Atheism

Any god will do.

John Safran is my hero. (well, one of 'em).

Balls the size of planetoids.

In one episode of his show, he sang "If I were a rich man" on National(?) live Palestinian radio.

In another, he swapped his sperm donation in a Jewish clinic with that of his Muslim friend.

In another, he was nailed to a cross (no, really) and carried through the streets in the Phillippines

I could go on... and on...

What about (courtesy of wikipedia) streaking naked through the streets of Jerusalem wearing only the scarf and beanie of his favourite football club, St Kilda; being baptised in Africa; placing a Voodoo curse on his ex-girlfriend;? Or sneaking into Disneyland via a work area and attaching information plaques he made about founder Walt Disney to a display (highlighting little known Disney "facts" such as Walt Disney's alleged early support for Adolf Hitler)

Safran attained infamy and police attention for a stunt to try and coerce cricketer Shane Warne into breaking a "no smoking" clause in an advertising contract with a nicotine gum manufacturer. Safran drove a remote controlled seagull with a cigarette onto the pitch during a match. He was arrested for "pitch invasion", but the charges were dropped.

Safran had gone to Mozambique to have a curse, previously placed on the Australian national football team by a now-deceased witch doctor, lifted. He and former Australian football team captain Johnny Warren were covered in chicken's blood in the process. Subsequently, on 16 November 2005, Australia qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 1974.

Safran spent portions of 2007 in Los Angeles shooting a pilot entitled John Safran Saves America for American MTV in which he tried to convince emos to fight in Iraq, hit the couch with therapists who claim they can cure people of racism, and attempted to become gay to increase his standing in Hollywood.

And real nails in that crucifixion. Ouch.

If you are going to be a serial pest, that's the way to do it.

I know, right ?! (Cheerleader voice)

I haven't even seen the Safran v God series yet.
I have it for when I'm ready.

Thank you, edgar.
Thank you very much.

Not sure how off topic this is, but I don't think paedophile priests are that much worse than your garden variety paedophile, issues of trust and access nothwithstanding. Its how the church chooses to deal with it that demonstrates how depraved and corrupt an institution it has been for centuries, and those responsible include the current pope. How they do that and expect their god to strike me down for my lack of belief while they are somehow super-holy is bewildering. I think, and hope, that the vast majority of all priests are good well-meaning people.

I don't think a Catholic priest is any more or less capable than any other non-Catholic priest. I don't think someone's catholicness is a measure of their ability to take kids camping and picking up trash. Despite the problems that's happened with Catholic priests, I don't assume all Catholic priests are pedophiles.

A
R
T

Mendel’s Laws


Mendel’s laws of genetics and their modern-day refinements explain almost all physical variations occurring within species. Mendel discovered that genes (units of heredity) are merely reshuffled from one generation to another. Different combinations are formed, not different genes. The different combinations produce many variations within each kind of life, such as in the dog family. A logical consequence of Mendel’s laws is that there are limits to such variation (a). Breeding experiments (b) and common observations (c) have also confirmed these boundaries.

a. Monroe W. Strickberger, Genetics, 2nd edition (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1976), p. 812.

Alfred Russel Wallace, who independently proposed the theory of organic evolution slightly before Charles Darwin, was opposed to Mendel’s laws of genetics. Wallace knew Mendel’s experiments showed that the general characteristics of an organism remained within distinct boundaries. In a letter to Dr. Archdall Reid on 28 December 1909, Wallace wrote:

“But on the general relation of Mendelism to Evolution I have come to a very definite conclusion. This is, that it has no relation whatever to the evolution of species or higher groups, but is really antagonistic to such evolution! The essential basis of evolution, involving as it does the most minute and all-pervading adaptation to the whole environment, is extreme and ever-present plasticity, as a condition of survival and adaptation. But the essence of Mendelian characters is their rigidity. They are transmitted without variation, and therefore, except by the rarest of accidents, can never become adapted to ever varying conditions.” James Marchant, Letters and Reminiscences (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1916), p. 340.

b. “Every series of breeding experiments that has ever taken place has established a finite limit to breeding possibilities.” Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong (New Haven, Connecticut: Ticknor and Fields, 1982), p. 55.

“All competent biologists acknowledge the limited nature of the variation breeders can produce, although they do not like to discuss it much when grinding the evolutionary ax.” William R. Fix, The Bone Peddlers: Selling Evolution (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1984), pp. 184–185.

“A rule that all breeders recognize, is that there are fixed limits to the amount of change that can be produced.” Lane P. Lester and Raymond G. Bohlin, The Natural Limits to Biological Change (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), p. 96.

Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried: An Appeal to Reason (Ipswich, Massachusetts: Gambit, 1971), p. 36.

William J. Tinkle, Heredity (Houston: St. Thomas Press, 1967), pp. 55–56.

c. “...the distinctions of specific forms and their not being blended together by innumerable transitional links, is a very obvious difficulty.” Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, 6th edition (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1927), p. 322.

“Indeed, the isolation and distinctness of different types of organisms and the existence of clear discontinuities in nature have been self-evident for centuries, even to non-biologists.” Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (London: Burnett Books, 1985), p. 105.

[From “In the Beginning by Walt Brown]

Edit [Moderator]: Link removed

Might I suggest Pahu that you place that post on the Challenges to Teaching Evolution thread.

Pahu's pastes. Don't quit your day job, dude.

Gee--I didn't know that people of faith are incapable of using long words. And it never entered my head that they can believe anything they want. I thought that heterodoxy was heretical and punished in various ways such as excommunication and the pronouncement of anathemas against them and that orthodoxy was mandatory give or take a few minor variations of little consequence. It is suprising and astonishing, indeed I am somewhat blutterbunged and gloppended by it, that the revelation in the communication stratospherically situated, both geographically and academically, in juxtaposition to this post has been kept a secret for such a long period of time and hinge is to be congratulated for going to the inconvenience of enlightening us all on the matter and it is an honour for me to acknowledge our obligations to him for sharing what looks to be such a coniderable portion of the contents of his library with us.

Taking that into considerartion on top of the obvious fact that the evidence aligned in contradistinction to the irrational and superstitious preposterousness of the devotedly concientious and atavistic, antediluvian, assured and autocephalous nature of faithful personages, is all, with no residuum of remainder, "on the other guy's side", it is flabbergasting that there are any people who would be so curmudgeonly and anti-eleemosunary as to refuse to sign my petition to have hinge nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literary Excellence, a special award specifically inaugurated to mark the appearence in the world of such a benighted and penetrating intellect and consisting of an oil-can, fully charged with bio-degradable lubricant of the sort ideal for the amelioration of the annoying effects of a squeaky hinge on the ladies toilet door in a busy pub on New Year's Eve.

spendi, "People of faith" are capable of using long words; you're a good example of that, but that doesn't imply good English grammar.

blutterbunged?

Who said it did. You only need read a few anti-ID posts to see that.

I bet you wished your grammar could reach the zones of expression reached in the post you are referring to.

spendi, Do you understand why more people ask what you write than mine?

Ooh! Ooh! Can I answer?!?

Is it because C.I.'s writing is all predictable, one-dimensional and unimaginative?

KING, N.C. – The Christian flag is everywhere in the small city of King: flying in front of barbecue joints and hair salons, stuck to the bumpers of trucks, hanging in windows and emblazoned on T-shirts.

The relatively obscure emblem has become omnipresent because of one place it can't appear: flying above a war memorial in a public park.

The city council decided last month to remove the flag from above the monument in Central Park after a resident complained, and after city leaders got letters from the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State urging them to remove it.

That decision incensed veterans groups, churches and others in King, a city of about 6,000 people 15 miles north of Winston-Salem. Ray Martini, 63, an Air Force veteran who served in Vietnam, launched a round-the-clock vigil to guard a replica Christian flag hanging on a wooden pole in front of the war memorial.

Since Sept. 22, the vigil has been bolstered by home-cooked food delivered by supporters, sleeping bags and blankets donated by a West Virginia man and offers of support from New York to Louisiana.

"This monument stands as hallowed ground," said Martini, a tall, trim man with a tattoo on his right arm commemorating the day in 1988 when he became a born-again Christian. "It kills me when I think people want to essentially desecrate it."

The protesters are concerned not only about the flag, which was one of 11 flying above the memorial when it was dedicated six years ago, but about a metal sculpture nearby depicting a soldier kneeling before a cross.

"I won't let it fall," Martini said. "I have already told the city, before you can take it down, I'll tie myself to it and you can cut me down first."

The identity of the resident who complained about the flag, a veteran of the Afghanistan war, has not been made public. But the state chapter of the ACLU has no problem with the vigil.

"We were concerned when the city was sponsoring the Christian flag, but we don't have any concern with veterans groups displaying the flag," legal director Katy Parker said. "We think it's great the city is offering citizens a chance to express their opinions."

The protesters, though, aren't satisfied with the vigil. They're planning an Oct. 23 rally in support of their ultimate goal, which is for the city to restore the Christian flag to the permanent metal pole on the memorial.


At a recent public hearing, roughly 500 people packed the King Elementary School gymnasium, many waving Christian flags. Of more than 40 speakers, no one spoke in favor of removing it.

"We've let our religious freedoms and constitutional rights be stripped away one by one, and I think it's time we took a stand," King resident James Joyce said.

Mayor Jack Warren said the city won't make a decision until it can go over its options with legal counsel. One possibility is designating a flag pole at the memorial for the display of any religious emblem, he said. Another is selling or donating the memorial to a veterans organization, essentially privatizing it.

"What it comes down to is: What can we do and what can't we do, what's legal and what's illegal?" he said.

Created by a pastor in New York City a little over a century ago, the flag, which sets a red cross in a blue square in the upper left corner of a white field, has been used by both liberal and conservative Protestant churches, but rarely draws much attention, according to Elesha Coffman, a history professor at Waynesburg University.

"I would guess most churchgoing Protestants in America have never even noticed if there is a Christian flag in their own sanctuary," she said. "It's just kind of there, unless there's a controversy, and suddenly people pick it up."

In King, it's virtually inescapable. Gullion's Christian Supply Center, an area retailer, has sold hundreds of flags since the dispute began, according to Leanne Gay, who was running a tent at Calvary Baptist Church in King where everything from Christian flag decals to T-shirts were for sale.

"In the first couple weeks, we were running out of flags every two hours or so," she said.

The Rev. Kevin Broyhill, pastor at Calvary Baptist, donated the flag now flying at the vigil. But Broyhill thinks having it returned permanently to the memorial is a losing legal strategy. He wants the city to transfer the memorial to a veterans group, which would make it private land.

"Right now, the judges on the Fourth Circuit Court are very liberal," he said. "This battle's already been fought in court."

Broyhill is probably right, according to Larry Little, a lawyer and professor of political science at Winston-Salem State University.

"They know they'd lose," he said of the city council. "They would have to use taxpayers' money to defend what any lawyer worth a grain of salt could tell them is a violation of the separation of church and state."

For veterans who say they're honoring the sacrifices of fallen comrades or Christians who say they're defending their faith, though, such a compromise seems like a sellout.

"That's an easy out," said Eugene Kiger, who has been part of the vigil since the beginning. "The people here saw what was happening and said, 'Somebody has stood up. It's time to stand up with them.'"

________________________________________________________

I believe transferring ownership would make for a wonderful solution. - edgarblythe

The resident who complained should be made Flag Salesman of the Year. We need more like him.

Okay, if you claim , please provide proof of this statement? You can cut and paste from my posts, but don't forget to show why it's .