And PZ, you self-deluded insignificant NUTCASE…

the ORIGINAL *KING OF TERROR* VIDEO…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGsOqPDkIZY

the *MODEL* of mental health:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zBEbfiaZTfc

“Look at the ANGLE OF THE KEY….see that, see that….”

what an idiot this Randi is…..a REAL CRITICAL THINKER….

Visit:

http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewthread/3283/P0/

to see how we stopped James Randi’s fraudulent MILLION DOLLAR PARANORMAL challenge…..

watch carefully the consequences of Randi’s *idea*…..

For over 40 years James Randi Zwigert (is this even a REAL NAME?) has had total control over who and how the testing was conducted, yet despite all this he has terminated the challenge.

The ONLY REASON why the challenge was stopped is because he lost and refused to pay.

Apparently, Randi likes to break the rules when it serves him:

“14. This prize will continue to be offered until it is awarded. Upon the death of James Randi, the administration of the prize will pass into other hands, and it is intended that it continue in force. ”

Great force…..it’s over……

where is my MILLION DOLLARS, you LITTLE *NO-NAME* FRAUD

PS: Almost Forgot: Love the IRONY of the *BULLSHIT* sign over Randi’s ugly head….

Not trustworthy maybe, nor demonstrable to others, but not in error.

You may want to check out this thread (if you haven’t already seen it):

http://1godsgal.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/286/

Cheers.

Thanks for the background – I’d lump you into the category of having been burned by religious/christian people (which is the larger context of “most are ex-catholic, ex-pentecostal in the first place)

Oh, the 20 Billion reference is in the same blog listing all your categories of theists. You’re too young to be experiencing memory loss – that’s for old farts like me!

I think it’s interesting that the whole argument between ID/Creationism and Evolution exists in the first place – since they are (scientific or not) mutually exclusive. Why isn’t the Creationist argument leveled against Abiogenesis?

Seems kind of silly to me – but what are you gonna do?

Personally, I believe science should continue to figure out how things work, especially for the purpose of solving global issues that impact mankind. I would like to think that scientists are open to all possible outcomes – that if there is someday some “proof” of a Creator, that they will see the data and make the acknowledgement. It’s only supernatural if it’s not understood; if it is figured out someday how a Creator created then it would be within the limits of our understanding, and therefore natural.

Stop by anytime you want to discuss issues of deity or theology – I’d be happy to answer your questions.

Any my position is 100% NOT hypocritical. ID IS NOT SCIENCE! It has absolutely no place in a science classroom. It is no more scientific than astrology or nose-picking-as-a-cure-for-cancer. As I *attempted* to post on Will’s blog, that ID is not science is not simply the view of atheists or even of scientists (that is 99% of scientists, regardless of religion); it was also the position of Conservative Christian Republican Bush-appointed devout Lutheran Judge John Jones in the Dover Trial who not only ruled against the ID group and ruled that ID is not science and is purely religiously motivated; he also said that it was clear that the ID group (or at least many of the people on it) had lied about their motivations for bringing the case, and that the position that they were holding was one of “breathtaking inanity”.

I still don’t think science should be studying everything, as some ideas are clearly more reasonable to study than others. The examples I gave were things I just made up off the top of my head.

As for whether science shapes my worldview or the other way around, I genuinely do make a serious effort to be honest with myself and others. I constantly try to force myself to confront the possibility that I could be wrong and that someone I disagree with could be right. So I make great efforts to be open-minded and loyal to the evidence rather than to my own state of mind at a given time. I do this not only for myself, but in the interest of everyone. As far as I’m concerned, the world would be a far better place if everyone could be far less attached to their beliefs and be genuinely honest – and I argue this constantly. So I oblige myself to follow this practice.

Category 6 seems to a be a popular one.

My religious upbringing: None, but with a culturally Christian bias. That is, in my home religion was a non-issue. It didn’t come up one way or the other. In fact, it was only about 2 years ago (I’m 25 now) that I found out what my mom thought on the matter – she believes in some sort of higher power; she seems to be a deist, I suppose. The culturally Christian bias comes from living in Canada where Christianity is the dominant and unless-otherwise-specified assumed branch of religion. For many years I did believe in God. But not because I had thought about it seriously or had had any moving personal experiences. It was simply because I tacitly took everyone’s word for God. It was apart of my cultural knowledge the same way that it was apart of my cultural knowledge that Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are Canadian provinces, though I have never been to them. For a number of years in my teens I prayed nightly, though for all the wrong reasons – it was just me spending 40 minutes a night asking God for a long list of personal favours and then throwing in about 40 seconds of well-wishing for the rest of the world and God and Jesus so that I didn’t come off as a completely self-absorbed kid (as if that would have fooled anyone, let alone God…). The latest point at which I recall having seriously entertained the realistic possibility of the Christian God was during my first year of university when I was 19. Some fundamentalist Christians from British Columbia were on a cross-country proselytizing mission and I had become connected to them through a series of coincidences and misunderstandings. One day they were sitting over coffee and they basically set up a Good Christian, Bad Christian routine on me wherein one of them was warning me of the most diar (spelling?) consequences of not fully accepting Christ and of such things as masturbation and what not, while the other would occasionally pat me on the shoulder as if to say “it’s okay, it’s okay” but all the while nodding along with the other one; they both genuinely thought that what they were doing, they were doing for my own good. How I know that I still entertained the Christian God as a very real and worthy of consideration possibility was that when Bad Christian was laying down the law for me my response was something like “well, couldn’t I still go to heaven if I don’t become a devout Christian but am a generally good person, am nice to people and so on…” – to which he replied “No” and that I might as well go on a raping rampage because unless you’re all in, you might as well be all out. The point, though, is that even at that age it didn’t even occur to me to ask “well, what if your God doesn’t exist in the first place?”. This was only 6 years ago.

As to biogenesis/evolution: Yes, you’re right: evolution doesn’t explain where life came from, and no scientist says it does. A precondition for evolution is self-replicating life forms. There are still issues, however. Firstly, ID is a breach of secularism in that it is clear that it is being pushed for purely religious reasons (I can go more into the evidence for this if you’d like). Second, ID is not at all scientific. Scientists would also be up in arms by someone pushing for some other branch of non-science to be peddled in classrooms – though the resistance is possibly extra high in this case because of the coincidence of nonscience with attempts to violate secularism. Third, fundamentalists believe in individual species Creation, which evolution directly contrasts. Fourth, ID claims that the intelligent designer played a role during evolution, not just as a creator of a first cell.

Scientists, as you could have guessed, are also working on studying abiogenesis. You can read good summaries of work being done in this area on TalkOrigins.Org – a great scientist run collection of info on evolution, evolution vs. Creationism/ID, etc.

Seriously though, who makes these rules of blogging? And why is it in poor taste? What if the comment is in poor taste?

And on a more fundamental level, it appears from the response given to the maligned Mr. Brown that the other party was quite respectful, but did not feel a post of such length was appropriate on someone else’s site.

With due respect, blogging isn’t like a street corner at all. I’ve spoken on a street corner. I have NO MEANS to edit the dialogue in such an environment. Blogging does have this means of editing, and I suggest that it for the specific purpose of excluding whatever you wish for whatever reason.

On the face of it all, it seems hypocritical of Mr. Brown to complain about being denied an outlet of expression when atheist science seeks to similarly exclude deists and theists from the scientific conversation.

I suppose we all have a right to our opinions. The question is does everyone else have a right to our opinions?

–Sirius Knott