It is in first class working order.
So much so that I wasn't aware of it until fm asked after it.
The struggle to mainatin objectivity against a driven minority of Christian Conservatives wastes a lot of energy that could be devoted to good education. The IDers have suffered so badly in the courts and the press that youd think that theyd regroup and try for a totally different strategy in Kansas.
I hope it doesnt require many more generations
wande quoted-
Quote:No longer is Kansas the target of derision around the globe.
I hadn't been aware of that wande.
I understood Kansas to be a marked out area of land on which lived a bunch of tosspots, shysters and ne'er-do-wells.
Why that should be a target of derision is beyond comprehension seeing as how the rest of the land mass of the earth contains as many of the same somesuch as the topography will bear.
It sounds snobby to me.
wande quoted-
Quote:Groups like the Mainstream Coalition are wise to begin to work now, and not let up until the November election.
That's sound advice. It does beg the question of what "work" means, of course, but it is well known that if an American says he is working hard then he is working hard and the harder he works at saying he is working hard the harder he is working, the logic is irrefutable, and he is thus worthy of our deepest admiration and heartfelt gratitude and it is only right and proper that he has his title on his office door in gold letters and a reserved space on the car park.
I'm sorry. I didn't mean all Americans. Just the intellectuals and academic sports.
Nice to see that Europe has more sense than some of our conservative republicans running for president.
On October 4, 2007, the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly approved a resolution urging its member governments to oppose the teaching of creationism as science. The resolution, entitled "The dangers of creationism in education," states, "Today creationist ideas are tending to find their way into Europe and their spread is affecting quite a few Council of Europe member states," observing, "The prime target of present-day creationists, most of whom are Christian or Muslim, is education. Creationists are bent on ensuring that their ideas are included in the school science syllabus. Creationism cannot, however, lay claim to being a scientific discipline." Included is "intelligent design," which is described as "the latest, more refined version of creationism" and "presented in a more subtle way."
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2007/XX/783_council_of_europe_approves_res_10_4_2007.asp
The Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly has adopted resolutions almost without number that nobody takes any notice of. And with more than just "urging" too.
They like urging us to do things. It gives them a sense of satisfaction that they are more than just freeloading ne'er-do-wells who spend most of their very expensive time in wine bars, restaurants and the red-light district.
I forget what the turn out was here at the last European Parliamentary election but it was derisory and the event passed by almost un-noticed.
The Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly from Wiki.
Quote:Unlike the European Parliament (an institution of the European Union), which had been created after the model of the PACE and also meets in Strasbourg for its plenary sessions, its powers extend only to the ability to investigate, recommend and advise.
farmerman wrote:The struggle to mainatin objectivity against a driven minority of Christian Conservatives wastes a lot of energy that could be devoted to good education. The IDers have suffered so badly in the courts and the press that youd think that theyd regroup and try for a totally different strategy in Kansas.
I hope it doesnt require many more generations
farmerman
The incredible tenacity of these belief systems, particularly in the face of so much information which ought to upset them, suggests we are dealing with something that isn't likely to disappear. This mid east monotheism tradition is 4 or 5 thousand years old and it is built on the skeleton of ideas much older. I think, as disappointing as this is, that it is one of those battles we'll have to keep waging.
And keep losing I'm afraid.
It is not winning to be approaching enemy territory on your belly with a knife between your teeth.
You need to get in those trenches and fight it out there. And the nearer you approach the more alert the established incumbents get.
What you need do is establish the primacy of reason over emotion and asure us all that if we allow you to you won't abuse the power you get as a result.
Once again, not anticipating any response of course, I ask you to describe a society based on scientific, atheistic, materialist logic with only those who can master 8 dimensional geometry being deemed fit for the heavy responsibilty of directing it.
spendius wrote:
Once again, not anticipating any response of course, I ask you to describe a society based on scientific, atheistic, materialist logic with only those who can master 8 dimensional geometry being deemed fit for the heavy responsibilty of directing it.
Well, there were several serious attempts at it during the late, unlamented 20th century. The results weren't particularly good. Not only didn't they achieve the materialist nirvhana they promised - the socialist paradise , populated with a new "socialist man" - they failed in their own terms of rationalizing production and social order, and slaughtered millions while runing untold other lives in the process.
One could make a good case for the proposition that Blatham's metaphor is based on the wrong object. The real oddly resurgent idea that we may find ourselves battling forever is the notion that science alone can fully address the core issues of the human condition.
BERNIE (I dint realize the subsequent posts after yours)Well, I can always hope.
Even the Amish, who dont endorse evolution, rcognize the benefits theyve accrued from biotech, the foundation of which is that living things can be made to change.
Actually, tye fundamentalists have made much progress in moving their doctrinal based science in step with the real world. Since theyve made a doctrine out of the distinction between micro and macro evolution, theyve opened their own door to future acceptance of theory.
Quote:The real oddly resurgent idea that we may find ourselves battling forever is the notion that science alone can fully address the core issues of the human condition.
That's not a claim I've made. See Nagel's "The View From Nowhere". And there are other 'religious' traditions apart from the one which we were born into (entirely by chance) bequeathed by that little group of dusty goat-herding nomads from the tigris delta. After all, neither of you two would be very happy if these 'education' initiatives involved Muslim ontological claims, quite aside from those which would arise in an animist or other traditions so let's not pretend that some loose acknowledgement of the 'spiritual' would appease either of you or particularly the people of whom we are speaking.
The thing I find most humorous is the acceptance of some kind of Truth system that had to be REVEALED. Actually it was the other way around, humans created gods cause they needed to explain the unknowns, and at the times when the god businesses were developing doctrines, beliefs, ceremonies etc, there was very little science to provide any counterbalance,
I think that, as a rational human being, were I in need of some spiritual guidance, Id probably look to Judaism. It has a major god who is totally transcendant after a period of history, with no promises of afterlives and moogah boogah bullshit that (like spendis case) requires all human endeavors to be "blessed" by some guy in the sky.
georgeob-I consider myself a student taught in the Jesuit tradition and Ive incorporated what was taught me, that ya cant deny evidence.
Im in Jezzy recovery.
farmerman wrote:BERNIE (I dint realize the subsequent posts after yours)Well, I can always hope.
Even the Amish, who dont endorse evolution, rcognize the benefits theyve accrued from biotech, the foundation of which is that living things can be made to change.
Actually, tye fundamentalists have made much progress in moving their doctrinal based science in step with the real world. Since theyve made a doctrine out of the distinction between micro and macro evolution, theyve opened their own door to future acceptance of theory.
farmerman
That's my hope as well. george and spendi find it convenient to throw up the straw man of the entirely rationalistic/atheistic boogeyman who must be, axiomatically, without morals/ethics and who wears a Stalin moustache and Pol Pot's jungle-gymwear. There are lots of christians, jews, muslims, dervishes who do not find it necessary to insist that the universe was created in 4004BC. They and I can get on just fine. My mennonite family was an absolutely wonderful family to grow up in and none of them begrudged me my independence of mind, in fact they promoted such.
I don't believe the argument was ever REALLY about evolution. Though there were certainly more than a few Luddites who resisted Darwin's eminently observable construct, what really aroused their resistence was the insistence by many (not all) of the advocates of 'educational reform" that all reference to a creator be removed from the public education curricula - not just science classes, all of it. The result that even the "stupid" Luddites were able to guess, was widespread indoctrination in a tacit atheism, that the public was not - and to a large degree still is not - willing to accept.
Amnerican advocates of "scientific" education from Dewey on have established a consistently poor track record. It is remarkable that these ideas remain so attractive even in the face of the readily observable indications of their failure that are all around us, This, ironically, is quite analogous to the resistence to Darwin's Theory that persist in some quarters.
Quote:Im in Jezzy recovery.
LOL.
12 step here might be awkward.
farmerman wrote:The thing I find most humorous is the acceptance of some kind of Truth system that had to be REVEALED. Actually it was the other way around, humans created gods cause they needed to explain the unknowns, and at the times when the god businesses were developing doctrines, beliefs, ceremonies etc, there was very little science to provide any counterbalance,
I think that, as a rational human being, were I in need of some spiritual guidance, Id probably look to Judaism. It has a major god who is totally transcendant after a period of history, with no promises of afterlives and moogah boogah bullshit that (like spendis case) requires all human endeavors to be "blessed" by some guy in the sky.
georgeob-I consider myself a student taught in the Jesuit tradition and Ive incorporated what was taught me, that ya cant deny evidence.
Im in Jezzy recovery.
farmerman, My sentiments and belief - all the way - even with a different foundation.
James Joyce spent his whole adult life attempting to recover from Jesuit teaching. And put his wife and kids through a living nightmare.
He was in the front rank of selfish egotistical bastards of all time. The whole idea of Christianity is to try to mitigate the natural evolved selfishness (original sin).
When anti-IDers point to the fallen clerics for the evil they have done they are pointing at that evolved selfishness breaking out. Jesus would have done nothing of the sort. They have become confused by labels. A Christian is not a Christian because he says he is, he is a Christian by how he leads his life.
Obviously an evolved selfishness takes some eradicating but to give up on the project on the basis of backsliders into evolution's mechanisms, be they Popes or anything, is the most fatuous argument I can think of and especially in the face of the proven partial success of its mission.
Anti-IDers never mention happiness. They think we are all animals. What else can they possibly think?
