden and 'personalizing
terrorism.'"

-- CNN, 4/30/2001.

--

FF

On Jan 4, 6:19=A0pm, Mark & Juanita <[email protected]> wrote:

Meet the first family:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o290/Robatoy/huckfamily.jpg
That is NOT photoshopped.

He reminds me of him:
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o290/Robatoy/gomer2.jpg

Is that what you want, Mark? Really?

I like all of our American history but most of my ineterst is in the
War Between the States and the surrounding years. Before that time it
wouldn't have really matter much what the federal government did about
religon or most other issues. Of course after that time we were no
longer "A" united states government but "THE" United States.

On Jan 4, 7:29=A0am, dpb <[email protected]> wrote:
> SonomaProducts.com wrote:
> > The "Wall of seperation" was penned by Thomas Jefferson during his
> > term as president. It was in a letter in response...speaking to the prot=
ection of
> > the church and their religious freedom and not the protection of the
> > state. More specifically to the churches right to organize and be
> > active in civic affairs (vote in their guy). And they both stress
> > that it is the civic duty of the religious to exercise their "natural
> > right" and their "right to conscience" commonly interpreted to mean
> > they should be active in civic affairs such as campaigning, etc. So I
> > would contend that the legislative intent of the first amendment is
> > at least equally strong in both the establishment and restrictive
> > clauses.
>
> ...
>
> By coincidence I've been reading memoirs of W T Sherman -- last night
> got to point where the Union had recaptured Fort Sumter. =A0On the day of
> the fourth anniversary of its surrender, there was a major observance
> during which the specific flag which had been flown at the time of
> surrender was re-raised, salutes in tribute and acknowledgment were
> fired from the same batteries which had performed the bombardment and
> there was a program. =A0The order of the program was to open w/ prayer and=

> the address was by an ordained preacher. =A0The "separation" so extolled
> by the present-day folk as a tenet is, as noted above, absolutely not
> the same thing as most now take it to be.
>
> It was, of course, simply that there was a strong aversion to the
> founding of an actual state-sponsored and/or required religion and/or
> church, _not_ that there should be no religious observation.
>
> --

Brian Henderson wrote:
> rOn Sat, 5 Jan 2008 19:13:29 -0500, "J. Clarke"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Three does not a majority make. Further, deists _are_ "believers".
>
> Believers, sure. Christians? No. The majority of the founding
> fathers had little good to say about Christianity and most of them had
> pretty much nothing good to say about organized religion in general.

You need to go read some U.S. history. This paragraph above is
mostly wrong. It is true that Deists are not necessarily Christian.
It is false that the "majority" of the FFs had "little good to say
about Christianity". Most of them were steeped in it at some level.
And most of them were silent on the question of organized religion,
at least as near as I can tell. A good many were, in fact, quite
devout in their personal faith as their many letters and other
writing attest.

You are, of course, free to disagree with them, but rewriting
history to sanitize it of religious references because it makes
your rationalist hackles go up is at least bad manners, and verges
on outright fraud.

P.S. It is just as fraudulent for the religious right to claim the FFs
as their own and turn them all into orthodox Conservative
Baptists. I'd suggest we just let the FFs be what they were -
brilliant, all over the place, sometimes inconsistent, occasionally
wrong, etc. Jamming them into today's political and cultural
filters is foolish and betrays the truth of this nation's history.

P.P.S. Your "most had little good to say..." probably comes from
isolated readings of Paine and Franklin. You might want
to consider reading two books that will give you a far more
balanced and thoughtful view of those times: "Patriots" by
Languth and "John Adams" by McCullough.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On Jan 4, 12:59 am, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 04:20:20 +0000, Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
>
> > "GarageWoodworks" <.@.> wrote in message
> >news:[email protected]...
> >> Christian right (CR) is locked in. I was hopeful that Guliani would win
> >> for the Reps because he wouldn't pull as much of the CR.
> >> Former preacher as Pres? "Wall of Separation" between church and
> >> state???? Scary.
>
> > 60% of the caucus goers were born again Christians. That won't hold up in
> > the rest of the states. He won't be the next President.
>
> Let's see - everyone made fun of Kucinich (sp?) and his UFO story, but
> voted for a man that says the Earth is only 6000 years old! At least Bush
> occasionally visits reality, Huckabee doesn't even know what it is :-).

When was the last time Georgie Boy paid a visit to real life? Age 9 or
10?

I agree you can say many of the founding fathers had a dim view of
"Religion" but that should not be construed to support any contention
that they weren't "God fearing Christians". They surely were believers
in public and private.

On Jan 4, 9:23=A0am, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 10:54:56 -0600, dpb wrote:
> > =A0(Again, I'm not promoting religion,
> > simply pointing out that what is presently being practiced is _FAR_
> > different than the observations and intentions and actions of those
> > involved in the beginning who established the rules as compared to the
> > interpretations of present day.)
>
> But those rules were made by politicians in a land whose predominant
> culture was Protestant Christianity. =A0There was a limit as to what they
> could say without losing all support. =A0For example, if you read the
> private writings of Jefferson you'll find a much less benign view of
> religion.

On Jan 4, 6:42 pm, "Rod & Betty Jo" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Larry Blanchard wrote:
>
>...
> There is absolutely no
> factual or observed basis of one specie becoming another
> ...

Other than the fossil record and DNA...

--

FF

On Jan 5, 12:58 pm, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> Charlie Self wrote:
> > On Jan 5, 12:05 pm, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 11:41:46 -0800, SonomaProducts.com wrote:
> >>> I agree you can say many of the founding fathers had a dim view of
> >>> "Religion" but that should not be construed to support any contention
> >>> that they weren't "God fearing Christians". They surely were believers
> >>> in public and private.
> >> Sorry, wrong. Most were deists. Read their writings. Certainly
> >> Jefferson was, and I think Paine and Franklin were as well.
>
> > You gotta remember, though, that many Christians cannot accept that
> > someone is a deist if they don't believe as the Christian believes. If
> > you don't believe in Christ and the Trinity, then you, by definition,
> > are NOT a deist.
>
> Huh? That entire parapgraph is incoherent. A "theist" is someone
> who believes in God. A Judeo-Christian believer is a theist who
> believes God is personally knowable and has expressed Himself
> in a number of ways humans can apprehend (General Revelation [nature],
> Special Revelation [the Bible], the advent of Jesus, etc.).
> A *deist* is some who believes there is a creating God but one
> who "wound up the clock of nature" and walked away - in effect
> deists believe in a Creator, but not a personally knowable one.
>
>
>
> > The gyrations some locals go through to show that scientific theory is
> > on a par with creationism are absolutely incredible. So far, science
> > has sort of won, but I'd bet if we get another committed born-again in
> > the White House, we can kiss that goodbye, and start bowing down to
> > intelligent creation, a newer form of myth.
>
> The ignorance that most self-proclaimed modern "sophisticated thinkers"
> exhibit in this matter is profound. Science in its perfect form
> can only ever be about *how things work*. Science cannot - by its
> very definition - speak to questions like "Where did it come from?",
> "Why is it here?" or "What does it mean?" That's why it is perfectly
> possible to acknowledge the value of science, accepting its results
> where they are valid, and at the same time be personally devout in
> one's faith. Only the truly arrogant (and ignorant) think science
> trumps theology. The fact that a few people have misused religion
> and abused science does not speak to the larger issue in any meaningful
> way.
>
>
>
> > Bush is talked to by God. I'd guess that Huckster is, too, or, like
> > Bush, believes he is. He probably believed the same when he got the
> > stomach banding that he know calls willpower and diet. Or maybe it was
> > God that told him that the Writers' Guild had ended their strike for
> > the talk shows (another facile lie to try to keep from upsetting his
> > heavy load of union supporters).
>
> And scientists have "Aha Moments!", mathematicians pursue "hunches",
> philosophers "contemplate". Your arrogance is exceeded only by
> your ignorance. The human thought/creative process is complicated.
> It is not easily expressed in words. People faced with difficult
> decisions find various ways to work through them. It is hardly
> your place to decide which methods are- and are not "acceptable"
> until/unless every single thing you do is rooted *exclusively*
> in a rational process - something NO functioning human can claim.
>
>
>
> > Basically, one pseudo-relgious nut a century is sufficient for the
> > U.S., IMO, and I dont' give a damn what Locke or Adams or even
> > Jefferson or even my leading founding father, Ben Franklin, would
> > think. I feel that Eric Hoffer was right: True Believers do too damned
> > much damage to make up for any good they may do.
>
> Yeah, unlike those fine "rational" atheists/anti-religionists of the
> 20th Century that were responsible for ... lessee now ... about 100
> MILLION dead. You fear the leader with a life of faith. I fear a
> conscience-free atheist who thinks science has all the answers, there
> is no God to whom they answer, and they are free to do whatever they
> wish. This has nothing to do with defending a particular religious
> tradition. It has to do with the observable damage that secular
> atheists have wrought upon mankind which is many orders of magnitude
> worse in kind and scale than all the abuses by religionists over
> history.
>
> Oh, and one more thing - it took people of Judeo-Christian faith to do
> something in Western culture that NO one had done for the preceding
> 9000 years: get rid of slavery. Slavery is recorded in almost every
> part of the human history we have available. It was those "religious
> nuts" in Western Europe and the U.S. that forced their respective
> nations to face the moral foul that is slavery. They did this in less
> that 500 whereas slavery had been nicely tolerated by virtually every
> culture for the preceding nine millennia. So before you blather on
> about the evils of religion, you might try and acquaint yourself with
> some slight understanding of factual Reality, because the absence of
> religion - Judeo-Christianity in particular - has done a whole lot
> more harm than its presence. I can provide more examples if you like.
>

Tim, I know that comes as an amazing surprise to you, but to be called
ignorant by an overweening asshole like you is a compliment.

Enjoy the rest of your life with the beliefs you now hold.

May they bring you all the joy you deserve.

On Jan 5, 2:34 pm, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> Charlie Self wrote:
> > On Jan 5, 12:58 pm, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> Charlie Self wrote:
> >>> On Jan 5, 12:05 pm, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>>> On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 11:41:46 -0800, SonomaProducts.com wrote:
> >>>>> I agree you can say many of the founding fathers had a dim view of
> >>>>> "Religion" but that should not be construed to support any contention
> >>>>> that they weren't "God fearing Christians". They surely were believers
> >>>>> in public and private.
> >>>> Sorry, wrong. Most were deists. Read their writings. Certainly
> >>>> Jefferson was, and I think Paine and Franklin were as well.
> >>> You gotta remember, though, that many Christians cannot accept that
> >>> someone is a deist if they don't believe as the Christian believes. If
> >>> you don't believe in Christ and the Trinity, then you, by definition,
> >>> are NOT a deist.
> >> Huh? That entire parapgraph is incoherent. A "theist" is someone
> >> who believes in God. A Judeo-Christian believer is a theist who
> >> believes God is personally knowable and has expressed Himself
> >> in a number of ways humans can apprehend (General Revelation [nature],
> >> Special Revelation [the Bible], the advent of Jesus, etc.).
> >> A *deist* is some who believes there is a creating God but one
> >> who "wound up the clock of nature" and walked away - in effect
> >> deists believe in a Creator, but not a personally knowable one.
>
> >>> The gyrations some locals go through to show that scientific theory is
> >>> on a par with creationism are absolutely incredible. So far, science
> >>> has sort of won, but I'd bet if we get another committed born-again in
> >>> the White House, we can kiss that goodbye, and start bowing down to
> >>> intelligent creation, a newer form of myth.
> >> The ignorance that most self-proclaimed modern "sophisticated thinkers"
> >> exhibit in this matter is profound. Science in its perfect form
> >> can only ever be about *how things work*. Science cannot - by its
> >> very definition - speak to questions like "Where did it come from?",
> >> "Why is it here?" or "What does it mean?" That's why it is perfectly
> >> possible to acknowledge the value of science, accepting its results
> >> where they are valid, and at the same time be personally devout in
> >> one's faith. Only the truly arrogant (and ignorant) think science
> >> trumps theology. The fact that a few people have misused religion
> >> and abused science does not speak to the larger issue in any meaningful
> >> way.
>
> >>> Bush is talked to by God. I'd guess that Huckster is, too, or, like
> >>> Bush, believes he is. He probably believed the same when he got the
> >>> stomach banding that he know calls willpower and diet. Or maybe it was
> >>> God that told him that the Writers' Guild had ended their strike for
> >>> the talk shows (another facile lie to try to keep from upsetting his
> >>> heavy load of union supporters).
> >> And scientists have "Aha Moments!", mathematicians pursue "hunches",
> >> philosophers "contemplate". Your arrogance is exceeded only by
> >> your ignorance. The human thought/creative process is complicated.
> >> It is not easily expressed in words. People faced with difficult
> >> decisions find various ways to work through them. It is hardly
> >> your place to decide which methods are- and are not "acceptable"
> >> until/unless every single thing you do is rooted *exclusively*
> >> in a rational process - something NO functioning human can claim.
>
> >>> Basically, one pseudo-relgious nut a century is sufficient for the
> >>> U.S., IMO, and I dont' give a damn what Locke or Adams or even
> >>> Jefferson or even my leading founding father, Ben Franklin, would
> >>> think. I feel that Eric Hoffer was right: True Believers do too damned
> >>> much damage to make up for any good they may do.
> >> Yeah, unlike those fine "rational" atheists/anti-religionists of the
> >> 20th Century that were responsible for ... lessee now ... about 100
> >> MILLION dead. You fear the leader with a life of faith. I fear a
> >> conscience-free atheist who thinks science has all the answers, there
> >> is no God to whom they answer, and they are free to do whatever they
> >> wish. This has nothing to do with defending a particular religious
> >> tradition. It has to do with the observable damage that secular
> >> atheists have wrought upon mankind which is many orders of magnitude
> >> worse in kind and scale than all the abuses by religionists over
> >> history.
>
> >> Oh, and one more thing - it took people of Judeo-Christian faith to do
> >> something in Western culture that NO one had done for the preceding
> >> 9000 years: get rid of slavery. Slavery is recorded in almost every
> >> part of the human history we have available. It was those "religious
> >> nuts" in Western Europe and the U.S. that forced their respective
> >> nations to face the moral foul that is slavery. They did this in less
> >> that 500 whereas slavery had been nicely tolerated by virtually every
> >> culture for the preceding nine millennia. So before you blather on
> >> about the evils of religion, you might try and acquaint yourself with
> >> some slight understanding of factual Reality, because the absence of
> >> religion - Judeo-Christianity in particular - has done a whole lot
> >> more harm than its presence. I can provide more examples if you like.
>
> > Tim, I know that comes as an amazing surprise to you, but to be called
> > ignorant by an overweening asshole like you is a compliment.
>
> > Enjoy the rest of your life with the beliefs you now hold.
>
> > May they bring you all the joy you deserve.
>
> Like I figure ... another entirely content-free subthread from
> Pompous Charlie.
>
> --

Holy shit! Anointment from the Ham of Pomp.

dpb wrote:
> Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>> dpb wrote:
> ...
>
>> mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, my contention is
>> merely much *broader* in their knowledge base. This makes them
>> far less parochial than some of the arguments we hear coming
>> from the Rationalist/empiricist camp (as demonstrated in this thread
>> in spades).
>
> I dispute the conclusion and contend that with the "width" comes
> inevitably the "shallow", particularly in the sciences.

I agree that it is not "inevitable". It's just common. When I
hear scientists insist that science demonstrates the lack of
need for a deity, I think they make my case for me.
>
> ...
>>> ...simply 150 years ago or so, ...
>>> ...the level of knowledge in the field was such that it was still
>>> considered "philosophy", not "science".
>>
>> Which is as it still should be. If you don't know *why* you "know"
>> things, you will never understand the limits of the system you're
>> using. Science - whether scientists like it or not - is the handmaiden
>> of philosophy. It does not stand on its own except as a purely
>> utilitarian discipline - i.e. The auto mechanics of knowledge.
>
> That is _precisely_ the self-righteous pontification of the liberal
> education major of which you smear the scientific community... :(

1) None of my edication was primarily in liberal arts, it was in
applied technology, science, and mathematics. I was just lucky
to go to schools that insisted that *everyone* have a good grounding in
liberal arts.

2) I was not attempting to "smear" science or its practitioners.
The fact that you took it as such is just another indication
of how insular science has become as its adherents elevate it
to being the sole font of useful knowledge. The idea that
science - indeed *all* epistemic systems - are the handmaidens
of philosophy is historically unremarkable and certainly (until
the last 100 years or so) would never have been read as polemic.
>
> It is the d-d rare eminent scientist who lacks such founding.

Maybe. But this thread alone demonstrates my claim in this area.
The moment someone (me) injects doubt about the sufficiency of
science, insists that philosophy is germane, and suggests that
there is a place (in human knowledge, not science proper) for
metaphysics, the howling begins. Y'all may have that "founding"
but you don't seem to respect it much. I, OTOH, *do* respect
the methods and value of science, I just don't give it sole
authority to discover True Things in my life.

>
> ...
>>> ...Everybody has an opinion or belief, hardly anyone understands even
>>> the rudiments of string theory.
>>
>> There is some truth to this. But I still maintain that
>> if you do not understand the philosophical foundations of your
>> knowledge system, you cannot ever understand its limits and pretty
>> soon everything starts to look like a nail for your hammer - much
>> as we've seen in this thread.
>
> But the same is true from the other direction -- if you do not
> understand the _depth_ of scientific theory, how can you possibly
> pontificate meaningful upon its meaning (or lack thereof)?
>
> I contend it is like clashing cymbals...

First of all, I have not once in this set of threads commented upon
what science "means". I've commented primarily on its sufficiency
to apprehend (in principle) all the True Things that are important
to humans. Big difference.

Secondly, I do not have to be versed in every detailed area of science
to have a pretty good sense of its limits. Why? Because I have
a reasonable understanding of the philosophy that underpins and
enables science. So, for instance, I know that science depends in
some direct way on both empirical observation and logical deduction
about what is observed (I'm not saying this is *all* there is to
science here, BTW). So, science is necessarily limited to stuff
we can observe and reason about. But there are limits to logic
(cf Goedel). There are real limits to what can be observed - even
in principle. So, without having a clue about any of the high
complexity details of modern string theory, I can say things about
the limits of what those theorists will ever be able to do.
This is not some assault on science, it is innate in its very *structure*.
But, these days, science has been given religion-like status in the
popular culture, and good many scientifically literate people
have begun to believe their own P.R. in the matter. Simply put,
I know the limits of any system from its foundational axioms
not by putting together a laundry list of every single fact in the system.
>
> ...
>>>> ...In the case of science that axiom is that we can reliably
>>>> observe our universe and draw general conclusions about its
>>>> operations based on those observations. While I happen to agree
>>>> with that starting point, it is not inherently True and could turn
>>>> out to be entirely wrong. ...
>>>
>>> Well, so far it has worked remarkably well. If we ever find a point
>>> in time or in space where it doesn't work, then the axiom will have
>>> to be modified. ...
>>
>> I've never disputed the utility value of science.
>
> [snippage above repaired to retain context]
>
> Utility aside, the ultimate ability of "a theory of everything" to
> understand the "how" of "what" may prove there was no "why" or at least
> what the "why" had to do.

Hmm, I do not understand the last clause of this paragraph.

>
> It is at least as significant to me you ignore the point that scientific
> thought would be thrown into a tizzy and completely regenerated if such
> an event as hypothesized were to actually be observed. As opposed to
> purely philosophical arguments, the necessity to meet reality is key and
> whatever modifications to the axioms of science required would be
> promptly created and adopted to meet the revised state of knowledge.

This is true but unremarkable.

>
> That's a reality folks on your side have as difficult a time of grasping
> as the most ardent creationist does of the possibility of more than
> seven literal days.

Eh? The only thing I'm having trouble grasping here is the flow of your
argument.

>
>>> I'll note one "pet thought" of mine regarding your earlier question
>>> of root cause and "where did it come from originally" is that the
>>> existence of quantum fluctuation just _might_ be that external force,
>>> or in another way, that little bit of "wriggle room" in the
>>> Heisenburg principle is the man behind the curtain we're not supposed
>>> to be paying attention to.
>>
>> And this is the sort of thinking that is productive, useful, and
>> interesting even though it is not amenable to empirical confirmation.
>
> "Productive and useful" I don't know about...interesting, perhaps.
>
> And, as I've alluded to on numerous occasions (which I note you adroitly
> avoid even acknowledging), the former is seeming to be likely to be
> either what we find or at least a prelude.
>
> --


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On Jan 6, 2:19=A0pm, dpb <[email protected]> wrote:
> Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>
> ...
>
> > ... Science is consciously
> > and by intent limited to discussions of the empirically observable
> > physical universe.
>
> But if it isn't empirically observable, what is it and on what basis is
> there to judge whether an answer is or is not "right"?
>
> It simply is one argument as opposed to another at that point with no
> inherent way to determine which is "better" in some sense.
>
> ...
>
> >>> NONE of these possibilities can be effectively by science. But ALL of
> >>> them are, in fact, possibilities. This inability to speak to the
> >>> questions is no some lack of sufficient science, it is innate to the
> >>> method.
>
> ...
>
> > The "possibilities" - all told - still cannot embrace the notion of
> > ultimate first cause UNLESS science declares the universe, time, space,
> > matter, energy, and so forth to be eternal in its own right.
> > Not only does this seem unlikely, it is doubtful that science - in
> > principle - could ever demonstrate this.
>
> ...
>
> You really should read more in modern physics and cosmology. =A0:)
>
> That is actually the direction in which things seem to be progressing --
> =A0 that the universe in essence "created itself". =A0I repeat, read Green=
e
> for a rudimentary introduction.
>
Greene just strings people along....

dpb wrote:
> Tim Daneliuk wrote:
> ...
>
>> ...But even perfect science could
>> not meaningfully comment upon whence the matter and energy that
>> comprised the "First Event" came from. It's an interesting
>> question because science does inform us that matter and energy can
>> be exchanged but not increased. So ... where did it come from?
>> Who/what made it happen? Why do the rules of quantum physics
>> (to the extent we understand them), cosmology, etc. work the
>> way they do. Once you step up a level from the mechanical details
>> you discover: a) Science has no voice in these existential/ontological
>> questions and b) They are pretty dang interesting questions.
>
> Well, it appears it just "is" -- read Hawking, Greene, etc., ..., for
> about the best common explanation of what we now understand.


Of course - that's the only possible answer given the constraints
that are baked into the scientific method. It's like saying,
"I'm deaf so music must not exist".

> As for "why" it works as it does, it's getting to appear more and more
> that "because it can't work any other way" is a reasonable approximation.

That's a fairly poor "explanation" at best, and certainly begs
how one could be so certain that there are no other possible
combinations that might work. Some of this is undoubtedly
because there is more science to be done. Some of this is
because too many rational people sneer at metaphysics as irrelevant -
to their detriment.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On Jan 6, 2:35 pm, dpb <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> 3. Religious belief is irrelevant to political belief overall. I
> strongly suspect would be hard to find any of the original members of
> the constitutional convention that would be considered anything but
> conservative (probably radically so) politically these days regardless
> of how "enlightened" their social views of the time might have been. In
> those ways as well, they would all undoubtedly be "male chauvinist pigs".
>

Conservatives of the day were known as Tories. Contemporary
conservatives are still at odds with the Enlightenment - Mike Huckabee
is particularly anti-science; he thinks the Theory of Evolution is all
bullshit. No, I'd call the framers liberals - a word that is now
strangely applied to progressives.

The framers sought guidance from John Locke, not Edmund Burke. What is
the Declaration but a summary of Locke's Second Treatise? They were
first and foremost children of the Enlightenment. For all their
differences they were able to agree on a few things: The primary
purpose of government was the defense of liberty, a condition to which
all humans were entitled. Unfortunately, the Southern delegation
couldn't agree on what it meant to be human. The framers thought all
citizens - from the President down - were subject to the rule of law.
Lately it seems, the White House has immunity. I hope to live long
enough to see its documentation de-classified so that I can utter
"that cocksucker!" before I die. Hey, I don't ask for much...

Jeff

> In effect, they
> expressed a non-sectarian version of Judeo-Christian morality
> in their law giving. Only in the degenerate intellectual culture
> the infests current thinking could this be so manifestly avoided
> and argued against.
>
> P.S. - It is noteworthy that the worst human rights abuses in history
> came at the hands of people who rejected this Judeo-Christian
> precept. The Rape Of Nanking, the abuses of Stalin, and the
> horrors of Hitler all came at the hands of people who rejected the
> idea of Divine judgment and personal accountability. Their actions
> in the 20th Century alone dwarf the recorded excesses of pretty much
> any religion, before or since.
>

It is also noteworthy that those framers, those men who prayed with a
chaplain each morning, produced a Constitution that made no reference
to "God." It was the first document of its kind in western
civilization without such a reference. I'm sure most believed in some
sort of supernatural sky thingie but at the end of the day their focus
at the convention was on the rule of law.

WRT to your PS, Imperial Japanese sovereignty was based on the notion
of some sort of god. That's how you got to be Emporer. Nice gig. You
set your own hours and people worship you. This notion predated
Western contact. It's a bit self-righteous to claim they "rejected"
the Judeo-Christian precept. What's your reaction when the follower of
another god proselytizes you?

By writ of Godwin's law this thread should end with your Hitler
reference. The fascist dictator was concerned with religion in as far
as it interfered with the state's ability to control its people. Once
the church was pacified, Hitler paid it little mind. A great many of
the the minions whose participation made genocide possible, attended
church on a regular basis. Sure, Hitler wasn't a model Catholic but he
was far from the only participant in the worst human rights abuse in
history.

If Stalin thought there was an Invisible Sky King, it's hard to
imagine a different outcome. If some unseeable know-it-all was lurking
outside, then Stalin would have tried to kill him, too.

I am referring to the Iowa Caucuses. :^(

> Yet you are applying a religious test of your own. Because Huckabee is
> an
> open person of faith, you are indicating that he is unworthy of holding
> office and are projecting upon the citizens of Iowa that the only reason
> they are choosing him is because of religion.

Maybe not the ONLY reason, but religion is definitely a HUGE considertation
for them.

This Schneider dude summed things up nicely: (From CNN web page):
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/04/new.hampshire.2008/index.html

----If Huckabee is to win the nomination, CNN senior political analyst Bill
Schneider said he has to broaden his appeal beyond the religious base that
fueled his Iowa win.
---"He has to appeal to the non-evangelical Republican voters, to those who
do not put religion in first place," Schneider said.

> The ignorance that most self-proclaimed modern "sophisticated thinkers"
> exhibit in this matter is profound. Science in its perfect form
> can only ever be about *how things work*.

"Science in its perfect form" ? What in the hell does that even mean?

> Science cannot - by its
> very definition - speak to questions like "Where did it come from?",
> "Why is it here?" or "What does it mean?"

That is absurd! Sure it can! I encourage you to read about "God of the
Gaps".

Ancient man:
Why do we have dark followed by night? Don't know, must be God.
Why does it rain? Don't know, must be God.
Where did this meteorite come from? Don't know, God must have sent it here.
What does it mean when I get nauseous after drinking sour milk? Must be God
punishing me.

Lets look into your "Why is it here?" question and use MRSA and other
antibiotic resistant bacterial strains as an example. Bacteria demonstrate
evolution before our very eyes. We know "why MRSA and antibiotic resistant
strains are here" and it they were not before. Over use and mis use of
antibiotics.

>That's why it is perfectly
> possible to acknowledge the value of science, accepting its results
> where they are valid, and at the same time be personally devout in
> one's faith.

Bible rigid Christians would disagree with your above statement. Literalist
bible thumpers have a problem accepting evolution and being devout at the
same time. Mainly because they are told that every living organism was
"created" at the same time. Dinosaurs walked the earth with humans, etc.
We now know (Science filling in the Gaps) that this is not the case.

>Only the truly arrogant (and ignorant) think science
> trumps theology.

Truly laughable!

<snip> of the rest of your junk.

>> "Science in its perfect form" ? What in the hell does that even mean?
>
> It's called a "boundary condition argument".

Its called fantasy land.
If you knew anything about science (based on your position in this
discussion I conclude you know very little) you would know that science is
not always perfect and comes with error bars. The educated in the art
accept these error bars and work within its limitations.

> Assume science were perfect.

While we are making crazy assumptions lets include these as well:
Assume the earth is 6,000 years old.
Assume man and dinosaur walked the earth at the same time.
Assume evolution is unfounded.

If we assume the above to be true (including your assumption) then I am at a
loss.

> What could it "know". It could know how things work, how the universe
> operates, how life evolves/adapts, etc. It could NEVER know
> where it all came from, why things are the way they are, what - if
> any - meaning it has, taken as a whole.

And religion fills in these gaps for you. I'm happy for you. Another
score for "The God of the Gaps". The gaps by the way are getting smaller
and smaller every passing year.

> Science it a utilitarian
> philosophy that is strictly limited in what it can examine - it is
> limited to those things open to the empirical/rational method.
> But there are lots and lots of other things that matter to humans
> than just those that can be inspected by reason and science by its
> very structure must be mute on these questions.

Again. I'm glad that religion can fill in the "Gaps" for you.

>
>>
>>> Science cannot - by its
>>> very definition - speak to questions like "Where did it come from?",
>>> "Why is it here?" or "What does it mean?"
>>
>> That is absurd! Sure it can! I encourage you to read about "God of
>> the Gaps".
>
>
> I encourage you to explain - just in principle - how by sticking stictly
> to science we can ever discover answers to questions of first cause.

Ok since you brought up first cause, let me ask you a few questions. If
religion answers 'first cause' then did God always exist ? What 'caused'
God?
The "first cause" notion reflects ignorance of the scientific method.
Theological philosophizing is offered as a substitute for independent,
empirical validation of ones scientific conclusions.

>
>> Ancient man:
>> Why do we have dark followed by night? Don't know, must be God.
>> Why does it rain? Don't know, must be God.
>> Where did this meteorite come from? Don't know, God must have sent it
>> here.
>> What does it mean when I get nauseous after drinking sour milk? Must be
>> God punishing me.
>
> Modern Man: I have this nifty swiss army knife of utility value called
> "science". Since it has provided so many interesting results for
> me and given me useful consequences I will assume, without proof, this
> is the only form of knowledge that exists or that I need. I will dumb
> down my quest for Truth to that which is limited to purely rational
> inspection and make fun of or demean anyone else who has larger questions.

Sounds like a plan Timmy.

>> Lets look into your "Why is it here?" question and use MRSA and other
>> antibiotic resistant bacterial strains as an example. Bacteria
>> demonstrate evolution before our very eyes. We know "why MRSA and
>> antibiotic resistant strains are here" and it they were not before. Over
>> use and mis use of antibiotics.
>
> A purely mechanical question well below the level of ontology I was
> asking.

I wasn't really asking a question Timmy, I was giving you an example of how
science could answer "Why is it here" type questions. Questions you stated
science was not capable of doing. I do not accept nor desire answers to
questions that are purely metaphysical in nature. I know, you require
them.

>>> That's why it is perfectly
>>> possible to acknowledge the value of science, accepting its results
>>> where they are valid, and at the same time be personally devout in
>>> one's faith.
>>
>> Bible rigid Christians would disagree with your above statement.
>> Literalist bible thumpers have a problem accepting evolution and being
>> devout at the same time. Mainly because they are told that every living
>> organism was "created" at the same time. Dinosaurs walked the earth
>> with humans, etc. We now know (Science filling in the Gaps) that this is
>> not the case.
>
> Now I understand your reasoning: Because there are people who improperly
> apply a school of thought or method of knowledge the entire method
> is invalid. Guess what Sparky? You better abandon science. I can
> show you any number of bad science practitioners just as you can show
> me bad theologians. But unlike you, I don't presume science is invalid
> because some people abuse it.

Straw man.

>>
>>> Only the truly arrogant (and ignorant) think science
>>> trumps theology.
>>
>> Truly laughable!
>
>
> Truly ignorant on your part. I have studied and been schooled by
> *both* rational empiricists, mathematicians, AND theologians.

Were you sleeping?

> The smartest of the bunch - by a mile - were the theologians.

Do you have any more anecdotal observations for me Timmy?

> This doesn't make them right. But your dismissal of theology
> to the benefit of science means that you've simply switched religions.
> Instead of treating science for what it is - a utilitarian philosophy
> of knowledge - you've elevated it to being a belief system.
> Welcome to the world of religion.

Thank you. Are you collecting a tithe?

> You are so buried in the mechanical details it seems you don't
> understand the question, let alone the breadth of possible
> answers. Suffice it to say that the "gaps" that are going away
> are all in the minutae and mechanical detail that science is
> quite wonderful at studying. The gaps at the metaphysical
> and first cause level cannot be circumscribed by science - in
> mathematician's terms science is too "weak" as system for that.

Some can not be answered by science TODAY. But I think it is silly to
accept metaphysical (supernatural) answers to YET unanswered questions.

>> Again. I'm glad that religion can fill in the "Gaps" for you.
>
> Where - at any point - did I mention religion? I have certainly
> argued for something more than just science as a way to know things
> and I affirm the importance of faith, but religion is a human
> organizational tool which has little or nothing to do with this
> conversation ... except, perhaps, to act as a strawman whipping
> boy for you.

You mentioned 'theology' several times. And that theology trumps science.
I don't think I really went out on a limb when I used the word 'religion',
but let me rephrase. I'm glad that your theology is capable of filling in
the "Gaps" for you.

Is that better?

>> Ok since you brought up first cause, let me ask you a few questions. If
>> religion answers 'first cause' then did God always exist ? What 'caused'
>> God?
>
> There several possible answers to your question:
>
> 1) The universe we observe does not actually exist - it is an illusion.

This really does not address 'first cause'. What caused the illusion that I
am perceiving?

> 2) The universe does exist, but we cannot meaningfully examine
> it. As a practical matter, this is the same thing as 1).

This really does not address 'first cause'. What 'caused' the universe?

> 3) The universe exists and is itself infinite in material, energy,
> time and space. This one is unlikely given our current understanding
> of physics.

Unlikely ok, lets ignore this one.

>
> 4) The universe we see was brought into existence by something/someone.
> That something/someone is itself eternal OR it too was created
> by something/someone.

If that something/someone is eternal then did they not require a 'cause'?

1) If the answer is 'no' then the 'first cause' argument becomes ad hoc and
prejudicially applied (logically impermissible). And we are right back
where we started, with no more understanding of 'causation'.
2) If the answer is "yes" they required a 'cause', then what was it? And
what 'caused' that something/someone?

Furthermore which something/someone does 'first cause' entail? Zheus?
Jehovah? etc.

> By means of (mathematical style) induction,
> we conclude that there is either an infinite depth of creators
> (The "Turtles All The Way Down" theory) or at some point the
> induction ceases and there is an ultimate creator that transcends
> time/space.

Did the ultimate creator require a 'cause'? See (1) and (2) above.

>
> NONE of these possibilities can be effectively by science. But ALL of
> them are, in fact, possibilities. This inability to speak to the
> questions is no some lack of sufficient science, it is innate to the
> method.

Why can't the answer be that we just don't know? Why does there have to be
an "ultimate creator"?
Maybe the universe in one form or another, always existed. See
'conservation of mass energy'.

> Doesn't it bother you even slightly that the method you worship so
> devoutly is tongue-tied on the most important question humans have:
> How did we get here?

No they are not tongue tied. You choose to be deaf to the possibilities
they offer.

>Not "How did we become human?", but "How
> did we - all of us living things - come to inhabit this location
> with these conditions at this moment in the history of the
> universe?" "How is it that the 'rules' of physics are as they
> are?"

These 'rules' of physics might not even be "as they are". Physics, or
physical laws are human descriptions of how the universe behaves and are
subject to future 'human' revision.

> "Why are the various physical constants and the recurring
> presence of pi and e so evident everywhere?" According to
> you, it's just magical.

Strawman.

>
>
>> The "first cause" notion reflects ignorance of the scientific method.
>
> "If I cannot mangle the question into something that science can
> address, I will demean the question or otherwise try to avoid it."

No, I will consider the question and explore possibilities that are founded
in science (non-metaphysical). If science can not answer the question, I
will not resort to supernatural answers to appease myself. I will state
that the question is presently unanswerable.

>> Theological philosophizing is offered as a substitute for independent,
>> empirical validation of ones scientific conclusions.
>
> "I am deaf, so there cannot be music."

"I do not have the answers so I will resort to the metaphysical
(supernatural) to appease myself."

>> I wasn't really asking a question Timmy, I was giving you an example of
>> how science could answer "Why is it here" type questions. Questions you
>> stated
>
> You did no such thing. You provided an example of a very mechanical
> process. I asked an ontological question, you gave me auto mechanics.

No. You stated that science couldn't answer "why is it here", with no
reference to the metaphysical, and I gave an example to the contrary (unlike
you, I do not comprehend sentences with a metaphysical mind-set).

> I "require" nothing. I just don't have my fingers in my ears
> screaming "I can't hear anything". I merely admit the probability
> that the universe of True Things is far larger than the universe
> of True Things Science Can Figure Out. It is ironic that you exhibit
> zealotry that would put the most out-there religious but to shame
> in your intense desire to only admit science as a source of valid
> knowledge.

??

> It's heartwarming to see.
>

>> Straw man.
>
> No so. You throw the "Bible rigid Christians" in my face as if
> a) You actually understand what they thing (which I seriously
> doubt) and b) They are the only possible expression of faith.
> Talk about strawmen...
>>

>> Were you sleeping?
>
> No. I got pretty much straight As in all these classes (science,
> math, and theology). I went on to do graduate work in a fairly
> abstruse area of mathematics and did Ph.D. coursework in that
> same area. In that same general timespan, I spent several years
> doing applied research wherein the entire body of my work involved
> nothing but the scientific method and statistical reduction
> of the results. 'That good enough for you?

Not really. Come on, MATH?? Not impressed.

> (No doubt your
> extensive reading of National Geographic and Scientific
> American makes you are more credible commentator...)

Nope. Although my Ph.D. doesn't make me any more qualified to discuss
theology than yours, mine is at least scientific (medicinal chemistry).

> You can try to attack me all you like, but you have a gigantic hole
> in your theory of knowledge. You wish to limit yourself to
> one (very important) way of knowing things. When I point out that
> there are other things to be known, you dismiss them as unimportant,
> irrelevant, or plain foolish. Why? Because your pet system cannot
> cope with the questions. This is called "intellectual dishonesty".

Why? Because I don't look for metaphysical (i.e. supernatural) answers to
questions we have YET to answer? Geesh. Guess I'm "intellectually
dishonest".

>
> The reason metaphysics ever got any traction in philosophy
> was because people - way brighter than you or I - figured
> out a long time ago that these questions mattered. Now we
> have science groupies - not actual scientists, many of whom
> are people of devout faith - bent of telling all the rest
> of us that it is only science that matters because these
> other questions are too hard/abstract/unapproachable with
> their "Swiss Army Knife Of Knowledge". It's dishonest
> and puerile.

Why can't you accept that maybe we just don't know things. Why so quick to
accept metaphysical doctrine?

>
> You'll notice that I have never assaulted the value and facility
> of science. In its appropriate domain, it is the best way we
> can find things out - at least so far as we know today. But
> I am not silly enough to think it will remotely be able to
> answer every important question in my life/culture/society.

Hey Sparky, hate to break it to you, will NEVER have the answer to every
important question in YOUR life. ;^)

>
>>
>>> The smartest of the bunch - by a mile - were the theologians.
>>
>> Do you have any more anecdotal observations for me Timmy?
>
> Many, but the most important thing is that you wouldn't
> respond this vigorously if you weren't worried that there
> just *might* be some validity to my argument. That's good.
> Perhaps it will drive you to learn more than you could
> ever imagine.

The same applies to YOU.

>
>> Thank you. Are you collecting a tithe?
>
> No. I hope I am kicking out the bricks in your teetering,
> if self-satisfied, understanding of how we actually know things.

No. No bricks scathed. I will never resort to the metaphysical as a last
ditch effort (when all else fails) to answer questions regarding any topic.

At the very least, I hope you walk away from this accepting the fact that
your 'first cause' argument is not valid.

> 4) The universe we see was brought into existence by something/someone.
> That something/someone is itself eternal OR it too was created
> by something/someone. By means of (mathematical style) induction,
> we conclude that there is either an infinite depth of creators
> (The "Turtles All The Way Down" theory)

I intended to address your Turtle theory, but forgot to come back.
It is an ridiculous theory, one that most people would have trouble
swallowing.

This is what I call a 'QUICK FIX" to the blunder that is the "first cause"
argument.

It is more plausible to me that mass-energy always existed. Matter in some
form or another, always existed (needed no supernatural creator).

> <Many SNIPS Throughout>

You mean, many CONVENIENT snips right? Concessions maybe?


>> Some can not be answered by science TODAY. But I think it is silly to
>> accept metaphysical (supernatural) answers to YET unanswered questions.
>>
>
> You insist in maintaining a religious-like faith in the ability
> of science

This is your strawman whipping boy. I do not view science as a religion,
this is your contention.

> - in principle - to answer every quetion that matters
> in the future. It's absurd on its face. Science is consciously
> and by intent limited to discussions of the empirically observable
> physical universe.

What you FAIL to understand is that what we can not OBSERVE today, we may be
observing TOMORROW. Some said years ago that we would never completely
understand how proteins fold because we will never be able to witness the
act. Recently (months ago), advances have been made in the field of
electron imaging that enable us to OBSERVE today what we couldn't yesterday,
like protein folding.

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/science/85/8552sci1.html

What is not OBSERVABLE today might be TOMORROW! I can not emphasize this
enough.

>> Furthermore which something/someone does 'first cause' entail? Zheus?
>> Jehovah? etc.
>
> Why do you insist on dragging this back to a discussion of a particular
> religious tradition? I haven't done so precisely because you'd like
> to erect a strawman argument that hinges on human foibles.

All of theology hinges on human foibles Timmy.

> I'd rather
> have the conceptual dicussion untainted by religious auto mechanics.
>
>>
>>> By means of (mathematical style) induction,
>>> we conclude that there is either an infinite depth of creators
>>> (The "Turtles All The Way Down" theory) or at some point the
>>> induction ceases and there is an ultimate creator that transcends
>>> time/space.
>>
>> Did the ultimate creator require a 'cause'? See (1) and (2) above.
>
> You evidently did not read the previous paragraph.

In case you missed my other post, I will paste it below:

I intended to address your Turtle theory, but forgot to come back.
It is an ridiculous theory, one that most people would have trouble
swallowing.

This is what I call a 'QUICK FIX" to the blunder that is the "first cause"
argument.

It is more plausible to me that mass-energy always existed. Matter in some
form or another, always existed (needed no supernatural creator).

>>
>>> NONE of these possibilities can be effectively by science. But ALL of
>>> them are, in fact, possibilities. This inability to speak to the
>>> questions is no some lack of sufficient science, it is innate to the
>>> method.
>>
>> Why can't the answer be that we just don't know? Why does there have to
>> be an "ultimate creator"?
>
> There doesn't *have* to be one. But neither is it intellectually
> consistent
> to insist that there *isn't* one. One has to be open to this possibility.

See Russell's Tea Pot.

<Russell's Tea Pot>
"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china
teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able
to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is
too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were
to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an
intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should
rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of
such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth
every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation
to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle
the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or
of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."

I, like Bertrand Russell, say that the burden of proof doesn't lie with me,
but with YOU.

>
>> Maybe the universe in one form or another, always existed. See
>> 'conservation of mass energy'.
>
> So you acknowledge that - in principle - *something* can be "eternal"?
> You're moving in the right direction.

Yes. Mass-Energy. No deity.

>
>>
>>> Doesn't it bother you even slightly that the method you worship so
>>> devoutly is tongue-tied on the most important question humans have:
>>> How did we get here?
>>
>> No they are not tongue tied. You choose to be deaf to the possibilities
>> they offer.
>
> The "possibilities" - all told - still cannot embrace the notion of
> ultimate first cause UNLESS science declares the universe, time, space,
> matter, energy, and so forth to be eternal in its own right.

Bingo! You are making progress. Only science will not make that
declaration TODAY, nor TOMORROW.

This is a GAP. You can choose to fill it with THEOLOGY.

> Not only does this seem unlikely, it is doubtful that science - in
> principle - could ever demonstrate this.

Naive. See above example regarding 'protein folding'.


>>>
>>>> The "first cause" notion reflects ignorance of the scientific method.
>>> "If I cannot mangle the question into something that science can
>>> address, I will demean the question or otherwise try to avoid it."
>>
>> No, I will consider the question and explore possibilities that are
>> founded in science (non-metaphysical). If science can not answer the
>> question, I will not resort to supernatural answers to appease myself. I
>> will state that the question is presently unanswerable.
>
> And thereby ignore some of life's most important/interesting questions

Another strawman whipping boy for you. I am not ignoring the questions. I
choose not to fill the GAPS with theology. I leave the question, not
ignored, but acknowledged and unanswered.

> all because *you can't get to answers using your favorite system
> of inquiry*.
> This is what is know as a "fundamentalist" religious
> position.
>
>>
>>>> Theological philosophizing is offered as a substitute for independent,
>>>> empirical validation of ones scientific conclusions.
>>> "I am deaf, so there cannot be music."
>>
>> "I do not have the answers so I will resort to the metaphysical
>> (supernatural) to appease myself."
>
> No. I do not have all the answers, so I will continue to explore them
> even if I cannot use science as a mechanism to do so because discovering
> True Things is more important to me than clinging to my present
> methods alone.
>
>
>>> You can try to attack me all you like, but you have a gigantic hole
>>> in your theory of knowledge. You wish to limit yourself to
>>> one (very important) way of knowing things. When I point out that
>>> there are other things to be known, you dismiss them as unimportant,
>>> irrelevant, or plain foolish. Why? Because your pet system cannot
>>> cope with the questions. This is called "intellectual dishonesty".
>>
>> Why? Because I don't look for metaphysical (i.e. supernatural) answers
>> to questions we have YET to answer? Geesh. Guess I'm "intellectually
>> dishonest".
>
> No, what is "dishonest" is dimissing questions that cannot
> be addresses by science as being prima facia unimportant.

Strawman. I never wrote that I dismissed any questions and regarded any as
unimportant. See above.

> You're putting the defense of your system ahead of your desire
> to discover True Things.

You are leaving behind logic and reasoning in order to appease yourself.

>This is the *exact* same criticism
> I have of the vast majority of organized religions: They
> put their system ahead of the Truth (whatever it may be).>
>>
>>> The reason metaphysics ever got any traction in philosophy
>>> was because people - way brighter than you or I - figured
>>> out a long time ago that these questions mattered. Now we
>>> have science groupies - not actual scientists, many of whom
>>> are people of devout faith - bent of telling all the rest
>>> of us that it is only science that matters because these
>>> other questions are too hard/abstract/unapproachable with
>>> their "Swiss Army Knife Of Knowledge". It's dishonest
>>> and puerile.
>>
>> Why can't you accept that maybe we just don't know things. Why so quick
>> to accept metaphysical doctrine?
>
> I would kindly suggest that metaphysics is not a "doctrine" nor is
> it "supernatural" (necessarily)

Thin ice Timmy. I would kindly suggest that it is exactly that.

> nor is it anti-rational.
> These are all accusations that have been minted in the Rationalist/
> Empiricist camp bent on defending science as the *sole* source
> of knowledge. Metaphysics is way more interesting than you're
> giving it credit. And yes, "I don't know yet" is a perfectly
> valid answer no matter what one's way of discovering things might
> be.
>>
>
>>> You'll notice that I have never assaulted the value and facility
>>> of science. In its appropriate domain, it is the best way we
>>> can find things out - at least so far as we know today. But
>>> I am not silly enough to think it will remotely be able to
>>> answer every important question in my life/culture/society.
>>
>> Hey Sparky, hate to break it to you, will NEVER have the answer to every
>> important question in YOUR life. ;^)
>
> Yeah, I get that. I also get that much of the joy of discovery
> is in the asking of the question. That's true in any discipline -
> discovering the right question is half the batter. So - just
> because metaphysics gets a little gooey now and then - doesn't
> mean the questions at hand aren't important and interesting.

The questions are interesting and important. agreed. I still will not
accept an answer based purely on theology and/or metaphysics.

>
>>
>>>>> The smartest of the bunch - by a mile - were the theologians.
>>>> Do you have any more anecdotal observations for me Timmy?
>>> Many, but the most important thing is that you wouldn't
>>> respond this vigorously if you weren't worried that there
>>> just *might* be some validity to my argument. That's good.
>>> Perhaps it will drive you to learn more than you could
>>> ever imagine.
>>
>> The same applies to YOU.
>
> Oh, I've already stipulated that science brings us knowledge.
> I don't find science worrisome, I find it inspiring. So no,
> I'm not even slightly worried there is validity to science.
>>
>>>> Thank you. Are you collecting a tithe?
>>> No. I hope I am kicking out the bricks in your teetering,
>>> if self-satisfied, understanding of how we actually know things.
>>
>> No. No bricks scathed. I will never resort to the metaphysical as a
>> last ditch effort (when all else fails) to answer questions regarding any
>> topic.
>
> Then you will never find meaning in your life beyond its mechanical
> details ... which is your privilege.

No, I do not find "meaning" by filling in the Gaps with metaphysics.

>
>>
>> At the very least, I hope you walk away from this accepting the fact that
>> your 'first cause' argument is not valid.
>
>
> Nope. It is entirely valid, just not under the rules of science.

No it is not valid.

Let's try it again:

Does your creator/something/someone/deity not require a 'cause'?

1) If the answer is 'no' then the 'first cause' argument becomes ad hoc and
prejudicially applied (logically impermissible). And we are right back
where we started, with no more understanding of 'causation'.
2) If the answer is "yes" they required a 'cause', then what was it? And
what 'caused' that something/someone?

If you truly accept the Turtle Theory, then it shouldn't be too huge a leap
for you to accept that maybe mass-energy always existed.

> <Many SNIPS Throughout>

You mean, many CONVENIENT snips right? Concessions maybe?


>> Some can not be answered by science TODAY. But I think it is silly to
>> accept metaphysical (supernatural) answers to YET unanswered questions.
>>
>
> You insist in maintaining a religious-like faith in the ability
> of science

This is your strawman whipping boy. I do not view science as a religion,
this is your contention.

> - in principle - to answer every quetion that matters
> in the future. It's absurd on its face. Science is consciously
> and by intent limited to discussions of the empirically observable
> physical universe.

What you FAIL to understand is that what we can not OBSERVE today, we may be
observing TOMORROW. Some said years ago that we would never completely
understand how proteins fold because we will never be able to witness the
act. Recently (months ago), advances have been made in the field of
electron imaging that enable us to OBSERVE today what we couldn't yesterday,
like protein folding.

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/science/85/8552sci1.html

What is not OBSERVABLE today might be TOMORROW! I can not emphasize this
enough.

>> Furthermore which something/someone does 'first cause' entail? Zheus?
>> Jehovah? etc.
>
> Why do you insist on dragging this back to a discussion of a particular
> religious tradition? I haven't done so precisely because you'd like
> to erect a strawman argument that hinges on human foibles.

All of theology hinges on human foibles Timmy.

> I'd rather
> have the conceptual dicussion untainted by religious auto mechanics.
>
>>
>>> By means of (mathematical style) induction,
>>> we conclude that there is either an infinite depth of creators
>>> (The "Turtles All The Way Down" theory) or at some point the
>>> induction ceases and there is an ultimate creator that transcends
>>> time/space.
>>
>> Did the ultimate creator require a 'cause'? See (1) and (2) above.
>
> You evidently did not read the previous paragraph.

In case you missed my other post, I will paste it below:

I intended to address your Turtle theory, but forgot to come back.
It is an ridiculous theory, one that most people would have trouble
swallowing.

This is what I call a 'QUICK FIX" to the blunder that is the "first cause"
argument.

It is more plausible to me that mass-energy always existed. Matter in some
form or another, always existed (needed no supernatural creator).

>>
>>> NONE of these possibilities can be effectively by science. But ALL of
>>> them are, in fact, possibilities. This inability to speak to the
>>> questions is no some lack of sufficient science, it is innate to the
>>> method.
>>
>> Why can't the answer be that we just don't know? Why does there have to
>> be an "ultimate creator"?
>
> There doesn't *have* to be one. But neither is it intellectually
> consistent
> to insist that there *isn't* one. One has to be open to this possibility.

See Russell's Tea Pot.

<Russell's Tea Pot>
"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china
teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able
to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is
too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were
to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an
intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should
rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of
such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth
every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation
to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle
the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or
of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."

I, like Bertrand Russell, say that the burden of proof doesn't lie with me,
but with YOU.

>
>> Maybe the universe in one form or another, always existed. See
>> 'conservation of mass energy'.
>
> So you acknowledge that - in principle - *something* can be "eternal"?
> You're moving in the right direction.

Yes. Mass-Energy. No deity.

>
>>
>>> Doesn't it bother you even slightly that the method you worship so
>>> devoutly is tongue-tied on the most important question humans have:
>>> How did we get here?
>>
>> No they are not tongue tied. You choose to be deaf to the possibilities
>> they offer.
>
> The "possibilities" - all told - still cannot embrace the notion of
> ultimate first cause UNLESS science declares the universe, time, space,
> matter, energy, and so forth to be eternal in its own right.

Bingo! You are making progress. Only science will not make that
declaration TODAY, nor TOMORROW.

This is a GAP. You can choose to fill it with THEOLOGY.

> Not only does this seem unlikely, it is doubtful that science - in
> principle - could ever demonstrate this.

Naive. See above example regarding 'protein folding'.


>>>
>>>> The "first cause" notion reflects ignorance of the scientific method.
>>> "If I cannot mangle the question into something that science can
>>> address, I will demean the question or otherwise try to avoid it."
>>
>> No, I will consider the question and explore possibilities that are
>> founded in science (non-metaphysical). If science can not answer the
>> question, I will not resort to supernatural answers to appease myself. I
>> will state that the question is presently unanswerable.
>
> And thereby ignore some of life's most important/interesting questions

Another strawman whipping boy for you. I am not ignoring the questions. I
choose not to fill the GAPS with theology. I leave the question, not
ignored, but acknowledged and unanswered.

> all because *you can't get to answers using your favorite system
> of inquiry*.
> This is what is know as a "fundamentalist" religious
> position.
>
>>
>>>> Theological philosophizing is offered as a substitute for independent,
>>>> empirical validation of ones scientific conclusions.
>>> "I am deaf, so there cannot be music."
>>
>> "I do not have the answers so I will resort to the metaphysical
>> (supernatural) to appease myself."
>
> No. I do not have all the answers, so I will continue to explore them
> even if I cannot use science as a mechanism to do so because discovering
> True Things is more important to me than clinging to my present
> methods alone.
>
>
>>> You can try to attack me all you like, but you have a gigantic hole
>>> in your theory of knowledge. You wish to limit yourself to
>>> one (very important) way of knowing things. When I point out that
>>> there are other things to be known, you dismiss them as unimportant,
>>> irrelevant, or plain foolish. Why? Because your pet system cannot
>>> cope with the questions. This is called "intellectual dishonesty".
>>
>> Why? Because I don't look for metaphysical (i.e. supernatural) answers
>> to questions we have YET to answer? Geesh. Guess I'm "intellectually
>> dishonest".
>
> No, what is "dishonest" is dimissing questions that cannot
> be addresses by science as being prima facia unimportant.

Strawman. I never wrote that I dismissed any questions and regarded any as
unimportant. See above.

> You're putting the defense of your system ahead of your desire
> to discover True Things.

You are leaving behind logic and reasoning in order to appease yourself.

>This is the *exact* same criticism
> I have of the vast majority of organized religions: They
> put their system ahead of the Truth (whatever it may be).>
>>
>>> The reason metaphysics ever got any traction in philosophy
>>> was because people - way brighter than you or I - figured
>>> out a long time ago that these questions mattered. Now we
>>> have science groupies - not actual scientists, many of whom
>>> are people of devout faith - bent of telling all the rest
>>> of us that it is only science that matters because these
>>> other questions are too hard/abstract/unapproachable with
>>> their "Swiss Army Knife Of Knowledge". It's dishonest
>>> and puerile.
>>
>> Why can't you accept that maybe we just don't know things. Why so quick
>> to accept metaphysical doctrine?
>
> I would kindly suggest that metaphysics is not a "doctrine" nor is
> it "supernatural" (necessarily)

Thin ice Timmy. I would kindly suggest that it is exactly that.

> nor is it anti-rational.
> These are all accusations that have been minted in the Rationalist/
> Empiricist camp bent on defending science as the *sole* source
> of knowledge. Metaphysics is way more interesting than you're
> giving it credit. And yes, "I don't know yet" is a perfectly
> valid answer no matter what one's way of discovering things might
> be.
>>
>
>>> You'll notice that I have never assaulted the value and facility
>>> of science. In its appropriate domain, it is the best way we
>>> can find things out - at least so far as we know today. But
>>> I am not silly enough to think it will remotely be able to
>>> answer every important question in my life/culture/society.
>>
>> Hey Sparky, hate to break it to you, will NEVER have the answer to every
>> important question in YOUR life. ;^)
>
> Yeah, I get that. I also get that much of the joy of discovery
> is in the asking of the question. That's true in any discipline -
> discovering the right question is half the batter. So - just
> because metaphysics gets a little gooey now and then - doesn't
> mean the questions at hand aren't important and interesting.

The questions are interesting and important. agreed. I still will not
accept an answer based purely on theology and/or metaphysics.

>
>>
>>>>> The smartest of the bunch - by a mile - were the theologians.
>>>> Do you have any more anecdotal observations for me Timmy?
>>> Many, but the most important thing is that you wouldn't
>>> respond this vigorously if you weren't worried that there
>>> just *might* be some validity to my argument. That's good.
>>> Perhaps it will drive you to learn more than you could
>>> ever imagine.
>>
>> The same applies to YOU.
>
> Oh, I've already stipulated that science brings us knowledge.
> I don't find science worrisome, I find it inspiring. So no,
> I'm not even slightly worried there is validity to science.
>>
>>>> Thank you. Are you collecting a tithe?
>>> No. I hope I am kicking out the bricks in your teetering,
>>> if self-satisfied, understanding of how we actually know things.
>>
>> No. No bricks scathed. I will never resort to the metaphysical as a
>> last ditch effort (when all else fails) to answer questions regarding any
>> topic.
>
> Then you will never find meaning in your life beyond its mechanical
> details ... which is your privilege.

No, I do not find "meaning" by filling in the Gaps with metaphysics.

>
>>
>> At the very least, I hope you walk away from this accepting the fact that
>> your 'first cause' argument is not valid.
>
>
> Nope. It is entirely valid, just not under the rules of science.

No it is not valid.

Let's try it again:

Does your creator/something/someone/deity not require a 'cause'?

1) If the answer is 'no' then the 'first cause' argument becomes ad hoc and
prejudicially applied (logically impermissible). And we are right back
where we started, with no more understanding of 'causation'.
2) If the answer is "yes" they required a 'cause', then what was it? And
what 'caused' that something/someone?

If you truly accept the Turtle Theory, then it shouldn't be too huge a leap
for you to accept that maybe mass-energy always existed.

> You may not "view" it that way, but you *behave* that way when
> you disallow even the possibility of knowing things by means
> other than science.

By stating that I view science as a religion, you are trying to state that I
am just as irrational as you.

>> I intended to address your Turtle theory, but forgot to come back.
>> It is an ridiculous theory, one that most people would have trouble
>>swallowing.

> Not my theory, but one of several possible answers to your question.

No more possible than a "teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical
orbit"

Lots and lots of "Tea Pots".

>> This is what I call a 'QUICK FIX" to the blunder that is the "first
>> cause"
>> argument.
>
> This is what I call really misunderstanding the larger discussion.

It is nothing short of an weak attempt to 'fix' an obviously flawed
argument.

>> It is more plausible to me that mass-energy always existed. Matter in
>> some
>> form or another, always existed (needed no supernatural creator).
>
> Why is this more plausible? The universe at-large is the most complex
> "machinery" of which we are aware. All other "machinery" is therefore
> and by definition *less* complex. When presented with this "lesser"
> machinery, pretty much all rational/functional humans understand
> that the machine in question got put together or "built" somehow,
> by some intelligent agent.

Your argument above uses backwards logic. See below

I am supposed to believe that this machinery you describe was designed by an
"intelligent agent" into a form that was accommodating to the needs of
humans that would inhabit "earth" billions of years later. I am not
supposed to believe that life on earth evolved to fit the environment we
have. I am supposed to believe that the entire universe was personally
tailored by some "intelligent agent" for us.

To use your phrase here is a "thought experiment":
Most major cities are situated around a river. Suppose an 'alien' from
outer space views our planet and notices this phenomenon. The 'alien'
might conclude that the life forms on Earth placed the rivers there because
they provided a source of water and transportation. This would be
backwards logic (like you use). The rivers were not placed there by design
by the inhabitants, the cities formed around the river out of need.

To the alien, the placement of the rivers appeared to be 'miraculous' in
design.

> Yet, somehow, when we rise to the level
> of the highest level of complexity ever observed, we're just supposed
> to take it on "faith" that "it always existed" and there is no
> intelligent cause.

You gave me as possibilities to a question I asked that the creator always
existed. And the turtle theory claims that there was always a creator that
created the creator to infinity. You can take those on "faith" that "it
always existed (creator)", but you have a problem with the possibility that
the universe always existed in some form (mass-energy) OR that it had a
non-creator beginning. Astonishing!

> Astonishing. Just because I cannot explain
> the intelligent cause isn't prima facia evidence that it cannot/does not
> exist.

Sorry Timmy. That's the way it goes. I have a hard time convincing people
about the "Celestial Tea Pot", so I know how you feel.

The burden of proof lies with you, not with those who contest it, they do
not have to dis-prove the existence of your 'creator'.
For the same reason I can not be sure if the celestial "Tea Pot" exists.

One more thing. Why don't you call it (intelligent cause) what it is?
Intelligent design (ID). Is it that much of a dirty word for you?

>> I, like Bertrand Russell, say that the burden of proof doesn't lie with
>> me,
>> but with YOU.
>
> But I am not trying to prove anything.

You are asking us to "take a leap of faith" and accept the 'creator' first
cause as a possibility.
This is just a huge of a leap of faith as asking you to believe in a
"Celestial Tea Pot" as a possibility.

>My contention here is- and has
> been - that science is not complete enough to discover all True Things.

This is not the 'golden key' to believe in all things irrational.

Like I said ad nauseum, you want (desire/need) to fill the GAPS of science
with the irrational.

>> Yes. Mass-Energy. No deity.
>

>> You are leaving behind logic and reasoning in order to appease yourself.
>
> I never once left reason or logic behind. I'm just honest enough
> with myself to realize that reason and logic have real limits.
> I know you sneer at mathematicians - as all scientists are
> taught to do from the first day

? Do you really believe this or is this tongue-in-cheek?

>> The questions are interesting and important. agreed. I still will not
>> accept an answer based purely on theology and/or metaphysics.
>
> So ... if the questions are not open to empirical examination and
> you refuse the metaphysical approach to thinking about ... you
> are effectively ignoring the questions thereby denying how
> "interesting and important" you find them.

Timmy. Read this slowly:
<pasted from a previous, and obviously UNREAD reply of mine>
I am not ignoring the questions. I choose not to fill the GAPS with
theology. I leave the question, not
ignored, but acknowledged and unanswered.

> You can dress up all the esoteric math you want, the fact of the matter
> is
> that if you have nothing, and do nothing, it doesn't matter how long that
> nothing sets there, nothing will happen.

Wrong. I encourage you to read about Hawkings "Vacuum Fluctuations". This
from a NASA website:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/research/warp/possible.html

"Zero Point Energy (ZPE), or vacuum fluctuation energy are terms used to
describe the random electromagnetic oscillations that are left in a vacuum
after all other energy has been removed. If you remove all the energy from a
space, take out all the matter, all the heat, all the light... everything --
you will find that there is still some energy left. One way to explain this
is from the uncertainty principle from quantum physics that implies that it
is impossible to have an absolutely zero energy condition."

More here on Vacuum Fluctuations from Hawking: Taken from :
http://www.braungardt.com/Physics/Vacuum%20Fluctuation.htm :

"There are something like ten million million million million million
million million million million million million million million million (1
with eighty [five] zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe
that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in
quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of
particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of where the
energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is
exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy.
However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of
matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two
pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them
against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a
sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a
universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this
negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy
represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero.
(Hawking, 1988, 129) "

>If one postulates that something
> must happen without a cause,

Negated above.

> then one of the fundamental tenets of science
> and logic has just been suspended. But, that is the primary element of the
> Big Bang theory of modern cosmology that essentially states: nothing +
> nothing + lots of time = everything.

Big bang doesn't state that nothing + nothing ... It states that the
universe is expanding PERIOD. Based on the theory, if everything is
expanding, we must assume that it was once all together (non-expanded). The
question becomes "where did all that stuff come from that eventually
expanded?" God?

Enter: The Conservation of Mass-Energy (See Hawking above)

> Enter: The Conservation of Mass-Energy (See Hawking above)

The above should not have read (See Hawking above). The quotes I gave were
not Hawking's, but Hawking's theory taken from two websites.


Here is another great site on Vaccum Fluctuations:
http://mysteriousworld.org/vacuum-fluctuation.html

On Jan 4, 7:08 pm, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> And I so stipulated this previously. But the Constitution rests
> on a notion of natural rights that appeals directly to a "Creator".
> It escapes me why so many wish to sanitize this history to server
> their current atheist needs. The Framers were what they were,
> were influenced by what they were, and said what they said. Working
> backwards to make them politically correct for the benefit of
> those currently hostile to faith strikes me as both dishonest and
> bad manners.

You need to re-read the Constitution. Monarchs appealed to creators to
satisfy the divine right of kings. The Americans vested power in the
people, *We* the people. And if anyone distorts the record to suit
their needs it is you. Unable to satisfy your interpretation of
Constitutional law based on its text, you look beyond the document to
the personal lives of the Framers. These people were no more
homogeneous than any other legislative body. The Constitution was the
result of compromise. Do you think any member of that body actually
believed blacks were 3/5ths of a person? Personal beliefs aside, it is
telling that the convention chose as it template the more secular plan
proposed by the Virginians. Certainly, John Adams would have preferred
a more godly document but he unable to win that fight.

WRT to atrocities committed by atheists (Stalin) and uncommitted
Catholics (Hilter), I think you fail to appreciate the organizational
structure of genocide. Whatever their personal beliefs, their crimes
were not possible without the willing assistance of thousands of
actual participants and many more passive participants. Unless there
was some sort of statistical anomaly during the 1930s, it's safe to
say most of those participants were believers of some sort.

Hitler was religiously ambivalent. I've seen no evidence to
characterize him as an atheist, but let's suppose he was sufficiently
enlightened in this regard. So what? To make your point, you'd have to
prove that his atheism drove the genocide. There is ample evidence to
suggest that Hitler and Stalin were both sociopaths, a condition that
better explains their crimes.

Cheers,
Jeff

On Jan 4, 11:19 pm, Mark & Juanita <[email protected]> wrote:
> Jeff wrote:
> > On Jan 3, 10:16 pm, Mark & Juanita <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> GarageWoodworks wrote:
> >> > Christian right (CR) is locked in. I was hopeful that Guliani would
> >> > win for the Reps because he wouldn't pull as much of the CR.
> >> > Former preacher as Pres? "Wall of Separation" between church and
> >> > state???? Scary.
>
> >> Check your constititution, no "wall of separation" between church and
> >> state is even remotely mentioned. The idea is patently absurd as it
> >> would require people elected to office to operate in a manner
> >> inconsistent with their conscience.
>
> >> What the constitution does say is that "Congress shall make no law
> >> regarding the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise
> >> thereof" Pretty straightforward
>
> > It's also pretty straight forward that "no religious test shall ever
> > be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the
> > United States." Yet what we've seen - at least on the Republican side
> > - is precisely that. Romney felt compelled to comment on his religious
> > views, to tell the faithful that his Jesus was Jesusy enough. No
> > matter. Iowa Republicans went with the most Christianly candidate they
> > could find.
>
> Yet you are applying a religious test of your own. Because Huckabee is an
> open person of faith, you are indicating that he is unworthy of holding
> office and are projecting upon the citizens of Iowa that the only reason
> they are choosing him is because of religion.
>

The individual voter is free to apply such a test, or not, as they
choose.

--

FF

Tim might cause he reminds me of those guys arguing about the angels dancing
on the head of a needle but Buddhism isn't a religion, never has been, never
will be.

Please don't lump a simple way of looking at the way life works into that
group of beliefs that call for supernatural events and beings to be true.
Buddha was a man, not a god. The Dalai Lama is a man, not a god.

John E.

"Larry Blanchard" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Sat, 05 Jan 2008 13:44:07 -0600, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>
> > But there are lots and lots of other things that matter to humans
> > than just those that can be inspected by reason and science by its
> > very structure must be mute on these questions.
> >
>
> Yep. And the only rational answer to those questions is "I don't know",
> an admission the human species has always been loath to make.
>
> >
> > I will dumb
> > down my quest for Truth to that which is limited to purely rational
> > inspection and make fun of or demean anyone else who has larger
questions.
> >
>
> Not those who have questions, just those who have "answers" based on
> nothing but their cultural bias.
>
> What do I mean by cultural bias? There are approximately 20 major
> religions on the Earth. At least 19 of them are wrong. But few people
> ever seriously investigate any religion other than the one of the culture
> they grew up in. That gives them at best a 5% chance of being right :-).
>
> IOW, Tim, if you'd grown up in Tibet, you'd probably be defending Buddhism
> with just as much fervor as you now defend Christianity.

On Jan 5, 3:40 pm, dpb <[email protected]> wrote:
> Jeff wrote:
> > On Jan 4, 7:08 pm, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> And I so stipulated this previously. But the Constitution rests
> >> on a notion of natural rights that appeals directly to a "Creator".
> >> It escapes me why so many wish to sanitize this history to server
> >> their current atheist needs. The Framers were what they were,
> >> were influenced by what they were, and said what they said. Working
> >> backwards to make them politically correct for the benefit of
> >> those currently hostile to faith strikes me as both dishonest and
> >> bad manners.
>
> > You need to re-read the Constitution. Monarchs appealed to creators to
> > satisfy the divine right of kings. The Americans vested power in the
> > people, *We* the people. And if anyone distorts the record to suit
> > their needs it is you. ...
>
> Actually, it's the Declaration of Independence that Tim's referring to
> specifically, not the Constitution wherein the reference comes from.
>
> "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
> equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
> rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
> That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men,
> deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. ..."
>
> But, it seems pretty clear, I agree...
>

One needs to understand that a King rules by divine right. The
feudal notion was that rights flowed own from above. From
God to the King, from the King to the nobility, from the nobility
to the commoners. By the time of the Revolution, the other
nobles had been circumvented so that all Englishmen were
directly subjects of the King.

Still, to rebel against the king was to rebel against God,
particularly
is the King in question was the supreme temporal head of the
Christian Church in England. Jefferson was faced with the vexing
problem of how to separate rebellion from sacrilege. His solution,
drawing upon the work of the early liberals, was to do the same
with the King as the King had done with the lesser nobility. He
circumvented the King, declaring that each person's rights flowed
to him directly from God.

Let's not forget, Jefferson was trying to convince a lot of other
colonists to join in, or at least tolerate the revolution. He was
not trying to convert others to his personal philosophy. Whatever
that was, Jefferson' words were always crafted with deference
to his audience.

--

FF

On Jan 4, 8:19=A0am, "Swingman" <[email protected]> wrote:
> "Robatoy" wrote
>
> >I think Huckabee is a nice guy and I'd go hunting with him<
>
> What encoding are you using that none of my e-mail clients will put quotes=

> on a reply to your message? I can see ISO in properties, but ...
>
I do not know that. I have noticed it, now you mentioned it. I will
snoop for a setting ...I mostly use Google Groups on any of 3 macs.

On Jan 7, 8:23 pm, dpb <[email protected]> wrote:
> Fred the Red Shirt wrote:
> ...
>
> > Yes, it is straightforward. However a lot of people don't realize
> > that 'establishment of religion' is a term of art, more or less an
> > idiomatic expression.
>
> ...
> I suppose not, this being the first time I've ever heard that claim.
>
> Where is this made known widely and what does the term mean in plain
> English?
>

Consult a dictionary for the definition of
"antidisestablishmentarian".

The current Archbishop of Cantebury favors disestablishment.


--

FF

GarageWoodworks wrote:
>> The ignorance that most self-proclaimed modern "sophisticated thinkers"
>> exhibit in this matter is profound. Science in its perfect form
>> can only ever be about *how things work*.
>
> "Science in its perfect form" ? What in the hell does that even mean?

It's called a "boundary condition argument". Assume science were perfect.
What could it "know". It could know how things work, how the universe
operates, how life evolves/adapts, etc. It could NEVER know
where it all came from, why things are the way they are, what - if
any - meaning it has, taken as a whole. Science it a utilitarian
philosophy that is strictly limited in what it can examine - it is
limited to those things open to the empirical/rational method.
But there are lots and lots of other things that matter to humans
than just those that can be inspected by reason and science by its
very structure must be mute on these questions.

>
>> Science cannot - by its
>> very definition - speak to questions like "Where did it come from?",
>> "Why is it here?" or "What does it mean?"
>
> That is absurd! Sure it can! I encourage you to read about "God of the
> Gaps".


I encourage you to explain - just in principle - how by sticking stictly
to science we can ever discover answers to questions of first cause.

> Ancient man:
> Why do we have dark followed by night? Don't know, must be God.
> Why does it rain? Don't know, must be God.
> Where did this meteorite come from? Don't know, God must have sent it here.
> What does it mean when I get nauseous after drinking sour milk? Must be God
> punishing me.

Modern Man: I have this nifty swiss army knife of utility value called
"science". Since it has provided so many interesting results for
me and given me useful consequences I will assume, without proof, this
is the only form of knowledge that exists or that I need. I will dumb
down my quest for Truth to that which is limited to purely rational
inspection and make fun of or demean anyone else who has larger questions.


>
> Lets look into your "Why is it here?" question and use MRSA and other
> antibiotic resistant bacterial strains as an example. Bacteria demonstrate
> evolution before our very eyes. We know "why MRSA and antibiotic resistant
> strains are here" and it they were not before. Over use and mis use of
> antibiotics.

A purely mechanical question well below the level of ontology I was
asking.

>
>> That's why it is perfectly
>> possible to acknowledge the value of science, accepting its results
>> where they are valid, and at the same time be personally devout in
>> one's faith.
>
> Bible rigid Christians would disagree with your above statement. Literalist
> bible thumpers have a problem accepting evolution and being devout at the
> same time. Mainly because they are told that every living organism was
> "created" at the same time. Dinosaurs walked the earth with humans, etc.
> We now know (Science filling in the Gaps) that this is not the case.

Now I understand your reasoning: Because there are people who improperly
apply a school of thought or method of knowledge the entire method
is invalid. Guess what Sparky? You better abandon science. I can
show you any number of bad science practitioners just as you can show
me bad theologians. But unlike you, I don't presume science is invalid
because some people abuse it.
>
>> Only the truly arrogant (and ignorant) think science
>> trumps theology.
>
> Truly laughable!


Truly ignorant on your part. I have studied and been schooled by
*both* rational empiricists, mathematicians, AND theologians.
The smartest of the bunch - by a mile - were the theologians.
This doesn't make them right. But your dismissal of theology
to the benefit of science means that you've simply switched religions.
Instead of treating science for what it is - a utilitarian philosophy
of knowledge - you've elevated it to being a belief system.
Welcome to the world of religion.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On Jan 6, 10:08=A0pm, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sun, 06 Jan 2008 13:43:47 -0800, Robatoy wrote:
> > =A0When, as humans, we stumbled upon the scene of our existence,
> > we picked up a rock and concluded that 'somebody' put it there. We
> > still don't know who, or if it was 5 billion years ago...or was it
> > 6000 years ago that somebody created a 4.999994e+9 year-old rock and
> > put it there. Surely if we can attribute the entire universe to a
> > Creator, what's the big deal of that Creator making a few 5 billion-
> > year-old rocks? Hell, even stick a few fossils in there to throw the
> > unbelievers off for a bit.
>
> I do hope you're being sarcastic.

Moi?

On Jan 9, 3:21 am, Mark & Juanita <[email protected]> wrote:
> Larry Blanchard wrote:
> > On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:57:26 -0600, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>
> >> But the R-E method has real limits - notably an
> >> inability to comment on First Cause
>
> > Thus the only possible comment is "I don't know."
>
> Thus, your position for the origin of the universe has not and cannot
> solve that primary problem: first cause. Therefore, your position is also
> reduced to the same position as any other religion. At least religion
> recognizes that a cause must have been present for an effect to occur.

Not so in a relativistic big bang model.

> As
> others have pointed out, this is a totally consistent position because the
> theological position is that God is eternal having no beginning nor end,
> thus not needing a cause to exist or come into existence.

Why not?

>
> You can dress up all the esoteric math you want, the fact of the matter is
> that if you have nothing, and do nothing, it doesn't matter how long that
> nothing sets there, nothing will happen. If one postulates that something
> must happen without a cause, then one of the fundamental tenets of science
> and logic has just been suspended. But, that is the primary element of the
> Big Bang theory of modern cosmology that essentially states: nothing +
> nothing + lots of time = everything.

Wrong.

The conservation of Matter and energy is not merely consistent
with the big bang model, it is a fundamental assumption upon
which the model depends.

--

FF

>> Christian right (CR) is locked in. I was hopeful that Guliani would win
>> for the Reps because he wouldn't pull as much of the CR.
>> Former preacher as Pres? "Wall of Separation" between church and
>> state???? Scary.
>
> Check your constititution, no "wall of separation" between church and
> state is even remotely mentioned. The idea is patently absurd as it would
> require people elected to office to operate in a manner inconsistent with
> their conscience.
>
> What the constitution does say is that "Congress shall make no law
> regarding the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise
> thereof" Pretty straightforward

Agreed... I'm not pushing for any one candidate jsut yet. I want to see
what floats to the top or sinks to the bottom at this point... But... The
separation of church and state was to keep the state out of the church, not
the other way around... Morals and concience are based on religion for many
people. Remove the religion and you might as well have a free-for-all
because there is no long term accountability beyond the human aspect of
life.
--


Regards,
Joe Agro, Jr.
(800) 871-5022
01.908.542.0244
Automatic / Pneumatic Drills: http://www.AutoDrill.com
Multiple Spindle Drills: http://www.Multi-Drill.com

V8013-R

On Jan 4, 3:23 pm, "Joe AutoDrill" <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> Agreed... I'm not pushing for any one candidate jsut yet. I want to see
> >> what floats to the top or sinks to the bottom at this point... But...
> >> The
> >> separation of church and state was to keep the state out of the church,
> >> not
> >> the other way around... Morals and concience are based on religion for
> >> many
> >> people. Remove the religion and you might as well have a free-for-all
> >> because there is no long term accountability beyond the human aspect of
> >> life.
>
> > If the only thing that keeps you from killing ppl is a belief in an
> > Invisible Sky King then, by all means, keep believing...
>
> You missed the point during your sarcastic reply. If there are no long term
> consequences or higher moral standards for people to follow, many would
> degrade into selfish, self-serving oxygen theives under (and maybe even
> without) the infleunce of power. Why do you think that congress / the
> government is so corrupt? There are no real consequences for them other
> than embarassment.
>

Sorry. Sarcasm is one of my preferred literary devices.

Unfortunately, sarcasm is my preferred literary device....

Let's consider another institution. This one is dedicated to high
moral standards enforced by the threat of eternal damnation. Despite
its commitments and its beliefs, the Catholic church turned a blind
eye as priests raped altar boys often on its property. If the Catholic
heirarchy was truely concerned for the long term consequences of its
actions, then it would have done considerably more than transfer those
fsckers to another parish. You may place faith in "long term
consequences or higher moral standards" but I prefer the rule of law.
Yeah, sure, Duke Cunningham was one corrupt bastard but he's not
taking bribes anymore.

On Jan 3, 10:16 pm, Mark & Juanita <[email protected]> wrote:
> GarageWoodworks wrote:
> > Christian right (CR) is locked in. I was hopeful that Guliani would win
> > for the Reps because he wouldn't pull as much of the CR.
> > Former preacher as Pres? "Wall of Separation" between church and
> > state???? Scary.
>
> Check your constititution, no "wall of separation" between church and
> state is even remotely mentioned. The idea is patently absurd as it would
> require people elected to office to operate in a manner inconsistent with
> their conscience.
>
> What the constitution does say is that "Congress shall make no law
> regarding the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise
> thereof" Pretty straightforward
>

It's also pretty straight forward that "no religious test shall ever
be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the
United States." Yet what we've seen - at least on the Republican side
- is precisely that. Romney felt compelled to comment on his religious
views, to tell the faithful that his Jesus was Jesusy enough. No
matter. Iowa Republicans went with the most Christianly candidate they
could find.

The Huckster's schtick isn't going to play here in the Northeast.
He'll be crushed in New Hampshire. After that South Carolina get its
shot. How do you think they'll vote? My guess is more Jesusry.

On Jan 5, 5:23=A0am, "Rod & Betty Jo" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Robatoy wrote:
> >And give the Sec Defence to Wesley Clark,
>
> Why would you think he would be competent for any post? The last decade of=

> his career and subsequent comments surely don't inspire such confidence.

It would be to patch-up of the US image. He has a lot of friends in
Europe, he'd be useful shaking hands. Doesn't get to make the hard
decisions.
>
> >maybe Edwards for AG (mmmmm he
> > worries me with that Bilderberg shit.).
>
> Why?......While having a very successful "sue them till it hurts"
> career.....his gift is with juries not necessarily the law.... If he could=

> pick voters like he picks juries he might go somewhere President wise but =
he
> can't.

I was more thinking of him going after corrupt contractors and such
with the same vigour he used to nail the tobacco companies. He
preaches a corporate clean-up.
>
> >Bill Clinton for State?
>
> Why? His softball take few risks, promise lots, defer anything difficult t=
o
> succeeding administrations while delivering little and =A0appeasing Muslim=
's
> at will administration is no poster boy for successful foreign policy.

I think he'd look okay in photo ops but wouldn't be allowed to make
decisions.
Who else would look on the world stage?

On Jan 3, 11:20 pm, "Edwin Pawlowski" <[email protected]> wrote:
> "GarageWoodworks" <.@.> wrote in message
>
> news:[email protected]...
>
> > Christian right (CR) is locked in. I was hopeful that Guliani would win
> > for the Reps because he wouldn't pull as much of the CR.
> > Former preacher as Pres? "Wall of Separation" between church and
> > state???? Scary.
>
> 60% of the caucus goers were born again Christians. That won't hold up in
> the rest of the states. He won't be the next President.

Please, God. We have one clown in there now who claims to have God
whispering in his ear. The country absolutely cannot stand two in a
row: it may yet find it cannot stand one for two terms. Bush's
bullshit won't be over for decades...hell, it is going to take our
great-great-grandkids to pay off the war debt.

dpb wrote:
> Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>> dpb wrote:
>>> Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>>> ...
>>>
>>>> And I've never said I "knew" the answers to these questions, merely
>>>> that: a) They were important questions that needed investigation
>>>> and b) Science is inadequate to cope with them.
>>>
>>> And most of them are simply unanswerable unless indeed it turns out
>>> we can finally grasp a unified theory and it turns out to be, as I
>>> suspect it will be and hinted at before, inherently contained within
>>> itself.
>>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>>>>> Truly ignorant on your part. I have studied and been schooled by
>>>>>> *both*
>>>>>> rational empiricists, mathematicians, AND theologians. The
>>>>>> smartest of
>>>>>> the bunch - by a mile - were the theologians.
>>>
>>> I seriously doubt they were any "smarter" or if they were it was a
>>> very biased sampling. "Different" scope of interest and learning
>>> undoubtedly; "smarter"? -- I doubt it.
>>
>> OK, I said that badly. The theologians I studied were
>> *far more broadly educated* than the mathematicians and scientists.
>> The theologians had background than embraced science (archaeology,
>> in particular is a cornerstone of theology), linguistics,
>> history, philosophy, and, in some cases, mathematics.
>
> And, since you have a small sampling of such you claim all scientists
> and mathematicians are intellectually inferior or lacking in training in
> other areas of knowledge?

No. I just acknowledged that I said it poorly in the first place.
Having both studied with an read a pretty good swath of theologians,
mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, my contention is
merely much *broader* in their knowledge base. This makes them
far less parochial than some of the arguments we hear coming
from the Rationalist/empiricist camp (as demonstrated in this thread
in spades).

>
> I would repeat it is simply a product of the rapid expansion of
> learning, particularly in the scientific arena. It is simply impossible
> today for any one person to be fully cognizant at any level of expertise
> in all areas of human knowledge. The days of the "natural philosopher"
> are long gone. That may be regrettable, but it is simply a fact of life
> and as I noted before, that science now is so nearly unknowable to the
> broader community is, imo, a leading cause for the impasse (not to leave
> out, of course, the simply abysmal current education system).
>
> As I have noted in another location, I've just finished Grant's and
> Sherman's memoirs. Apropos to this subject, I was struck by the fact
> that simply 150 years ago or so, when Sherman was the first head of the
> Louisiana Seminary (now LSU), he was the professor of "natural
> philosophy". Now, of course, that field of study is what we would call
> "physics", but as recently as the Civil War (he was in this position,
> resigning when the secession of Louisiana became fact and returning at
> that time to St Louis as he told the committee of oversight he could not
> continue to serve in a location not loyal to the Union) the level of
> knowledge in the field was such that it was still considered
> "philosophy", not "science".

Which is as it still should be. If you don't know *why* you "know"
things, you will never understand the limits of the system you're
using. Science - whether scientists like it or not - is the handmaiden
of philosophy. It does not stand on its own except as a purely
utilitarian discipline - i.e. The auto mechanics of knowledge.

>
> I believe it is that recent development of science as it is now known
> and practiced is _so_ recent as compared to the long history of
> philosophy going back to the beginning of civilization that makes the
> former unfamiliar while the latter is so ingrained as to have become
> inate over the ages. Compounded with the level of sophistication it now
> requires to even comprehend the basics of science as it now exists and
> the philosophical arguments are relatively simple to at least
> comprehend. Everybody has an opinion or belief, hardly anyone
> understands even the rudiments of string theory.

There is some truth to this. But I still maintain that
if you do not understand the philosophical foundations of your
knowledge system, you cannot ever understand its limits and pretty
soon everything starts to look like a nail for your hammer - much
as we've seen in this thread.

>
> ...
>> At the end of the day *everything* may be moot. Science - like all
>> systems of knowledge - hinges upon at least one unprovable starting
>> axiom. In the case of science that axiom is that we can reliably
>> observe our universe and draw general conclusions about its
>> operations based on those observations. While I happen to agree
>> with that starting point, it is not inherently True and could turn
>> out to be entirely wrong. ...
>
> Well, so far it has worked remarkably well. If we ever find a point in

I've never disputed the utility value of science.

> time or in space where it doesn't work, then the axiom will have to be
> modified. That would be one evidence of the outside influence someone
> else mentioned, perhaps.
>
> I'll note one "pet thought" of mine regarding your earlier question of
> root cause and "where did it come from originally" is that the existence
> of quantum fluctuation just _might_ be that external force, or in
> another way, that little bit of "wriggle room" in the Heisenburg
> principle is the man behind the curtain we're not supposed to be paying
> attention to.

And this is the sort of thinking that is productive, useful, and interesting
even though it is not amenable to empirical confirmation.


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On Jan 4, 10:29 am, dpb <[email protected]> wrote:
> SonomaProducts.com wrote:

>
> It was, of course, simply that there was a strong aversion to the
> founding of an actual state-sponsored and/or required religion and/or
> church, _not_ that there should be no religious observation.
>
> --
True. But one way to make the formation of a state-sponsored religion
difficult, if not impossible, is to forbid government sponsored events
from having officially led prayers. It's a little like the school
prayer bullshit: no one is prevented from praying in school; what is
prevented is any official form of prayer, led by teachers, or by
student leaders. Any student, teacher or principal, can sit and pray
to himself or herself as often as they like, without let or hindrance,
except that if they are too loud at it, others will scratch their
heads and gaze upon them with wonder--asking themselves, "What's that
fool doing out alone?"

Then again, people may just think they're using a cell phone.

On Jan 7, 8:17 pm, dpb <[email protected]> wrote:
> Fred the Red Shirt wrote:
>
> ...
>
>
> > Still, to rebel against the king was to rebel against God,
> > particularly
> > is the King in question was the supreme temporal head of the
> > Christian Church in England. Jefferson was faced with the vexing
> > problem of how to separate rebellion from sacrilege. His solution,
> > drawing upon the work of the early liberals, was to do the same
> > with the King as the King had done with the lesser nobility. He
> > circumvented the King, declaring that each person's rights flowed
> > to him directly from God.
>
> > Let's not forget, Jefferson was trying to convince a lot of other
> > colonists to join in, or at least tolerate the revolution. He was
> > not trying to convert others to his personal philosophy. Whatever
> > that was, Jefferson' words were always crafted with deference
> > to his audience.
>
> That's a stretch -- Jefferson took it almost literally from Locke. Nor,
> do I think Jefferson had any difficulty whatsoever in thinking freedom
> of tyranny from the King had anything whatsoever to do w/ sacrilege.
> I'm not sure he would have thought there _could_ even be such a thing a
> sacrilege--and surely not against the Church of England.
>

I'm not arguing that Jefferson THOUGHT it was so. I am
arguing that he wanted to convince otghers who had been
TAUGHT that it was so.

--

FF

Jeff wrote:
> On Jan 4, 7:08 pm, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>> And I so stipulated this previously. But the Constitution rests
>> on a notion of natural rights that appeals directly to a "Creator".
>> It escapes me why so many wish to sanitize this history to server
>> their current atheist needs. The Framers were what they were,
>> were influenced by what they were, and said what they said. Working
>> backwards to make them politically correct for the benefit of
>> those currently hostile to faith strikes me as both dishonest and
>> bad manners.
>
> You need to re-read the Constitution. Monarchs appealed to creators to
> satisfy the divine right of kings. The Americans vested power in the
> people, *We* the people. And if anyone distorts the record to suit

And you need to read Locke - whom Jefferson more-or-less plagiarized
to get things going. Locke clearly and unambiguously declares
the basis for natural rights to be the "Creator". Pretty hard
to sanitize that, I'd say.

> their needs it is you. Unable to satisfy your interpretation of
> Constitutional law based on its text, you look beyond the document to
> the personal lives of the Framers. These people were no more

No, I am well enough read to understand that things do not happen
in a vacuum and that you cannot do textual exegesis unless you
understand the context and backdrop in which the words were written.
You can tapdance all you like to sanitize these documents of
their intellectual and philosophical roots, but the plain fact
remains that there was a shared general worldview that drove
the Framers regardless of their personal beliefs and practices.
That worldview was Judeo-Christian.

> homogeneous than any other legislative body. The Constitution was the
> result of compromise. Do you think any member of that body actually
> believed blacks were 3/5ths of a person? Personal beliefs aside, it is
> telling that the convention chose as it template the more secular plan
> proposed by the Virginians. Certainly, John Adams would have preferred
> a more godly document but he unable to win that fight.

While what you write above is true, it is not what we are discussing
here. The discussion at hand is why modern atheists are so
insecure that they need to rewrite history so as to make the
Framers secularists - which they manifestly were not. They
certainly did not want government declaring a state religion, and
the mechanics of the government they brought into being were
free of a specific religious texture, but it simply cannot be denied
that their motivations, thinking, and broader value system was
deeply invested in Judeo-Christian values. The fact that you atheists
don't like this doesn't change the facts of history.

>
> WRT to atrocities committed by atheists (Stalin) and uncommitted
> Catholics (Hilter), I think you fail to appreciate the organizational

Hitler was no "uncommitted Catholic"- he was a cultic pagan who
happened to have been raised in the Roman church.

> structure of genocide. Whatever their personal beliefs, their crimes
> were not possible without the willing assistance of thousands of
> actual participants and many more passive participants. Unless there
> was some sort of statistical anomaly during the 1930s, it's safe to
> say most of those participants were believers of some sort.

That is certainly true. But it took these deviant, if charismatic,
leaders to be the catalyst to move the "thousands" to action.
All bear moral responsibility - well they do in my world, since
I have a basis for morality (I fail to see how any atheist could
declare what these people did as "wrong" except, perhaps, on
purely utilitarian grounds).

>
> Hitler was religiously ambivalent. I've seen no evidence to
> characterize him as an atheist, but let's suppose he was sufficiently
> enlightened in this regard. So what? To make your point, you'd have to
> prove that his atheism drove the genocide. There is ample evidence to
> suggest that Hitler and Stalin were both sociopaths, a condition that
> better explains their crimes.

I do not I ever said, and I did not mean to imply, that it was their
atheism/religious ambivalence that *caused* them to do evil. My point
was merely that in the absence of religion/faith/an external moral
compass, they had no *inhibitions* from doing evil. In this regard,
I think Stalin - who killed north of 20 million of my people before
WWII even got going - was more intellectually consistent than most
modern atheists. He acted consistently with his belief that there
was no absolute moral authority and he was free to do what he
perceived to be in his own self-interest - the results speak for
themselves.

This is why a number of atheist intellectuals have come to understand
that religious faith is important even though they think it has no
basis in Reality. I think this too is inconsistent, but at least
getting them to acknowledge the utility value of faith is a step up
from blaming faith for every human problem (which is a bad rap as
we've just explored).

P.S. There is a world of difference between being a "theist" or a
"person of faith", and being "religious". The latter is
an institutional declaration and subject to the foibles of
all human institutions. The former are personal, meaningful,
and very important.


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

"GarageWoodworks" <.@.> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Christian right (CR) is locked in. I was hopeful that Guliani would win
> for the Reps because he wouldn't pull as much of the CR.
> Former preacher as Pres? "Wall of Separation" between church and
> state???? Scary.

60% of the caucus goers were born again Christians. That won't hold up in
the rest of the states. He won't be the next President.

Mark & Juanita wrote:
> Larry Blanchard wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:57:26 -0600, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>>
>>> But the R-E method has real limits - notably an
>>> inability to comment on First Cause
>> Thus the only possible comment is "I don't know."
>>
>
> Thus, your position for the origin of the universe has not and cannot
> solve that primary problem: first cause. Therefore, your position is also
> reduced to the same position as any other religion. At least religion
> recognizes that a cause must have been present for an effect to occur. As
> others have pointed out, this is a totally consistent position because the
> theological position is that God is eternal having no beginning nor end,
> thus not needing a cause to exist or come into existence.
>
> You can dress up all the esoteric math you want, the fact of the matter is
> that if you have nothing, and do nothing, it doesn't matter how long that
> nothing sets there, nothing will happen. If one postulates that something
> must happen without a cause, then one of the fundamental tenets of science
> and logic has just been suspended. But, that is the primary element of the
> Big Bang theory of modern cosmology that essentially states: nothing +
> nothing + lots of time = everything.

Actually, Mark, I think if you read through all the various responses
by those defending the Rational/empiricist method their argument (if I
understand it) boils down to this:

1) R-E cannot completely answer questions of First Cause, so our
answer will always be "I don't know".

2) No other system that might posit a different approach is valid
because it does not fit into our R-E method of confirmation. That is,
we R-E devotees refuse to even consider another means of acquiring
knowledge absent a way to confirm it via our R-E methods ... which
would make such a system R-E in any case.

3) Anyone who accepts the possibility of an answer via a system of
type 2) above is inherently: "irrational" and an "idiot" (both of
those terms were used specifically in this thread along with some
other fairly lowbrow invective).

This line of thinking is - as you point out - far more religious than
its adherents here will admit. But ... the good news is that they are
not particularly representatives of all or even most practitioners of
the R-E disciplines. There are a goodly number of serious practicing
scientists, mathematicians, engineers,et al - people whose very work
is grounded in R-E methods of doing things - that happen to also
happily be theists or people of faith in some form. I count myself
among them and have met a great many more, and read even still more
over the years.

Now, majority or minority rule on this matter is irrelevant. Reality
is what it is, whatever we may think about it. But I find it telling
that this harsh, abrasive stand from the R-E defenders we've witnessed
here is a relatively new thing. It has come about (this is an
*opinion*) at the same time as we've seen an ascendancy of very vocal
radical atheism poking its head up in the culture at large. Methinks
they protest too much ... perhaps they're worried we theists may end
up being right at some level, I dunno. What I do know is that secure
thinker don't need the level of vitriol displayed here (and other
places) of late.

Notice that at no point in this thread did I describe my personal
belief system in any detail, nor did I try to "convert" people to
theism. I merely suggested that the snotty condescension directed at
people of faith from literally the first post onward was unwarranted
and bad manners and tried to lay examples of how thoughtful people
could be led to theistic conclusions. This alone invoked shrieks of
"irrational idiot" or words to that effect. Religious indeed ...

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On Jan 5, 3:23 pm, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> Charlie Self wrote:
>
> <SNIP>
>
> >>> Tim, I know that comes as an amazing surprise to you, but to be called
> >>> ignorant by an overweening asshole like you is a compliment.
> >>> Enjoy the rest of your life with the beliefs you now hold.
> >>> May they bring you all the joy you deserve.
>
> Translation: I have absolutely no counterargument or meaningful
> addition to this discussion, so I will revert to swearing
> and personal invective in some vain hope no one will notice.
> I am insecure and unwilling to admit when I am wrong.
>
> >> Like I figure ... another entirely content-free subthread from
> >> Pompous Charlie.
>
> Translation: I don't like being attacked for my person. Feel free
> to argue with my ideas. I was wrong, though. I should never
> have descended to this level of response, and for that I apologize.
>
> > Holy shit! Anointment from the Ham of Pomp.
>
> Translation: PLEASE, please, please, take the lights off me.
>
> --

I have no reason to counter your arguments, nor does anyone else. Your
Jesuitical mouth has again over-run your peanut brain, so it is
pointless to respond. I had forgotten you and your continuing
asininities were the reason for filtering you before; unfortunately,
my present set up doesn't allow filtering, so I'll have to apply that
hardest to use of all filters, will power.

Ta, twit.

I have never understood this "henny penny the sky is falling down"
when a self proclaimed Christian makes some kind of stir.

Really... what is anyone worried about?

We have what could be the most openly proclaimed Christian president
in my memory. Yet our government funded exhibits (The National
Endowment for the Arts) that show the much needed painting of "Piss
Christ", "Dung Madonna" and so many other important works. And just
today Georgie said that he though the theories of evolution and
creationism should be taught side by side so the students can pick and
choose what they believe.

We will take away a granite boulder with the Ten Commandments written
on them that was in the Alabama courthouse, even though over 75% of
all people polled said they disapproved of the action. I always
thought that even if you didn't believe in God, these were pretty good
rules to live by. Apparently not in the context of being a Christian.

Most schools now have any sign of the Ten Commandments, any quotes
from the Bible, or anything else that refers to Christianity removed.

BUT, they do have (and study!) other religions. My 17 year old niece
is learning to respect and appreciate Muslims courtesy of her public
school. Likewise she is learning about Kwanzaa, and the different
phases of the Jewish religious celebrations.

BUT... she has been cautioned that saying "Merry CHRISTmas" is wrong,
and could offend many other cultures. She appreciates the wonders of
many other religions and has a deep respect for them. But she won't
say the Pledge of Allegiance because it has the phrase "under God" in
it.

She is not alone. Most of her friends are like her. Most of our of
the cultural elite is like her.

I don't see any threat from a government that likes "Piss Christ" as
an avenue for my tax money trying to force real Christian beliefs on
anyone.

If you want to run around in tears over politics, look at the fucking
shitheads in Congress that managed to rally themselfs to force the NFL
to show the Saturday Patriots game, but can't do one damn thing about
health care. But by God, they care about fucking football.

And some are actually worried about some Christian being President
just because he proclaims his beliefs?

Let me help anyone paddling that boat out. Always remember they are
politicians. ALL of them will say anything and do anything to get in
office and stay there. Next they are almost all attorneys or have law
degrees. That means that your scuples, integrity and morals are for
sale for plain old greenbacks. How else could you defend baby rapers,
killers, drug lords, gang bangers, corporate mega felons, child
pornographers, etc.?

Calm down. Rest assured that no matter who is picked, it will be a
lying piece of shit, with no more concern for the citizenry (unless it
is a dedicated voting block) of the USA than your garbage man.

Robert

On Jan 4, 11:28 am, "J. Clarke" <[email protected]> wrote:
> dpb wrote:
> > SonomaProducts.com wrote:
> >> The "Wall of seperation" was penned by Thomas Jefferson during his
> >> term as president. It was in a letter in response...speaking to the
> >> protection of the church and their religious freedom and not the
> >> protection of the
> >> state. More specifically to the churches right to organize and be
> >> active in civic affairs (vote in their guy). And they both stress
> >> that it is the civic duty of the religious to exercise their
> >> "natural
> >> right" and their "right to conscience" commonly interpreted to mean
> >> they should be active in civic affairs such as campaigning, etc. So
> >> I
> >> would contend that the legislative intent of the first amendment is
> >> at least equally strong in both the establishment and restrictive
> >> clauses.
> > ...
>
> > By coincidence I've been reading memoirs of W T Sherman -- last
> > night
> > got to point where the Union had recaptured Fort Sumter. On the day
> > of
> > the fourth anniversary of its surrender, there was a major
> > observance
> > during which the specific flag which had been flown at the time of
> > surrender was re-raised, salutes in tribute and acknowledgment were
> > fired from the same batteries which had performed the bombardment
> > and
> > there was a program. The order of the program was to open w/ prayer
> > and
> > the address was by an ordained preacher. The "separation" so
> > extolled
> > by the present-day folk as a tenet is, as noted above, absolutely
> > not
> > the same thing as most now take it to be.
>
> > It was, of course, simply that there was a strong aversion to the
> > founding of an actual state-sponsored and/or required religion
> > and/or
> > church, _not_ that there should be no religious observation.
>
> Several states already _had_ state sponsored religions. There was no
> aversion to this. The concern was that the Federal government would
> override those state religions and impose a different one.
>
> And the authors of the 14th Amendment would likely have worded it very
> differently if they had realized how it was going to be interpreted.
>

Maybe they would have, but...just maybe, the worded it exactly as they
did with the expectation that at some point, the new republic would
have a majority of people who had brains enough to wipe their own
tails. Unfortunately...

On Jan 7, 9:24 pm, "Rod & Betty Jo" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Fred the Red Shirt wrote:
>
> >> Tis an age-old argument.
>
> > Is man inherently good or inherently evil?
>
> > I opt for good. Most people left free to make their own decisions
> > avoid hurting other people. People will argue and fight with each
> > other, but it takes a believe in a higher authority (e.g. fascism,
> > communism, or religion) to get them to unite in mass murder.
>
> And Rwanda was which of the three?
>

Fascism. Though there is no general agreement at to the definition
of Fascism, the Hutu leaders perverted the concept of nationalism
and portrayed the Tutsis as disloyal .

Racism or, at any rate 'Ethnicism' should be added to that list .

--

FF

On Jan 5, 5:39 am, Robatoy <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Jan 5, 5:23 am, "Rod & Betty Jo" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Robatoy wrote:
> > >And give the Sec Defence to Wesley Clark,
>
> > Why would you think he would be competent for any post? The last decade of
> > his career and subsequent comments surely don't inspire such confidence.
>
> It would be to patch-up of the US image. He has a lot of friends in
> Europe, he'd be useful shaking hands. Doesn't get to make the hard
> decisions.
>
>
>
> > >maybe Edwards for AG (mmmmm he
> > > worries me with that Bilderberg shit.).
>
> > Why?......While having a very successful "sue them till it hurts"
> > career.....his gift is with juries not necessarily the law.... If he could
> > pick voters like he picks juries he might go somewhere President wise but he
> > can't.
>
> I was more thinking of him going after corrupt contractors and such
> with the same vigour he used to nail the tobacco companies. He
> preaches a corporate clean-up.
>
>
>
> > >Bill Clinton for State?
>
> > Why? His softball take few risks, promise lots, defer anything difficult to
> > succeeding administrations while delivering little and appeasing Muslim's
> > at will administration is no poster boy for successful foreign policy.
>
> I think he'd look okay in photo ops but wouldn't be allowed to make
> decisions.
> Who else would look on the world stage?

Personally, I'd like to see Bill Richardson at State. His futile run
for the nomination maybe nothing more than an angle to land a job such
as that. Yeah, that sucks. But the State Department doesn't exactly
post that position and accept resumes...

On Jan 4, 8:56 pm, Jeff <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> Let's consider another institution. This one is dedicated to high
> moral standards enforced by the threat of eternal damnation. Despite
> its commitments and its beliefs, the Catholic church turned a blind
> eye as priests raped altar boys often on its property...

It didn't always turn a blind eye. Sometimes it assisted the
perpetrators by reassigning them to a new location with
new unsuspecting victims after complaints surfaced.

--

FF

On Jan 4, 4:43 am, "Lew Hodgett" <[email protected]> wrote:
> "GarageWoodworks" wrote:
> > Christian right (CR) is locked in.
>
> IMHO, best thing that could happen to the Democrats.
>
> The country is looking for meaningful change, not a continuation of
> the "My way or the highway" literal interpretation religious
> rhetoric.of the far right religious group.
>
> We had tried that way the last 7 years.
>

Plenty of people said that after 4 years, just
not enough. As in 2004, we may see the
majority of voters voting against the other
candidate, instead of for 'theirs'.

--

FF

On Jan 4, 8:23 pm, "Joe AutoDrill" <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> Agreed... I'm not pushing for any one candidate jsut yet. I want to see
> >> what floats to the top or sinks to the bottom at this point... But...
> >> The
> >> separation of church and state was to keep the state out of the church,
> >> not
> >> the other way around... Morals and concience are based on religion for
> >> many
> >> people. Remove the religion and you might as well have a free-for-all
> >> because there is no long term accountability beyond the human aspect of
> >> life.
>
> > If the only thing that keeps you from killing ppl is a belief in an
> > Invisible Sky King then, by all means, keep believing...
>
> You missed the point during your sarcastic reply. If there are no long term
> consequences or higher moral standards for people to follow, many would
> degrade into selfish, self-serving oxygen theives under (and maybe even
> without) the infleunce of power. Why do you think that congress / the
> government is so corrupt? There are no real consequences for them other
> than embarassment.
>

Tis an age-old argument.

Is man inherently good or inherently evil?

I opt for good. Most people left free to make their own decisions
avoid hurting other people. People will argue and fight with each
other, but it takes a believe in a higher authority (e.g. fascism,
communism, or religion) to get them to unite in mass murder.

--

FF

Jeff wrote:
>> In effect, they
>> expressed a non-sectarian version of Judeo-Christian morality
>> in their law giving. Only in the degenerate intellectual culture
>> the infests current thinking could this be so manifestly avoided
>> and argued against.
>>
>> P.S. - It is noteworthy that the worst human rights abuses in history
>> came at the hands of people who rejected this Judeo-Christian
>> precept. The Rape Of Nanking, the abuses of Stalin, and the
>> horrors of Hitler all came at the hands of people who rejected the
>> idea of Divine judgment and personal accountability. Their actions
>> in the 20th Century alone dwarf the recorded excesses of pretty much
>> any religion, before or since.
>>
>
> It is also noteworthy that those framers, those men who prayed with a
> chaplain each morning, produced a Constitution that made no reference
> to "God." It was the first document of its kind in western
> civilization without such a reference. I'm sure most believed in some
> sort of supernatural sky thingie but at the end of the day their focus
> at the convention was on the rule of law.

And I so stipulated this previously. But the Constitution rests
on a notion of natural rights that appeals directly to a "Creator".
It escapes me why so many wish to sanitize this history to server
their current atheist needs. The Framers were what they were,
were influenced by what they were, and said what they said. Working
backwards to make them politically correct for the benefit of
those currently hostile to faith strikes me as both dishonest and
bad manners.

>
> WRT to your PS, Imperial Japanese sovereignty was based on the notion
> of some sort of god. That's how you got to be Emporer. Nice gig. You
> set your own hours and people worship you. This notion predated
> Western contact. It's a bit self-righteous to claim they "rejected"
> the Judeo-Christian precept. What's your reaction when the follower of
> another god proselytizes you?

But the Japanese did not invade in the name of their religion,
nor did the spirit warrior Japanese thing have much of a component
of after life accountability ISTR (but may be wrong on that).
Recall that I am contrasting the actions of those motivated by
religion and those not. I am not judging the merits of their respective
beliefs.

>
> By writ of Godwin's law this thread should end with your Hitler

I wasn't comparing him to anyone on this thread. I was making
a reference to a historic fact in a very narrow context. I'm
sure Godwin would forgive me and grant me USENET absolution
so long as I performed 2^16 "Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here"s.

> reference. The fascist dictator was concerned with religion in as far
> as it interfered with the state's ability to control its people. Once

But was himself a pagan at most, certainly never exhibiting the slightest
hint that he expected Divine judgment. In fact, he clearly operated
without any indication of moral boundaries.

> the church was pacified, Hitler paid it little mind. A great many of
> the the minions whose participation made genocide possible, attended
> church on a regular basis. Sure, Hitler wasn't a model Catholic but he
> was far from the only participant in the worst human rights abuse in
> history.

He was its motive force, spokesperson, cheerleader, enabler, and leader.
That makes him the poster child for the movement and primarily morally
accountable - though there are plenty of warm spots in hell being
occupied by his fellow travelers.

>
> If Stalin thought there was an Invisible Sky King, it's hard to
> imagine a different outcome. If some unseeable know-it-all was lurking
> outside, then Stalin would have tried to kill him, too.

Pure supposition. The fact remains that a- and non-religionists of
the 20th Century dwarfed the most horrid excesses of religious-
motivated naughtiness before or since. This is not arguable, it
is evident fact.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On Sun, 06 Jan 2008 19:11:37 -0800, Larry Blanchard
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On Sun, 06 Jan 2008 22:49:07 +0000, Brian Henderson wrote:
>> I'd say it has a lot to do with it. Having a President who rejects
>> reality in favor of his own religious belief is just asking for
>> trouble.

>How about that? Ten thousand words later we finally got back to the root
>of the original discussion :-).

Shhhh! You know it won't last! :)

<[email protected]> wrote

> Calm down. Rest assured that no matter who is picked, it will be a
> lying piece of shit, with no more concern for the citizenry (unless it
> is a dedicated voting block) of the USA than your garbage man.

LOL ... Spot on! Next time, put that at both the top and bottom for full
effect!


--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 12/14/07
KarlC@ (the obvious)

"Rod & Betty Jo" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I don't know whom these enlightened people are but I'd think the problem
> lies a bit closer to home......anything short of overwhelming exterior
> force require local participants to make the right choices.....akin to the
> drug addict or the alcoholic, recovery starts within.

Sounds like a precis of the situation in Iraq. Or Haiti, or Bosnia, or
Vietnam....