Exodus 32:24-29
Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies. So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the LORD, come to me.” And all the Levites rallied to him.Then he said to them, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’ ” The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the LORD today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.”
Discuss.
Israelites gone wild? Snoop Dog is the Aaron of our time.
But, but, but… thou shalt not kill!?!?
The Abrahamic religions: Killing for the bearded sky being since 4000 BCE!
So this means Moses was more of a Charles Manson or a Jim Jones than a Ghandi.
Seems like the bible is full of such characters. No wonder Christians are so messed up.
Political violence, assassination, crowd control.
Enemies within the Israelites, I suppose, in other words political rivals.
Solution? Turn people against each other, kill them. Moreover, kill your own family members – to demonstrate your allegiance to the political/religious order.
Hideous.
If there is any value in this account, it’s as on object lesson in what religious fascism can bring about. Lesson: throw over belief in blood thirsty gods, and discard political leaders that trade in fear and violence.
This showed up in my RSS feed with a “Stand with Patty Murray” advertisement. Perhaps there is a god after all ;)
@5 Don’t you think he looks tired?
Were you in doubt?
I am that I am.
RE 2
BCE/CE are a small but significant example of the pettiness and dogmatism of modern academia and the scientific community.
Since the 60’s that community has increasingly lost the right to claim a role as inheritors of the traditions of Galileo and Isaac Newton. These were men of curiousity and intelligence who didn’t wait for consensus to determine what they believed or what the science showed was true. They saw science as a means for understanding the world in all its wonder. Most modern scientists see it as a means of removing that wonder from the world in accord with the smallness of their own souls.
As an example, in the 70’s the scientific community was performing their celebrated Chicken Little immitation because of Climate Change. Only that time it was an ice age coming, not THE COMING GLOGAL CATASTROPHE IN WHICH THE SUN WILL TURN THE EARTH INTO A SLAG HEAP!!!!!!! Now Chicken Little/Al Gore is still bounding around talking about climate change, but somehow the change is 180 degrees different than 3 short decades ago.
BCE/CE is a petty and pathetic attempt to own a dating term by defining it. I’d guess it will fare about as well as trying to convert the US to metric. Most average folks are less intelligent than most academics. But they are far less easily fooled.
All
This verse needs to be in its proper context. …. :
In the original text, modified to Our times:
Isn’t this the next day?
I am that I am.
7. lostinaseaofblue
RE 2
“Most average folks are less intelligent than most academics. But they are far less easily fooled.”
Oh, are you one of these folks who are less easily fooled? Or are you one who follows things who build golden calves even when My own truths are evident?
Let Me help you see, as I tried to with Moses. Moses listened to Me, not to his own fantasies or the words given from false to the priests of Canaan and Egypt.
You decry your own Moses, the scientists of today. The scientists you decry are as Moses, people who put the wonder of the universe, my ultimate word, before their own smallness.
You can ignore My teachings, My signs to those who look hardest, the scientists. You can continue to poison your own home by building a golden calf but, heed well the message you received today from God@HA and the one received by idolators of the past.
As for wonder, tell Me which is more wondrous to you … the visions offered to you by scientists who decoded your genome or the phrases of those who claim only to hear my voice?
As for BC/BCE … do you doubt My time? Why do you want to date your world from a fictitious date?
I am that I am.
A challenge …
Let those who follow the teachings of the priests and the Becks live apart from my teachings, no science may compete with their own ideas.
Let those who follow these humans, come together and live under their rule while those follow My teachings live apart as well.
Let My judgment proceed.
I am that I am.
@7
Yet again, Lost, you provide us drivel.
Anno Domini, or “the year of our Lord” clearly endorses a viewpoint. It is parochial. Using BCE/CE is value neutral, for the most part – it does continue to use a counting scheme centered on Jesus. Science strives for objectivity. Your whine about this puts you in the ranks of the Get-Off-My-Lawn geriatric crowds in their lawn chairs golf clapping for Beck yesterday every time he said “Jesus” or “faith”.
What does this mean? Belief, and acceptance of models based on data are two very different things.
There you go again, to quote an Alzheimer’s patient. You often come back to this notion that a scientific viewpoint is somehow incompatible with wonder. That couldn’t be farther from the truth, and reveals your understanding of science and scientists to be rather tenuous, at best. You somehow seem incapable of grasping that people can feel wonder and awe and humility at the gorgeous complexity of the universe without a notion of, or subservience to, a personal god. Well, to speak from personal experience, it really is rather east to do.
@11 Lib Sci
The Truth blesses those who can see it and damns those who will not.
I am that I am
“As an example, in the 70’s the scientific community was performing their celebrated Chicken Little immitation because of Climate Change. Only that time it was an ice age coming, not THE COMING GLOGAL CATASTROPHE IN WHICH THE SUN WILL TURN THE EARTH INTO A SLAG HEAP!!!!!!!”
I really do hate to destroy the ignorance that brings you such bliss, Lost, but…
http://journals.ametsoc.org/do.....BAMS2370.1
Read the journal. Try to understand that people who actually know what the fuck they’re talking about have debunked your lame-ass self.
But please feel free to perpetuate the myth. After all, it’s what wingnuts do best. But consider doing it someplace where people equally ignorant and gullible as you reside, Lost, as we in this cesspool won’t allow your dumbfuck, ignorant blatherings to go unchallenged.
‘God’ @ 9
Yeah yeah yeah.
Your sacreligious blather obscures real points you have to make. A bit of a shame really.
For true scientists aware of the wonder of the world (whether or not they acknowledge its creator) and striving to make sense of it on a human scale, I have nothing but admiration and respect. For those using applied science to make the world a better place, or just to revel in their God given gifts of intelligence and creative curiousity I have the deepest respect. Unfortunately these are few and far between, and generally despised by the mediocre run of their peers.
I have nothing but pity and distrust for those who would use religion as a weapon against science. Unfortunately these are rather too common.
“As for wonder, tell Me which is more wondrous to you … the visions offered to you by scientists who decoded your genome or the phrases of those who claim only to hear my voice? ” The above should answer that. Crick and Watson were doing the work of the one who created them, whether they knew this or not. But so is Billy Graham or Thomas a Beckett.
@13 Steve
The penalties for blasphemy against science come from the world itself.
The sad thing is the ability of the followers of this golden calf to bring harm to all humans, indeed all of life.
I am that I am
14 LSIB
You doubt me? Good, you should doubt all claims of revelation .. whether God@HA talks to you or Billy Graham claims that I talk to him.
For science, My word is self evident. Put in the simplest way possible, science works. The scientific method demands this.
Do you have the same faith in Billy Graham and Thomas Becket that the Israelites had in their golden calf?
The penalty for choosing the golden calf over me, remains the same.
I am that I am.
“Most modern scientists see it as a means of removing that wonder from the world in accord with the smallness of their own souls.”
No, this is simply your misinterpretation of reality, as supported by your imaginary data. Where you see no wonder, I wonder about the possibility of colliding branes resulting in creation. I ponder the possiblity of an infinite universe, perhaps infinite universes, infinite worlds, eleven dimensions, the possibility of life existing beyond our own planet, possibly even in our own solar system, gravity at a distance, particles both here and there, and how all of this over the course of 13.7 billion years has led to today’s reality on this world of ’57 Chevys, beautiful women and 8-track music. What’s not to wonder? The problem here, Lost, isn’t the smallness of a scientist’s soul, it is the smallness of your own imagination and ability to wonder.
Re 13
I see. Because a group of people (climate scientists in a journal dedicated to perpetuating the warming myth) invested in an idea interpret history one way, it must be true. Whereas anyone who disagrees must be lying.
Their own data militates against them. The earth has remained relatively stable in temperature for a decade. In any case all the data uses as a baseline the historically cool period at the beginning of the last century.
And even proponents of the theory admit that the chances of reversing their mythological hypothesis are very low. That is, if accept that there is a problem, you must also accept that very little man can do will fix it. Those attempts we are making are disastrous in the real world on economies and industries. Parenthetically they are threatening to the standard of living we enjoy in this country.
@14
You are so far off, so manifestly wrong, it’s difficult to formulate an answer to this horseshit. You cling to this notion that we’re all (scientists) operating to decipher some designed mechanism, all for the greater glory of god. Reminiscent of “Ad majorem Dei gloriam”, or AMDG, something I had to write on too many assignments back in high school, before abandoning the error of religion. Moreover, you sanctimoniously condescend to those scientists you uncomprehendingly describe as mediocre. It is the quality of your analysis that is mediocre.
EEWWWW. This is sort of like Mormons posthumously baptizing those that never opted for it in life. A sleazy appropriation of something good and right. Keep your grubby hands off J.D. and Sir Francis – they’re our heroes! Why can’t you people get your own – well I suppose we all know the answer to that. Again, reminds me of Beck yesterday – sleazy and pathetic.
And putting W&C in the same thought as Billy Graham – yuck, just yuck. Graham you can have.
@17
Indeed, Steve, indeed.
@14 Lost
“For true scientists aware of the wonder of the world (whether or not they acknowledge its creator) and striving to make sense of it on a human scale, I have nothing but admiration and respect. For those using applied science to make the world a better place, or just to revel in their God given gifts of intelligence and creative curiousity I have the deepest respect. Unfortunately these are few and far between, and generally despised by the mediocre run of their peers.”
You must know a LOT more scientists than I do!
As a working scientist .. and a devout atheist, I challenge you to imagine any scientist who does not see the wonder of discovery and understanding. Why else do you suppose we choose to work as scientists?
I also run a major program to train scientists. I can tell you that by far the single criterion of success is “the need to know.”
Where you and I would agree is that this need can come from many sources … devotion to human welfare or even a belief that knowledge can be turned into personal wealth. Rarely, though nor never, does the need arise because one is so impressed by the Bible that there is a need to know science.
Wake up and look around you.
Re 16
The scientific method is one approach to truth, and a damned good one.
So is faith and so is art. The scuptor is cutting that which obscures the truth of his vision from the rock as surely as a scientist is removing prejudice and irrelavancies from his hypothesis to come at truth. The theologist is performing something similar to the theoretical physicist, though neither may like to admit it.
But Billy Graham, Michealangelo and Drs. Crick and Watson have this in common. They are all men with all the limitations that implies. Science alone is not enough. Neither is faith, nor art, nor any other human endeavor we use to figure out the nature of this world. To come to truth about something as vast as the universe a vast array of approaches are needed.
@19 Lib Sci
As for Watson and Crick, I knew both of them.
First, lets be clear they did not discover DNA and their structure was going to be found in 6 months by others as well.
Second. as people they were VERY different. Francis was one of the people I have met with the greatest need to know. His intellect was used by Watson … JDW was/is not really in the same class.
Watson? He is an example that need to know can come from many sources. He is a competitive, egotistical, drive person .. the sort of person who is more usually associated with Wall Street than Harvard.
When JDW arrived at Harvard I was an undergraduate. Few of us were impressed because he lacked the intellectual drive of our other profs.
Of course, even in science, as time passes myths about people become more important that the truth. The great thing is that science itself does not care.
LSIB
It seems to me that you are intimidated by God@HA.
Why don;t you answer Her questions?
“Do you have the same faith in Billy Graham and Thomas Becket that the Israelites had in their golden calf? ”
Whether this God is real or not, the question is a good one. Why do you “believe” in Beck rather than on Obama?
Liberal Scientist,
In response to this thought-
“And putting W&C in the same thought as Billy Graham – yuck, just yuck. Graham you can have.”
I would have thought putting Christopher Hitchens in the same thought as Watson and Crick would be offensive. He represents dogmatic close-mindedness with an odd mixture of being offensive to make money far better than Mr. Graham or even any sleazy televangelist you can name.
Christianity is a religion of peace, just like Islam!
Re 24
I don’t respond to the posts of that person out of fastidiousness I guess. He or she is so blatantly offensive and disrespectful of others beliefs that I simply can’t bring myself to dialogue. It would be acknowledging that person as worthy of the dialogue.
As for your question, you ignore pretty much everything I’ve ever written about Glen Beck. I dislike the man and the fear mongering in which he engages.
As for any theologist worthy of reading or listening to, they would be the first person to tell you of their flaws. They would be the first person to warn that they are capable of error. To place them on the same ground as the golden calf was ‘Gods’ idea. Not mine.
@25
I never associated Hitchens with Watson and Crick. What are you talking about?
Oh yeah – advocating atheism is somehow lucrative like sleazy Televangelist (your term, and an accurate one). What planet are you on? Televangelism IS sleazy hucksterism – and Graham is an archetype.
hey lost, I have not seen your response to this. I assume you are done water skiing by now.
In what ways is Seattle decaying? Are there too many gangs? Are there too many gay people? Are there too many unwed mothers? Not enough Christians?
Really, you have to back a general statement like that up with examples of what you see as decay in Seattle.
I’m sure everyone would love to know.
Obama requires a whole post.
I don’t ‘believe in’ Obama because he doesn’t believe in himself. He takes no position not warranted to be popular. All of his stands are safely scoped out for what they might gain him, rather than what he believes. He holds no office or job in which he wishes to perform the tasks attached to it. All he wants is the title, the power, and presumably more book sales.
He is an astonishinly lifelike typification of the poe ‘Hollow Men’.
RE 28
I never said you did mention Hitchens.
I bring him up because he would be seen as the nonentity he is had he not advocated an intentionally sensationalist worldview. His every utterance is stage managed to ensure lecture tours and book sales. He is the televangelist of atheists. Only I suppose the jokes on him. He would have done a bit better financially had he become a televangelist.
Blue John,
In answer to your question-
Basic civility is at a premium in Seattle. Partly this is the result of decades of pitting one group of people against another intentionally or not. You can’t steal one mans money to give to another without some resentment on the part of the victim. You can’t take a man’s job or the university slot for his child and give it to a less qualified member of a minority without doing likewise. And it goes the other way. From churches to civil rights groups minorities are taught to hate their ‘oppressors.’ Poor people are taught in liberal schools and colleges to hate wealth in any form.
The result is a society in which common courtesies are met with hostility and suspicion. Opening a door for a lady isn’t polite, it is oppression. Greeting a stranger isn’t friendliness, it’s condescension.
By taking the stigmas from out of wedlock pregnancies we have created a whole generation of young men and women with little sense of family. That is, little real sense. Your ‘family’ is the pet dog, your older neighbor whom you call mom or dad, and your fathers third wifes stepchildren.
All the things that make society work are attacked in this way. The basic family unit from which we learn how to be adults- gone. The basic courtesies which indicate the acceptance of the shared basic moral and ethical codes which create a unified society- gone. What’s left is a meaningless mishmash of terms that used to have definitions and hold valuable office in the culture. Congratulations on the success of 80 years of reverse social engineering.
RE 29
Now, with all due respect, I have a client meeting. Have a nice day.
“Because a group of people (climate scientists in a journal dedicated to perpetuating the warming myth) invested in an idea interpret history one way, it must be true. Whereas anyone who disagrees must be lying.”
You claim that the American Meteorological Society is “dedicated to perpetuating the warming myth”? Read what you wrote, Lost. You boil this down to truth and lies. You’re basically accusing these scientists of lying, presumably in the presentation of their data, and are accusing the American Meteoroloogical Society of perpetuating a lie. And yet you have utterly failed at refuting a single data point presented in the paper. You present no proof whatsoever that the Society is engaged in a campaign to perpetuate a “myth”. Do you reach these conclusions of yours based on faith? Do you hear voices in your head? Or is this where your “imaginary data” comes into play? You say of them, “Whereas anyone who disagrees must be lying.” No, that’s you, Lost. They disagree with you so they must be lying. A typical wingnut, you project too damned much. You just can’t stop! Sigh! It must be a Psych 101 thing.
Good fucking grief! Could you possibly be any more spiteful and malicious towards minorities and the poor? You indulge in white man victimhood way too much.
I love how lostinaseaofcluelessness decries the lack of common courtesies – and whines that “greeting somebody is akin to condescention” Then, in the very next paragraph Capt. Intelligent Design immediately proceeds to condemn all unmarried parents, and pet owners!
The inherent contradictions co-located in the Bible have had a pretty big affect on airheads like LIASOB. Since very little of the crap they base their ideology on has any bearing in reality, The Discovery Institute cult spins forwards, backwards and sideways to scientifically “explain” the miracle of their tortured (and torturing!) religion.
@35
PZ Myers had a good post on this recently, here.
26. Blue John spews:
True..
However Sharia Law is NOT.
That is the issue that needs to be discussed.
Read about & understand Sharia Law.
Here is a start–
http://www.americanthinker.com.....brita.html
The Left wants to make the issue about Islam as a religion. It’s not.
It’s about Sharia Law.
Huge difference.
If “it’s about Sharia law”, then it’s also about Mosaic law. Why on earth should Mosiac law, such as stoning unruly children to death, be viewed any more favorably than Sharia law?
Once again little boy blue must run away to play with his things, after spewing some of the most senseless idiocy yet. He needs to go somewhere they accept those who witness their faith and leave this cyberspace alone.
Jeez, this Bible stuff should be rated “XXX” for violence! And there are some pretty racy stories in other parts like incest and hidin’-the-weenie with someone other than your spouse. If the Bible were published today, would it be banned in Boston?
@31
“lostinhisownasshole” does not either live in Seattle or visit here. It is my DIRECT experience over several decades living in this city that Seattlites are unfailingly polite.
Time to venture out from the fetid confines buddy.
@38 re:37
“thejesusownbutthole…mr. cynical” doesn’t know that bible of his very weel does he.
@31
Lost, your arguments don’t make sense and when you break them down, you sound really…not good.
If this is an argument against progressive taxation, WA state doesn’t have an income taxes, just a federal one. So by your logic, the decay should be more intense in Georgia or Arizona. If this is an argument against property taxes, then the decay should be everywhere. Countries with really low taxes should be very civil and countries with very high taxes should be lawless. Yet Belgium, Finland, Germany and Denmark with very high taxes are not known for their lack of civility.
We stopped doing that in WA state, by voter initiative in 1998, so our cultural decay should be decreasing.
Where is your proof of that in Seattle? Without links, I have to assume you made this up or you are telepathic. By your logic, to resist cultural decay, churches to civil rights groups minorities must teach to love their oppressors and poor people must be taught to love wealth in any form.
How do you know this? Are you telepathic? I don’t have this problem. Apparently you do? Maybe you are doing it wrong?
By your logic, do you see sarah palin as adding to the decay because her unwed daughter had a baby? Is palen destroying the idea of family?
You already said you thought affirmative action was decay, and now you cite another example of how brown people are causing societal decay. Maybe you are racist and think it’s those brown people who are destroying families.
Maybe you also think Mormons are causing the most cultural decay?
To recap: Seattle is in decay because it’s not civil. And the incivility is caused by taxes of which our state and our nation is ranked in some of the lowest. Seattle is in decay because minorities are given white people’s jobs even though WA outlawed that 12 years ago. To resist cultural decay, churches and civil rights groups for minorities must teach them to love and obey their oppressors and poor people must be taught to love wealth by any means. To resist cultural decay, Seattle must shame and stigmatize out of wedlock mothers, like palin did.
Seattle must return to the appearance of being civil by opening doors for women and greeting people in the street, unless those people are unwed mothers, or ANY family that is not a man and woman on their first marriage, or a minority who stole his job from a more qualified white person, or anyone who challenges authority or doesn’t believe in unregulated capitalism. Those people, Seattle must shame and stigmatize.
Are you aware you are advocating for a time before women’s rights and civil rights and gay rights? You are advocating for a time where pretty much only straight white rich men had all the power and money and every one else was a second class citizen or worse. You write so rationally, but when we parse it out, you argue for something right out of the time of the KKK.
The U.S. is the only “developed” country where a large section of the population denies climate chage. It is also the only so called country where a large segment of the population denies basic sciene,i.e. evolution. Go figure.
RE 33
By their own data the climatologists who perpetuate the myth of global warming are…selectively viewing data to support a preconceived notion. Call that lying if you like. It isn’t scientific and it isn’t particularly honest anyway.
Re 35 and 36
Try a basic course in reading comprehension before commmenting next time, Raul. What I actually wrote is different from what you read. Liberal Scientist is, he or she claims, a scientist and has not this excuse. One would expect the lack of a need for a remedial course in comphrehension there.
Let’s start here. I never mentioned the Discovery Group, and had no knowledge of their existence before you mentioned it. It is possible by study and observation to come to a conclusion opposite to the ones spoonfed any publicly educated student with its inherent liberal biases. It’s also possible to have gone to college or university and not bought the less excusable propaganda pushed there with the same liberal biases.
I make no attempt to scientifically explain my faith. Never have. One is a legitimate field of human endeavor in one direction, the other an equally legitimate one in another direction. Science can’t effectively be proven by faith, and faith can’t effectively be proven by science.
Try this- instead of assuming what another person believes in totality on the basis of a few words, ask questions. Or have the honesty to say you don’t want the answers or don’t believe them in advance. This is, after all, what a scientist would do.
Re 39
Speaking of little boys-
Why is it you never actually have anything to add by rude irrelevancies? Do your parents know you’re playing on the computer? Be safe now, little Spyder, and don’t talk to strange liberals. Now run outside and play so that you’ll grow up big and strong like your daddy. Bye now.
@42: That was a lot of effort… I
It’s mindless drivel. It’s what passes for right wing “thought” these days and doesn’t stand up to the merest scrutiny.
But basically, completelylost is just repeating cliche “conservative” crap — homilies and aphorisms like you’d find in Readers Digest.
Just stupid shit your crazy old uncle says.
Whoever above said it amounts to “Hey kids! Get off my lawn!” has it about right.
If you recall the root of this conversation it was the deletorious effects of liberal policy since FDR across the country. Seattle, LA and New York were used as examples. Accordingly, your comparisons of Seattle to Utah, Georgia and so on aren’t to the point.
Nor did I say most of what you claim I did. What I actually said? Basic civility is a good marker of the health of the society at large. When this declines you can bet underlying problems exist in the culture.
In this case specific reasons for the decline exist. Class warfare incited by liberal or conservative dogma push it along. Poor policy that incentivizes bad choices and penalizes good ones do also.
I did not say anywhere that unmarried parents are evil people, or the source of the problem. They are a symptom. When I order damaged framing removed from a structural wall, I first install alternate support. When we remove fundamental societal building blocks like the nuclear family without viable alternates how do you expect the structure to stand?
I did not say the ‘brown people’ are the source of the problem. The hatred from throwback bigots on the one side and people like Al Sharpton and Jeremiah Wright aren’t helpful either. But bigotry is fed by unjust policies, like affirmative action. It is fed by the perception of favored status for one group based soley on race or other minority status.
I mentioned gays nowhere.
See, I guess I got a bad copy of the ‘I have a dream,’ speech. I read it to say that we were working for a point at which we wouldn’t be judged by the color of our skins (or our gender or our sexuality) but by the content of our characters. Racism works both ways, or did you not know that?
I guess I misunderstood Kennedys’ exhortation too. Is it really ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country?” You folks seem to have reversed it.
RE 45
“But basically, completelylost is just repeating cliche “conservative” crap — homilies and aphorisms like you’d find in Readers Digest.”
Umm hmm. Arguments to which you never have responded. For the very good reason that there is no valid response. And this would expose the cliches and fallacies that pass for your liberal thought. Too scary for you, when sarcasm and deflection work just as well for a second rate mind like yours.
What arguments?
That’s the point, you fucking fool!
You’ve never put forward an argument. You just repeat mindless bullshit that we’ve all heard countless times that doesn’t amount to much more than mental masturbation.
Masturbate someplace else, asshole.
Lost, you said “I did not say anywhere that unmarried parents are evil people, or the source of the problem.”
But just said in 42: “By taking the stigmas from out of wedlock pregnancies we have created a whole generation of young men and women with little sense of family.”
BY YOUR LOGIC.
When society took the stigmas away, there was little sense of family.
So Society needs to return to those stigmas, so there is a renewed sense of family.
Where is my interpretation of logic wrong? What would you propose instead?
“By their own data the climatologists who perpetuate the myth of global warming are…selectively viewing data to support a preconceived notion. Call that lying if you like. It isn’t scientific and it isn’t particularly honest anyway.”
In other words, you have no intelligent response to my remarks @33. Without proof you accused the authors of that specific paper of lying. Without proof you accused the American Meteorological Society of perpetuating a “warming myth”. You ignore my remarks and instead blather on about something else -selective data – and again without and proof whatsoever. And to beat all, this comes from the goofball who was just called out the other day for his lame use of “imaginary data”. You really have nothing to offer other than that which you pull from your ass, do you, Lost?
Be specific and to the point. Identify the lies in that paper and offer proof to back up your accusations that the authors are lying. The same goes with the American Meteorological Society. How are they perpetuating the “warming myth”? And please, no more bullshit. If you can’t back up your accusations then just admit it and we’ll move on.
Lost you said. “When we remove fundamental societal building blocks like the nuclear family without viable alternates how do you expect the structure to stand?”
Two questions.
Why do you assume nuclear family are so such great things?
If nuclear family was so great, why is the divorce rate so high, when people have the option of divorce? Seems that if nuclear marriage was such a great thing, nobody would want to leave it.
Also if nuclear marriage was such a great thing, why would so many women allow themselves to have kids outside of wedlock.
Why do you assume there are NOT viable options?
Many gay families are raising kids quite well. Depending on the study, lesbian couples do it better than straight couples.
Many divorced and blended families are raising kids quite well.
Many single parent families are raising kids quite well.
However, I do think that being a single parent would be mind numbingly hard. So why not advocate that no family should be without the grandparents and 3 to 12 relatives within walking distance so the parents always have support?
it’s always going to be harder if you remove the social safety net, be it familial or governmental or religious.
You just seem hell bent on getting rid of the governmental while I do not.
“By their own data the climatologists who perpetuate the myth of global warming are…selectively viewing data to support a preconceived notion. Call that lying if you like. It isn’t scientific and it isn’t particularly honest anyway.”
In other words, you have no intelligent response to my remarks @33. Without proof you have accused the authors of that specific paper of lying. Without proof you have accused the American Meteorological Society of perpetuating a “warming myth”. You ignore my remarks and instead blather on about something else -selective data – and again without any proof whatsoever. And to beat all, this comes from the guy who was just called out the other day for his lame use of “imaginary data”. Do you really have nothing to offer other than that which you pull from your ass, Lost?
Be specific and to the point. Identify the lies in that paper and offer proof to back up your accusations that the authors are lying. The same goes with the American Meteorological Society. How are they perpetuating the “warming myth”? And please, no more bullshit. If you can’t back up your accusations then just admit it and we’ll move on.
Oh, great, a double post.
“You’ve never put forward an argument. You just repeat mindless bullshit that we’ve all heard countless times that doesn’t amount to much more than mental masturbation.”
Spot on, Zotz. Vacuous exercises in mental masturbation would seem to be about all that Lost can deliver. He certainly can’t debate worth a shit, although I’m sure he believes otherwise.
Obama: Birthers = ‘Nonsense’
“President Barack Obama says he isn’t worried about a recent poll showing that nearly one-fifth of Americans believe he is a Muslim.
” … In an interview broadcast Sunday on ‘NBC Nightly News,’ the president blamed the confusion over his religious beliefs on ‘a network of misinformation.’
“Obama says he wouldn’t get much done if he spent all his time chasing after rumors, like persistent accusations that he wasn’t born in the United States. He says he can’t go around with his ‘birth certificate plastered on (his) forehead.’
“And he says he has faith in ‘the American people’s capacity to get beyond all this nonsense.'”
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/.....1%7C167044
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Jimmy Carter once said of the presidency, “You’re going to be criticized no matter what you do.” Are where you were born. Or which god you pray to. Partisan, especially rightwing partisans, don’t give a damn about facts. In fact, the hallmark of a rightwinger is that he believes whatever makes him feel good.
Lost, you said “I mentioned gays nowhere.”
You didn’t have to. You went on and on about how “The basic family unit from which we learn how to be adults- gone.” and “By taking the stigmas from out of wedlock pregnancies we have created a whole generation of young men and women with little sense of family. That is, little real sense. Your ‘family’ is the pet dog, your older neighbor whom you call mom or dad, and your fathers third wifes stepchildren.”
You can say that straight people where “your fathers third wife’s stepchildren” are part of the decay of the society and then you are going to say that you didn’t include the gay people raising a kid?
THEY fit into your perfect nuclear family?
That kind of lie doesn’t fit your character. Be honest.
No. In other words the graphs and evidence you folks link to from these very climatologists say this-
No significant change has occured in global temperatures in about a decade.
The baseline is a period early in the 1900’s when we had several unusually cold decades.
This is so evident, even to these climatologists, that they send emails to each other on how to hide the evidence that temperatures are static, or dropping. They send emails, as scientists, on how to fake data.
These are facts. I know, liberals generally hate facts, as they militate against pretty much every position taken by you, but there you go. Life sucks if you can’t handle reality.
And no, I don’t consider myself a great debater. But compared to you I’m Lincoln and Douglass all rolled into one package.
I wonder if these two chuckle-heads are church going family values conservatives:
LSIB @ 27
”
What have you read here where I have been offensive of any beliefs of humans?
Or s it that you find My word itself offensive?
If you do not listen to me and disregard the insights of the scientists who look only to me for truth, then who do you follow and what words do you trust?
Do you trust Billy Graham? his son? Kim il Jung?
Seems easier to trust Me.
I am that I am.
Blue John,
Sure, there is always a difference between an ideal and the hard reality of life. My sister married a terrible person as a young woman. The subsequent divorce meant their son was raised by her. He turned out well, in large part because she worked very hard to make this happen, with the support of her family and friends. She isn’t evil or stupid. She made a poor choice and lived with the consequences, bad and good, of it. But she would be the first person tell nieces and nephews, and her son, a few things now. When family and friends are saying your intended spouse is a louse, they might be right. And single parenting is, as you say, mind numbingly hard. Why encourage it? Why remove the stigmas that help prevent it on the basis of pop psychology?
RE 56
I’ve made no secret of my opinion that a mother and father raising children is the best formula. But I did not mention gays raising kids specifically and on purpose. Statistically the number of gays raising kids is very low as a percentage of families. But the number of alternative families isn’t. For purposes of adoption and so on I’ll honestly say I’m conflicted. A loving family beats an orphanage any day of the week. But a child deserves the best shot he or she can get, too. I can’t say it matters what I think, in any case. Your side of the debate will likely win the gay marriage, adoption and so on debate.
Lost In Narcissism: “These are facts.”
No. They are not. They are ideological fantasy talking points. If you really want to have a discussion, then try stating a fucking fact. Just once.
Assertions are not facts, you dolt.
I tire of your bullshit.
“No. In other words the graphs and evidence you folks link to from these very climatologists say this-
No significant change has occured in global temperatures in about a decade.”
Good grief, you didn’t even look at that paper. Let’s see if you can follow this time around.
You wrote,
“As an example, in the 70’s the scientific community was performing their celebrated Chicken Little immitation because of Climate Change. Only that time it was an ice age coming, not THE COMING GLOGAL CATASTROPHE IN WHICH THE SUN WILL TURN THE EARTH INTO A SLAG HEAP!!!!!!!”
I posted a link to a paper that debunked your baseless accusation. The graphs and charts in that study represented the papers published in the 1970’s that either pointed towards cooling, warming, or were inconclusive. It showed that the studies done in the 70’s making a case for warming far outnumbered those for cooling. You were debunked. What you wrote was completely made-up bullshit. It’s apparent from your remark above that you didn’t even read the fucking paper. Christ, Lost, you didn’t even know what the fucking subject was, and yet you accused the authors of lying and the American Meteorological Society of perpetuating a warming myth! You’re such a egotistical asswipe that you can’t simply admit to anybody THAT YOU ARE WRONG! That’s a real fucking ego problem you’ve got there, buddy.
You’re a fucking idiot, Lost, with the debating skills of an damned imbecile.
“Lost In Narcissism: “These are facts.”
No. They are not. They are ideological fantasy talking points.”
Lost wouldn’t recognize a “fact” if it bit him hard in the ass. As for his NPD, he’s in big-time denial over that one. No surprise there, as a state of denial goes hand in hand with the NPD.
I’ve grown tired of his fact-challenged bullshit.
Intelligent Gestation, The Theory of
Hello fellow Christians and Atheists,
My name is Erik Lumberjack. I’m founder and chief scientist of the
recently formed Intelligent Gestation Institute. Our goal is apply
insights gained from Intelligent Design to combat the current Theory
of Pregnancy, i.e., that humans develop gradually from a sperm and
egg. Our FAQs below provide more details.
Thank you and best regards, Eric Lumberjack
OPEN LETTER TO KANSAS SCHOOL BOARD
Thank you for teaching Intelligent Design alongside the Theory of
Evolution. Our children deserve to hear multiple viewpoints.
I’m concerned, though, that only one Theory of Pregnancy is currently
being taught.
Namely, that humans develop in gradual stages from an initial sperm
and egg. First looking like a salmon, and then a lizard, and only
after long and slow development finally resembling a human.
As founder and chief scientist of the Intelligent Gestation
Institute,
I request that equal time be given to Intelligent Gestation, an
alternative approach that is gaining increasing support within the
scientific community.
These are key points regarding Intelligent Gestation for your
reference.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Question: Then why does the mother’s stomach get bigger?
Answer: Scientific studies have shown that it’s impossible for human
breasts alone to hold the amount of milk required to nurture infants.
That’s why the body gradually prepares by storing milk in the
mothers’
stomach. Scientific evidence of this can be seen by observing cows.
Question: But sonograms show pictures of developing infants, don’t
they?
Answer: Experiments have shown that ultrasound equipment creates
sound
waves that cause milk to curdle. So medical staff are creating these
images, and then the very same staff are interpreting the images that
they themselves created. This can hardly be called scientific.
Question: Then where do babies come from?
Answer: Let’s not base conclusions on anecdotes, but look at the case
for which we have the most recorded evidence. When the key figure of
human history was born, textual research has shown that he was
begotten as son when a dove descended from the heavens. More than
2,000 original texts agree on this point, many of them dating back to
several years from the original event, when eye witnesses were still
living. In addition to this, the past 2,000 years of historical
observation have also taught us where babies come from. The stork —
which the genome project has just recently proven to be of the same
ovarian family, genus and phyla as the dove. The probability of this
coincidence occurring by chance alone has been calculated at less
than
1 over a number so large that it is greater than the number of
subatomic particles in the entire state of Arkansas.
Question: Is Intelligent Gestation faith based?
Answer: No. Unlike the Theory of Pregnancy, it is based on observable
and testable scientific fact.
Please contact us if you would like more details, or free samples of
the textbooks that we are preparing for your school use.
Thank you, and best regards,
Erik Lumberjack
Founder and Chief Scientist
Intelligent Gestation Institute
Web site: https://sites.google.com/site/intelligentgestationinstitute/
Alternate site: http://www.intelligent-gestation.com
Contact info: erik.lumberj…@gmail.com
FAQ FOR SCIENTISTS
Question: But why does the mother’s stomach get smaller immediately
after childbirth?
Answer: When the infant arrives, the milk transfers from the mother’s
stomach to the mother’s breasts in preparation for breast feeding.
How
else could a mother feed her child? We challenge scientists to
provide
us with one example where a mother has breast fed her child from her
stomach.
Question: But I’ve seen photos of children being born directly from
their mothers.
Answer: Photos can be retouched. But more importantly, why are you
looking down there?
Question: Delivery rooms are sealed off. How could a stork or dove
get
in?
Answer: Ships are made of reinforced steel, but mice have entered
them
for centuries. We challenge scientists to produce one example of a
ship without a mouse.
Question: I’ve been in delivery rooms and never seen a stork or dove.
Answer: Absence of evidence of stork is not evidence of absence of
stork. We don’t notice mice either, but one day we open our
refrigerator door and notice the cheese is missing. The result speaks
for itself.
Question: But I’ve seen an egg cell divide in science class after
being joined by a sperm.
Answer: Imagine that you’re an egg and a sperm collides with you at
the equivalent of 2,000 kilometers per hour. You would divide as
well.
Question: Does this mean that you’re not opposed to stem cell
research?
Answer: We are not opposed, but our scientists don’t expect viable
medical applications. Any experiments done on stem cells would surely
only be applicable to similar plants with similar stems.
Question: Why is the Intelligent Gestation Institute speaking out at
this time?
Answer: If our children are taught in school that humans develop in
their mothers’ wombs from something that looks like a catfish, and
then a gecko, and then a reces monkey, and finally a human, it’s not
a
small step for them to believe later on that man evolved from ape.
This reduces humans to something purely physical and degrades our
worth as spiritual beings. If our children believe they descended
from
heaven, they will try to act heavenly. But how will our children act
if they are taught they come from come? How will they be encouraged
to
act morally? To be honest, our scientists are disappointed that the
Intelligent Design community has thrown in the towel so readily on
this very important issue.
Question: Would you be willing to debate Richard Dawkins on this
issue?
Answer: It would look good on his resume, but we’re not so sure about
ours. We would consider such an opportunity, but must take care not
to
elevate his theories to appear to have the achieved the status of
true
science.
Question: What are the academic qualifications of the scientists at
your institute? We’ve been told that your chief research scientist
has
a B.Sc. degree from the Livestock University of Kentucky with a major
in roast beef and a minor in mashed potatoes.
Answer: That is completely unfounded and we’re disappointed that the
secular press has stooped to using add homily arguments to try to
discredit us.
Question: In summary, is there any decisive evidence that you can
give
us?
Answer: It basically comes down to this. Which is more likely, that
we
developed in our mothers’ wombs through an unimaginably large number
of intermediate stages and then due to purely physical forces and
blind chance ended up as human beings that are fine tuned to an order
of magnitude of 10 to the 1,000th power, or that we’re a bundle from
heaven? Occam’s razor makes the answer more than obvious. Let me give
an example. Let’s say you’re walking on a beach and find a baby
wrapped in a blanket on the sand. Which is more likely, that an
intelligent being left the baby there, or that someone came on the
beach? People that make extraordinary claims must provide
extraordinary evidence to support those claims. The burden of proof
lies with them, not us. Our Institute is prepared to offer $100,000
to
anyone who will pop a nut on national TV and form something as
intricate as the human eye from sperm. And anyways, if humans
developed in their mothers’ wombs from something that looked like a
catfish, how come you don’t see catfish walking among us today and
giving interviews on TV?
“You went on and on about how “The basic family unit from which we learn how to be adults- gone.””
Just as he’s gone on and on about minorities and the poor. But he’s no racist or bigot, no siree.
Re 61
Is this how it works then?
Judge Walker states a list of findings of fact, which are his ideological interpretations. These are facts.
I state what any one of your global warming fanatic scientists have to admit when pressed to it. The earth has not been warming for a decade. Warming that occured before that used baseline dates from a period of unusually cold worldwide temperatures. I state what everyone knows at this point. Two scientists corresponded via email, the gist of the discussion being the means for altering data to hide the lack of warming. This was explicitly stated in these emails. And these aren’t facts. They are the very ideological talking points Walker used in his decision?
Interesting divorce from reality you folks have going.
BTW, Narcissism is a specific personality disorder to be diagnosed by someone who, I don’t know, knows what the hell he’s talking about. You and Steve aren’t such professionals, and would look a lot better if you didn’t pretend to be such on HA.
Oh, I forg
I forgot. In addition to being a wonderful human being and an incredible engineer, Steve is also a licensed psychologist, universally recognized as an expert in behavioral disorders.
Or not.
Lost will someday post a fact to back up his wingnut talking points. Or not.
LMFAO!!
@66 lost said “The earth has not been warming for a decade. “
Just because you say it, doesn’t make it so.
Just Sayin….
Climate Change Evidence
June 08, 2010 08:00 AM
http://crooksandliars.com/jaso.....e-evidence
New Studies Provide Further Proof of Climate Change
May 24, 2010
http://environment.change.org/.....ate_change
Why Can’t Scientists Say the Recent Extreme Weather Events Are ‘Proof’ of Climate Change?
http://www.climatecentral.org/.....ate_change
Scientific proof: climate change is happening now
http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/aboutcc
/problems/rising_temperatures/scientific_proof/
Proof of climate change ‘unequivocal’
Published: 02 Feb 2007
http://www.eea.europa.eu/highl.....nequivocal
How come if “Two scientists corresponded via email, the gist of the discussion being the means for altering data to hide the lack of warming.” trump “6,000 of the world’s top scientists”. Conservatives have an amazing ablity to find one tiny data point to destroy the whole system.
Because two poor people cheat on welfare, we must destroy the whole welfare system for the 2,000,000 who need it.
Because two scientist wrote emails that may have questioned global warming , we must ignore the other 5998+ scientists who have proof of global warming.
Maybe Mr. Narcissist would care to refute.
The Independent Climate Change E-mails Review
July 2010
http://www.cce-review.org/pdf/FINAL%20REPORT.pdf
Oh, I forgot, heh- scientists are liars and the American Meteorological Society exists to perpetuate the warming “myth”.
Re 69
You mean a government commission found nothing wrong with the behavior of a government employee? I’m shocked. Shocked I tell you.
That is what this is, you know. It’s a British government review whose sole purpose is to defend other government employees, whether they are defensible or not.
That report was a whitewash. It had CYA written all over it, and in it. The language is vague. And while I can’t be bothered to re-read the worthless piece of garbage, the end conclusion read something like-
While the review of scientific data is outside of our commission, we believe these facts true, pending further review. Basically, while we couldn’t review the scientific data, we will make conclusions about it anyway.
Hardly a ringing endorsement of your lying Brit scientist, Stevie Boy.
@60 Lost spews “A loving family beats an orphanage any day of the week. But a child deserves the best shot he or she can get, too.”
You seem to be coming at this from the point of view that there is some sort of affirmative action for gay adoption, that good kids are being denied to better qualified straight families and given to gay families.
Gay adoptive families are seen by the adoption community as the parents of last resort. This is changing, but it was very common when we were adopting. For domestic state adoption, gay adoptive families were more likely to be less restrictive so we would take the harder to place kids, the kids of color, which were not newborns, may have been drug effected, may have learning, emotional and physical disabilities and may have medical problems. The gay community was adopting the kids that are labeled “hard to place” and more often than not, the kid turns out fine.
“But a child deserves the best shot he or she can get, too” Yes, Yes they do. And they are getting it.
And yet, you have called the changing nature of family part of “slow decay of this country”.
@60 lost spewed
You are not consistent. If society is supposed to stop encouraging single moms, and you are part of society, then why are you not condemning your sister for being a single mom? Why did you encourage her? By your tacit acceptance of her being a single mom, you are sending a message to your nieces and nephew that it’s a hard but acceptable option. Everyone has to do their part to restore those stigmas, including you.
@60 lost spewed
“She isn’t evil or stupid” Why not? The welfare mom you don’t know is, but your sister is not? You have a double standard. Everyone else should enforce stigmas, should punish single moms for their choices, make it hard on them for their choices. They should be punished and made miserable as an example to others. But your sister is different and should not be punished for her choices.
Where is my logic wrong?
“In addition to being a wonderful human being”
According to Ms. Wingnut, that’s actually true, at least to her way of thinking. For my part, I don’t buy it. As you have likely gathered by now, I can be a real fucking asshole when I’m around people I don’t like.
“and an incredible engineer”
I never thought so myself. However, when Microsoft Real Estate and Development, Callison Architecture and Lease Crutcher Lewis turn the keys of a $200 million dollar project over to a lowly electrical engineer and make him the sole point of contact to the city and state agencies for all design disciplines and trades during C of O, and contracts are altered to allow that engineer to give verbal direction to contractors without any dollar limitations and no liability to his own firm, it does make the case, wouldn’t you say? Bye the bye, my friend Max was there.
“Steve is also a licensed psychologist, universally recognized as an expert in behavioral disorders.”
Not true, although I did obtain a degree in psychology and, as I mentioned before, was one of a group who founded a mental health clinic in Boulder, Colorado back in 1974.
Really, Lost, this isn’t about me. It’s about you, your NPD, your hatred of minorities and the poor, and your inability to back up any of your wild assertions with fact.
It must suck to be you.
“That report was a whitewash.”
So says the self-absorbed NPD house-flipper. My goodness! It must be true!
Proud To Be An Ass nailed it @61,
Blue John,
You seem to read what you want to see rather than the actual written words.
At no point did I call any welfare mother or single parent evil. In fact I wrote precisely the opposite.
What I did write was that out of wedlock parenting is a symptom of the decay of this country, brought about by liberal policies and liberal mindsets. As is the divorce rate, increasing youth violence and so on. In that sense it would be foolish to rail against the symptoms of an illness rather than the illness. Which is why I didn’t. What I will additionally say is that if a cultural subset has either a 71% or a 51% out of wedlock birth statistic that culture is endangering itself. Normalizing illness is not curing it. To me this seems stunningly obvious, but for some reason you keep using these signs of major illness in the society as signs of health.
FYI- All the negative comments about gays or gay adoptions in this thread have originated from you. Not me. I would imagine that at times given your choice in sexuality you feel as though everyone is condemning that choice. Sometimes a statement or a passing phrase are just that. They don’t always have to be insiduous attacks on your personal choices.
Re 74
Ever actually read the report? Or did you just read the bits someone sent you in an email from Huffington Post?
I have. The report is full of government inquiry doublespeak and backsteps. In the conclusion section it reads as I paraphrased it. The final findings were inconclusive as to scientific facts, yet the board of inquiry felt perfectly justified on ruling on the impact of those facts. To a point. They did recommend a board with proper authority to review the science be convened. This was done with no expectation of the recommendation being followed. It was classic CYA. Try reading it before commenting on it.
For a professional who is well educated you’re very comfortable making assumptions you can’t back up. Interesting.
“Really, Lost, this isn’t about me. It’s about you, your NPD, your hatred of minorities and the poor, and your inability to back up any of your wild assertions with fact.”
NPD is a disorder to be professionally diagnosed by someone with good knowledge of the patient. Or didn’t they teach you that in Primal Therapy sessions or whatever they were?
Racism and bigotry are your opinion of me, again based on passing knowledge. You are the kind of person who would say an employer was racist for firing a minority employee with good cause. For you the facts don’t matter, the opinions do. Which presumably is why you attack so vociferously the logical arguments of others, being incapable of them yourself. What was that you keep writing about projection?
Steve,
If you are as you claim to be congratulations are in order. Going from a disadvantaged background to being a successful engineer is a remarkable testimony to your drive and skill.
It’s too bad you and your liberal friends can’t recognize that this kind of thing is what makes this country great. It’s too bad you can’t realize that liberal policies and ideology threaten the ability of a young person today to to as you did.
I’ve got work to do. Hope you all enjoy what looks to be a very nice day.
Of course it’s nice. It’s NOT the weekend! This has been a sucko summer.
Lost wrote: “What I did write was that out of wedlock parenting is a symptom of the decay of this country, brought about by liberal policies and liberal mindsets.”
But what lost will not write about is what conservative policies and conservative mindsets would be, that would curb things like wedlock parenting. What policies would he have put in place and what would the consequences of THOSE policies be?
Until he tells us otherwise, we only have the historical record of the society of 1930s and before. Is that the culture he wants us to back to? Cause if so, I will fight that.
“It’s too bad you can’t realize that liberal policies and ideology threaten the ability of a young person today to to as you did.”
You couldn’t be more wrong. It was because of progressive policies and ideology that I was able to escape poverty. Sure, I had initiative, and I most surely had the help of my church and friends, but without the social safety nets that were in place I likely wouldn’t have even survived. You have repeatedly demonstrated with your commentary that you are the type of person who would have taken those from us, put me on the street, and would have allowed my Mom to die for want of medical treatment before I even knew her.
@77 LSIB
Look at it this way.
1. The scientific community overwhelmingly accepts the findings in re global warming.
Who is opposed? Fox? You?
Why are you willing to accept what we tell youj about H1NI and drugs to treat atherosclerosis and not accept this?
2. The issues in England were NOT serious scientific issues. Noone has found was no attempt to falsify data nor was there any attempt to suppress data.
What occurred was the normal sort of discussion that occurs in every field over how to deal with dissent.
I have had a very similar experience in my own field, atherosclerosis. A part of what the public is told about cholesterol is told is not true. For the most part this arises not because of any disagreement about facts but about the best way to explain the facts to the larger community.
In my case I have been an outspoken skeptic but that skepticism has not in any way hindered my ability to publish and discuss mu ideas.
3. If you want to read about a real example of dissent in science, read the controversies over Peter Duesberg’s work. Duesberg has made very real criticisms of the claim that HIV causes AIDS.
Again, there is truth in Duesberg’s areguments and the nature of science has provided ample opportunity not only for review but his ideas have had a significant impact on hows research is done.
4. Science is not perfect. Like any other human endeavor, we have our opportunists, ego maniacs, and frauds. Watson, for example, is widely recognized as having serious character flaws, to out that mildly.
BUT, the w3ay science is done, there are huge rewards for disproving the accepted wisdom. Here are some actual examples that ou might read about:
Michaelson Morely … they disproved Newton, got a Nobel Prize for it!
Avery .. the real discover of DNA, he died beforfe3 his work was fully understood, but bthe work survived the test of time, as you know.
Rosalind Franklin .. her x ray images were the breathrough that led to the double helix. She died too, but the work, the facts won because they were correct.
Pruisner .. another widely disliked person because he disputed DNA, claimed proteins could transmit genetic information as well. Won Nobel Prize.
Marshall and Warren discovered that Helicobacteria cause peptic ulcers, overturning a huge amount of work by experts in stomach ulcers. They won a Nobel.
The of course, we have Darwin, Chomsky, Skinner, …. science works BECAUSE it rewards dissent.
The factually challenged NPD guy sez,
LMFAO!!
It’s a Psych 101 thing, Lost. You really should look into it.
@83 I just want to say that I very much appreciate the comments you’ve posted in this thread, SJ.
“And putting W&C in the same thought as Billy Graham”
Why not? Crick and Graham both saw the world with a profound sense of awe and wonder, and spent their lives seeking some kind of essential truth. It might be a trifle enlightening to some of y’all to quit replaying the tapes of the younger, hellfire-and-brimstone Dr. Graham and watch him in some of his later crusades–somewhere along the way it seems he “got it”. The older, wiser, more contemplative preacher spoke much more about inner peace and notion that the only way we’re going to survive as a people is to put aside our petty animosities and take to heart Jesus’ admonition for each of us to “love his neighbor as himself”. It’s rather a pity that since his retirement his son has ratcheted everything back and tried to make us all smell the sulfur.
If one understands that our nation’s real religion, prattlings about Jesus (or whatever) notwithstanding, is the devout worship of money, it’s not surprising that any notion that interferes with profit would be condemned as “scientific heresy”.
“In the conclusion section it reads as I paraphrased it.”
I posted the conclusions @69. There was no need for you to paraphrase. What you call paraphrasing was just spin and distortion on your part to suit your agenda. No matter. You will no doubt continue to believe that scientists are liars and that the American Meteorological Society exists only to perpetuate the warming “myth”.
there is a large portion of the scientific community that has not swallowed the line about man-made global warming.
@89 OK, who…excluding those who are on the payroll of Big Energy or playing out of their league (like William Shockley when he decided inventing the transistor made him an authority on genetics)?
What I see as the slow decay of this country is the destruction of the social safety nets and the shrinking of the middle class in America.
To counter the slow decay, I would like to see government fiscal policy make much, much harder for wealth to concentrate at the top. We were founded on being classless society, so I don’t want create one. I’m aware that conservatives will scream that this is stealing from the very rich. It would be more sacrifice from them than right now. But if person A makes $10 mill and takes home $3 mill, they still have $3 million dollars. If person B makes $50 K and takes home $40 K, person A is still doing better. That money has to go somewhere, so it should go instead the middle and lower class that work for it, that show initiative and drive and earn it.
Also, it’s been shown that when taxes are very high on the richest, like during the 1930 through the 1970s, that money gets diverted into R&D and creating better companies, instead of going into CEO salaries.
I don’t think we should reward the lazy, be they poor, middle class OR rich. They didn’t earn it. I don’t want anyone to starve, but I’m comfortable with providing any American citizen a minimal existence if they choose not apply themselves. They may be slackers, but their kids shouldn’t be punished for it.
We need to be strengthening family units, of all types, not tearing apart all but the conservative approved nuclear ones. The best poverty program is a good job. Families need access to safe homes, safe environments, employment opportunities, and quality educations. We need to promote the social conventions that strength relationships and keep families together. Drug and alcohol treatment centers, conflict resolution classes. Quality day care. Affordable Health Care. Sex ed so people don’t have kids before they are ready.
That would go along way against reversing the “decay of America”
Talk amongst yourselves
@91 The right’s oh, so dear upperclass friends have had one helluva dance for the last 30 years or so, so they damn well ought to pay their fair share of the tab.
Unfortunately, all this happened with the support of a lot of common people who got conned into the absurd notion that making the country “safe for rich people” would somehow afford them the opportunity to join the party. Somehow, they still don’t realize that the Limbaughs and the Cheneys and the Becks and Kochs and Mellons are all feeding them a line of bunk and then going behind the curtain and laughing themselves silly at what a bunch of gullible fools they are. We can but hope to survive to see the day when those ladies and gentlemen with the flags and yellow ribbons and teabags and popguns start to hear that laughter. Then it’s going to get really interesting.
@91 “Classless society”? Huh??
At the time the United States was founded, half of its economy was dependent on slave labor.
@89. The contractor is always right, the engineer is always wrong spews:
Nope.