In a fashion which is still somewhat obscure, it seems as though many of the inhabitants of the areas where the American Indian formerly roamed have taken over from the people they displaced this demonstration of manliness by the endurance of pain and humiliation without flinching, and the admiration of the spectators who witness the hero's agonies and impassivity. This is a recurrent theme in Americn literature, from Billy Budd to From Here to Eternity, a theme which is incomprehensible to most European critics, who interpret as Sadism the quite inevitable accounts of the hero's pains. Few books in recent years have been so strongly reviled in the English press as James Jones' From Here to Eternity: for English readers this demonstration of Manliness by Suffering was brutal and obscene. No English writer could ever have written:
"There was a satisfaction that came from having borne pain that nothing else could ever quite equal, even though the pain was philosophically pointless and never affected anything but the nervous system. Physical pain was its own justification."
Perhaps it would be more correct to say that no English (and I suspect no French) writer could have written such sentences in a book intended for general circulation and serious consideration; such sentences might of course occur in the erotic algolagnic literature of the nineteenth century; indeed from the few excerpts available, it would seem that this might be the theme of Swinburne's monumental obsession with schoolboy punishments, The Flogging Block.
The point of this rather long digression is to suggest that on the conscious, pre-conscious, and probably unconscious levels there are more and different relationships between suffering pain, inflicting pain, or watching others perform either or both of these actions than those divined by de Sade or posited by the the greater number of psychoanalysts. Similarly, there are a few societies described by anthropologists in which de Sade's analysis of political power and power-seekers would appear not to apply, simple subsistence societies like the Arapesh or Lepchas, or 'steady' societies with some hereditary castes like the Balinese. In these societies positions of authority appear to be quite genuinely avoided so that sanctions have to exist to make those designated exercise the necessary functions. Human variabilty, it would seem, has evolved societies where Sadistic characters can achieve no satisfactions and where political power is reduced to a minimum; such societies would seem to be all small and isolated.
Jackson County School Board opposes the teaching of evolution as fact
(By ANNE SPENCER, Jackson County Floridan, January 21, 2008)
Perhaps for the first time, the subject of evolution has come before the Jackson County School Board, but it wasn't publicly acknowledged.
Evolution didn't come up, per se; the word itself was never spoken.
It came by way of the newly proposed Sunshine State Standards for Science. A draft of the new standards is to be considered at a State Board of Education meeting and the draft uses the word evolution several times, whereas the previous standards did not.
The school board opposed the new wording and unanimously passed a resolution in its January meeting last Tuesday, though no one specifically said why.
The new standards were not on the original agenda so weren't considered in the workshop; the standards were added for "just cause" to the meeting because the BOE date was imminent.
When Chairman Terry Nichols put Item 6 A through E before the board, there was no discussion and one vote covered all.
Superintendent Danny Sims presented the resolution for "review and approval" and noted in his memo that in the new Science Sunshine State Standards, "Evolution is addressed at the kindergarten, 2nd, 7th and 9th-12th grades and is presented as fact and not as theory."
He noted the BOE would act on the standards draft in its Feb. 12 meeting.
In recent days, Sims was asked to explain how the resolution came about, and board members were asked why they voted for it.
"Dr. Nichols and I talked about it and felt it was something we wanted to look at and make a statement on," Sims said. "The board members have access to the Sunshine State Standards online, so they could look at them.
"We have had standards for science for several years, but the old standards didn't use the word evolution. It alluded to evolution but did not use the word," Sims said. The new standards, however, "looked like it limited what you could discuss, and I think that was the sticking point."
There had been some concern addressed to the school board office, said Sims. "Some individuals from different communities asked for the standards ? they had seen reports ? and we either provided them ... or told them how they could access them."
He said no one "led a charge," but "we had a few people that did call. Some were parents, some were educators, some were ministers."
Duffee and Gardner both said "the resolution speaks for itself."
Chris Johnson said other school board districts had taken a stand "and I felt we needed to take a stand for ourselves. What we were saying is that evolution is a theory, and a theory is an educated guess. Personally I don't believe I came from a lower life form; I was created by God.
"Everybody is entitled to their opinion, but if we are going to teach evolution we need to teach all similar theories and creation should be one of those. Evolution is not the only way," Johnson said.
Kenny Griffin said he had no problem with teaching evolution, "but our concern is we're teaching it as fact. And this will be taught to younger students, too."
He said if it were just older students in question it might be different, as they might understand there are other options.
"They're able to make more decisions of their own," but the standards also apply to kindergarten and second grade, he said.
"We would like (evolution) to be taught as theory and not as fact," Griffin said. "And I think there's been a lot of that said throughout the state."
According to Deputy Superintendent Larry Moore, from what he said he could remember, Calhoun, Washington, Taylor and Baker are some of the counties opposing the new science standards.
The standards list as one of the "Big Ideas" to be taught, "Evolution and Diversity." Under that are four benchmarks, one of which is, "Recognize some organisms that lived long ago are similar to existing organisms today, but some have completely disappeared."
A benchmark under another "Big Idea" is, "Recognize and describe that fossil evidence is consistent with the idea that human beings evolved from earlier species."
A part of one of the "Standards" is, "Evolution is the fundamental concept underlying all of biology and is supported by multiple forms of scientific evidence."
Other parts say, "Organisms are classified based on their evolutionary history," and, "Natural selection is the primary mechanism leading to evolutionary change."
Another benchmark is, "Discuss other mechanisms of evolutionary change such as genetic drift, gene flow, founder effect."
Several public hearings have been held around the state at which both sides have been presented.
According to The Associated Press, the Taylor County School Superintendent said at a hearing that he has heard hundreds of parents say that they would abandon public schools for private if the state approves the language on evolution.
That's when Spengler's remark about the "profanum vulgus" having "no inkling" becomes apt. (see earlier post).
Im gonna stand in line to get tickets to yer earlier posts. Pompous snotbag
So the parents are going to try to dictate to the BOE ...............
real life wrote:Diest TKO wrote:real life wrote:Diest TKO wrote:spendius wrote:c.i. wrote-
Quote:spendi, Please address the issue about gaps in ID;
There are none.
Spendi - Back this up or shut up coward.
T
K
O
What , specifically , do you propose cannot be accounted for by an Intelligent Designer, Deist?
Evolutionists have often claimed that there is some evidence that 'only evolution explains'.
But they've never been willing to post such. I wonder if you are.
1) Who created the creator.
2) Who is the creator.
3) What resources are required to do these types of creation.
4) for every claim that ID has sought to capitolize on, that is to say the current gaps in understand in evolutionary theory and BB, how does ID prove that we will never understand those gaps? Saying that we currently do no understand does not mean that we will never understand.
for starts. I can't wait to read your non-answer.
T
K
O
So you are saying these are things that 'only evolution explains' ?
Your question is non-sequitor. Neither BB or evolution require answers for any of the above.
e.g. - Why would either have explanations for the orgins of a being which the two theories don't require and furthermore refute?
I think someone put it best when they said that "science does not refute god's existance, it simply does not require god."
Tell me how many angels can fit on the head of a pin?
K
O
Bump for RL.
Diest TKO wrote:real life wrote:Diest TKO wrote:real life wrote:Diest TKO wrote:spendius wrote:c.i. wrote-
Quote:spendi, Please address the issue about gaps in ID;
There are none.
Spendi - Back this up or shut up coward.
T
K
O
What , specifically , do you propose cannot be accounted for by an Intelligent Designer, Deist?
Evolutionists have often claimed that there is some evidence that 'only evolution explains'.
But they've never been willing to post such. I wonder if you are.
1) Who created the creator.
2) Who is the creator.
3) What resources are required to do these types of creation.
4) for every claim that ID has sought to capitolize on, that is to say the current gaps in understand in evolutionary theory and BB, how does ID prove that we will never understand those gaps? Saying that we currently do no understand does not mean that we will never understand.
for starts. I can't wait to read your non-answer.
T
K
O
So you are saying these are things that 'only evolution explains' ?
Your question is non-sequitor. Neither BB or evolution require answers for any of the above.
e.g. - Why would either have explanations for the orgins of a being which the two theories don't require and furthermore refute?
I think someone put it best when they said that "science does not refute god's existance, it simply does not require god."
Tell me how many angels can fit on the head of a pin?
K
O
In the American form of government, elected officials serve the people -- not the other way around. It's popularly known as 'government of the people, by the people and for the people'
There is nothing about the physical universe that cannot be explained by creation.
Anti-Evolution Gains Momentum in Florida
(By Brandon Keim, Wired Science, January 22, 2008)
The school boards of eight Florida counties have passed resolutions insisting that evolution be presented alongside alternative theories of organismal origin and development. A battle declared settled in December is not yet over.
Last month we reported that state and national critics had succeeded in discouraging opponents of evolution from fighting the state's proposed science curriculum, which calls evolution a critical fact that every student should know. Florida's current curriculum doesn't even mention Darwin's theory by name.
"Alternatives" to evolution are essentially creationist, and usually rely on intelligent design -- a belief that the life's essential complexity can only be explained as the work of another (and generally divine) intelligence. Intelligent design was legally declared a religious rather than scientific explanation during the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover lawsuit; unlike evolution, it can't be tested, and there is no evidence to support it.
Shortly before Thanksgiving, four Polk County school board members publicly rejected evolution. Local coverage of their sentiments soon turned national; they backed down. The conflict seemed settled. However, persistent digging by the Florida Citizens for Science found that eight counties -- St. Johns, Holmes, Hamilton, Baker, Jackson, Clay, Taylor and Madison -- have passed anti-evolution resolutions.
The resolutions are non-binding, but may encourage members the state Board of Education to dilute the state's proposed science standards. If Florida opts for evolution-unfriendly textbooks and is followed by neighboring Texas -- also undergoing its own curriculum revision -- then other states, looking for less-expensive texts, may buy those same books. Much of an entire generation could be raised to think of evolution as a theory with no more grounding in reality than intelligent design.
I don't talk about what I don't know about.
Much of an entire generation could be raised to think of evolution as a theory with no more grounding in reality than intelligent design.
spendi, You ground your reality in ID, because you don't accept evolution as a given.
There is no such thing as Philosophy "in itself." Every Culture has its own philosophy, which is part of its total symbolic expression and forms with its posing of problems and methods of thought an intellectual ornamentation that is closely related to that of architecture and the arts of form. From the high and distant standpoint it matters very little what "truths" thinkers have managed to formulate in words within their resoective schools, for, here as in every great art, it is the schools, conventions and repatory of forms that are the basic elements. Infinitely more important than the answers are the questions---the choice of them, the inner form of them. For it is the particular way in which a macrocosm presents itself to the understanding man of a particular Culture that determines a priori the whole necessity of asking them, and the way in which they are asked.
The Clasical and Faustian Cultures, and equally the Indian and the Chinese, have each their proper way of asking, and further, in each case, all the great questions have been posed at the very outset.. There is no modern problem that the Gothic did not see and bring into form, no Hellenistic problem that did not of necessity come up for the old Orphic temple-teachings.
It is of no importance whether the subtilizing turn of mind expresses itself here in oral tradition and there in books, whether such books are personal creations of an "I" as they are amongst ourselves or anonymous fluid masses of texts as in India, glimpses of the last secrets are veiled in expressions of art and ritual. Whatever the variations, the general course of philosophies as organisms is the same. At the beginning of every springtime period {about 1100AD for us} philosophy , intimately related to great architecture and religion, is the intellectual echo of a mighty metaphysical living, and its task is to establish critically the sacred causality in the world-image seen with the eye of faith. The basic distinctions, not only of science but also of philosophy, are dependent on, not divorced from, the elements of the corresponding religion. In this springtime, thinkers are, not merely in spirit but actually in status, priests. Such were the Schoolmen and the Mystics of the Gothic and the Vedic as of the Homeric and the Early-Arabian centuries. With the setting in of the Late period, and not earlier, philosophy becomes urban and worldly, frees itself from subservience to religion and even dares to make that religion itself the object of epistemological criticism. The great theme of Brahman, Ionic, and Baroque philosophies is the problem of knowing. The urban spirit turns to look at itself, in order to establish the proposition that there is no higher judgment-seat of knowing beyond itself, and with that thought draws nearer to higher mathematics and instead of priests we have men of the world, statesmen and merchants and discoverers, tested in high places and by high tasks, whose ideas about thought rest upon deep experience of life. Of such are the series of great thinkers from Thales to protagoras and from Bacon to Hume, and the series of pre-Confucian and pre-Buddha thinkers of whom we hardly know more than the fact that they existed.
At the end of such series stand Kant and Aristotle and after them there set in the Civilization-philosophies. In every Culture, thought mounts to a climax, setting the questions at the outset and answering them with ever increasing force of intellectual expression---and, as we have said before, ornamental significance---until exhausted; and then it passes into decline in which the problems of knowing are in every respect stale repetitions of no significance. There is a metaphysical period, originally of a religious and finally of a rationalistic cast---in which thought and life still contain something of chaos, an unexploited fund that enables them effectively to create---and an ethical period in which life itself, now become magalopolitan, appears to call for inquiry and has to turn the still available remainder of philosophical creative power on to its own conduct and maintenance. In the one period life reveals itself, the other has life as its object. The one is "theoretical" (contemplative) in the grand sense, the other perforce practical. Even the Kantian system is in its deepest characters contemplated in the first instance and only afterwards logically and systematically formulated and ordered.
