Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Using this thread's experts as a guide I would imagine I'm below 100.

yet you do seem interested in the subject, spendi

I'm learning things you don't find in books.

Have you noticed views are nearly up to 45,000.Do you think they come to see me being called stupid?With the needle stuck.

you are not stupid, spendius, only confusing sometimes

I have always confused the liberal intelligentsia.They have theories which bolster their own self esteem.Old fashioned stuff.Way out of date.
I'm a Dylan fan.

"Don't follow leaders,
Watch the parking meters."

He's no leader.His words are his words.

Listen to this-it's from Prof Beloff's The American Federal Government.Talking about grants for education.

"On the one hand,there is pressure for aid,when given,to go to parochial as well as to public schools;on the other,the opposition of those to whom the constitutional separation of Church and State is the very ark of the covenant and any derogation from it,whether by a state or by the Federal Government,a halfway house to an America dominated by the Vatican."

It's a bit old (1959) but it does suggest things, to me at least.The Vatican has some rules a lot of people don't like for obvious reasons.

I guess I missed that - who called you stupid, and where? That ain't right, if it happened. On the other hand, referring to what you - or anyone else - may have written as stupid is an entirely different matter.


To lighten things up a bit, I recall reading recently some educator/admistrator type was shocked to find half the students in his/her district were of below average intelligence. Lotsa folks figure they live in Lake Woebegone

timber wrote-



S/he must be either very thick or taking the piss.Apart from those on exactly 100.000 half the rest,which is for,statistical porpoises (my Joycian mental state popping briefly out for a touch of sun),
all of them,half are below average and half are above.If s/he knew that s/he was taking the piss and if s/he didn't s/he is thick.I use the present tense advisedly.They rarely improve over time.

But it always surprises me that everybody who has had their IQ measured is always in the 120 to 130 range.Do they get paid for testing the brainless.You can get in MENSA even though you can't get the top off a soft-boiled egg properly.I met one once.There were a number of other things he couldn't do.Like pulling birds.Birds are the best IQ teasters.

I must disagree timber,loathe though I am to do so,that writing something stupid is not a sign of general all round stupidity.I think it is.The stupids start at about 135 for me but that's just my narrow experience talking and I suppose I could be wrong.

Hey-I've got reading Churchill's Grand Alliance by John Charmley who,judging from the first few pages,is not very charming about Americans.
It should be good.It's quite well written too which is always a real blessing.

I think that's one of the qualifications.



Pulling birds?

IQ "teasters"?

I was quite pleased with "teasters" myself actually ros.

It grew on me.

It started as a typo.

I was about to correct it when I noticed it's similarity to "teasers".

So I left it thinking it might provoke a wry smile somewhere in the residues.

Then I noticed it was also similar to "toasters" and,as I think you American men are "toast", it began to make me titter.

The idea that you found "teasers" quite funny but hadn't realised you were "toast" yet seemed to be most amusing.

On the way to the pub "teat" reared it's resonances and I can't remember what came after that.

But I did actually mean "testers" which is a word with obvious literary connections to "testosterone".

I'm sorry if I confused you.

Ok, it was a typo. No big deal. I've never seen anyone rationalize a simple typo with a paragraph on free association. I can hardly believe you were still mesmerized by the wonders of it while heading to the pub.

Now what about that pulling bird thing? I was actually more interested in that.

ros-

So you are normal after all.

It's bedtime here but if it's an emergency just look mysterious and rich.It never fails.If you can't look mysterious look very rich.

Pull the other one.They took a dive from what I could gather.

On the principle that journalism is writing on the back of adverts or,in the case of TV, shepherding the sheep up to the billboards it must have been worth $100 million.

This discussion,apart from myself of course,is taking place without the slightest cogniscence of the subtleties of human relations.It is as if real humans are of no account and that their readily measured beliefs are facts to be blissfully glossed over in the service of the repetitive mantras which are becoming almost unbearable in their black and white no-nonsense Harry S Truman tiresomeness.

What's your best shot at describing a society of 280 million atheists for the third time of asking?

And for gawd's sake don't get sophistical about rejection of ID not constituting atheism or I might hurt my conk banging it against the wall.

"You either got faith
Or You've got unbelief.
There ain't no neutral ground."

Bob Dylan.

spendius,

The United States provides plenty of opportunity for people to discuss God's role in creation.

Science classes in government-operated schools, however, are not the proper venues for religious discussion.

Americans are not deprived of religion. They practice religion at home or in places of worship.

wande-

If God does have a role in creation then it surely follows that such an idea should permeate the whole of ecucation.It isn't as if we are discussing what type of wheel trims to have on our cars.

The main difficulty,as I see it,is that if people practice their religions at home or in their temples you will get thousands of Gods and religions as was the case in the failed cultures of Greece and Rome.

Madonna is into something strange and going around talking about it and,I feel sure,so are many others.If there is a human need for belief someone will cater for it and with the atheist or agnostic position what is there to prevent it.David Icke was on the telly last night I'm told preaching that the Royal Family are actually a race of lizards who take human form in public.

Our Prime Minister's senior scientific adviser has been top slot on the news broadcasts tonight predicting a 27ft rise in sea levels within fifty years.Other senior scientists were wheeled out to support the contention.Billions to die they agreed.

It seems the average American and European causes the emission of two tons of carbon dioxide,not to mention other strange unnatural products,just by flying and the Chicago meeting is anticipated with glee and joyousness.

Not that it matters to us of course.It's only the grandchildren the scientists are predicting to go down in the flood along with the Dow Jones.

I suppose my question about a society of 280 million with no organised spiritual guidance is pointless in view of the scientist's objective conclusions concerning the future.

Motor cars were miles higher than air travel and when the Far East catches up to our taken for granted standards it may be that the scientists are being optimistic.

What do you think?

spendius,

I think it is a bad idea for any single religion to pervade every aspect of a society.

wande-

That's clear enough.

How is that not a belief.A vain hope even.Have you any evidence to support this belief assuming that a "bad idea" is one that doesn't work as an ongoing cultural benefit.

It may well be a "bad idea" for you personally but that is hardly a foundation for a policy applicable to a society.

I happen to think that "television" is so dramatic an invention that maybe it ought to have been thought through by theologians before being unleashed and when,and if it was,to have been managed more carefully.That's a belief too and only time will tell just who has fell and who's been left behind.

Have you thought about phone voting in daft set up talentless shows and "send us an e-mail with your views on the latest superficially treated emotive issue."It's like begging.And mushrooming.

I think I might prefer the collection plate in an environment of a controlled,established priesthood with chastity and poverty vows.

And now for something completely different.
A man with three buttocks

fm

I doidie wonceupoooonatthyme useded to amusicate
laydesh wif theo ideoinieo off zee tree leggeredy worman.