Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Innocent and helpless....yes, that's you, Spendius, all over. And by your superstition I mean all superstition which you apparently prefer mainly because it makes you less filled with dread even though it does make you full of the stuff of nonsense and myth.

Joe(such a pity, I bet if you weren't such a fatuous windbag you'd be fun to hang out with.)Nation

ALABAMA UPDATE

Joe wrote-




I started out innocent and helpless. Then I had a period where I became decisive and commanding, like most of us do who have played all the sports, and then it dawned on me that I might still be innocent and helpless and could be pretending I was decisive and commanding in order that the two silly phuckers who begot my goodself could bask in the reflected glory of the superiority of their genetic structures, which are 90 odd % in congruence with monkeys and 80 odd% with oysters, which led me to look for evidence that I was still innocent and helpless and it was no good asking teachers because they are decisive and commanding and we all know what they will say so I looked into literature and I discovered that the writers I liked best had all accepted that they were innocent and helpless and amused themselves by recording, like a video tape essentially, often in lurid detail, the antics of the decisive and commanding section of the population, a growing number, in the hope, usually a vain one, that it will raise a laugh, a not unimportant consideration according to the good Francoise Rabelais and his followers, in some far flung corner of the earth at some unspecified date.

I am now even capable of greeting the news that the beer has gone up, again, with complete equanimity. I put on my Marcel Proust expression as a reflex, which I can't control. (tautology for emphasis).

None of which is to say that our happy band is not admiring and grateful for all the things the decisive and commanding have brought our way. We are exceedingly grateful and astonished at how it has been done. Starting with rubble and some recordings.

But we don't think we can do anything about the way things are. We take what we have gathered from coincidence. We think that most of those who want to change things don't know what they are talking about. That they see this vast and powerful organism known as Western Christianity like they see a toy fort with toy soldiers and we think that is disrespectful.

Looked at another way it might be said that disrespect is a key motor of our success but disrespect turns back on itself when in power and demands respect.

Looked at from above, in the round so to speak, it has all the hallmarks of a writhing mass of eating and shitting fornicators struggling to find a path to salvation and despite the ups and downs has a direction; as it must have. Direction is in the Christian's bloodstream. And there's millions of hands trying to take a tilt on the tiller.

I'm not keen on being filled up to the brim with dread though.

"Less" conjures up a scale. Hence there's 100% dread and no dread. So the use of "less" says nothing, but a point is got over to those who don't know the trick. The point being that religious belief is a panacea for dread as only media should be allowed to sell those.

Another point being got over is that those who use other palliatives for dread are made to feel as if they don't if they have no beliefs and thus that they are superior to those who do.

As such it is an argumentum ad hominem which, as we all know is an argument designed to appeal to the personal sentiments and prejudices of the listener.

All activity outside the biological sphere can be seen as an attempt to lessen dread. And the churches do it on the cheap. They are bad for business. Isn't dread an obvious function of self-consciousness.

You won't persuade me you are less filled with it than I am. In fact you keep mentioning it suggests the contrary.

Do you whistle while you work Joe?

Mr Gapud's pomposity being a case in point.

Mr Heller will be pissing in his resting place.

Whistle? Yes. Try not wasting so much bandwidth to ask a simple question.

Joe(rest your head awhile)Nation

The fascinations of the world prevent any head resting and long may it continue. It's a marvel. And Darwin's world was a ****-hole. What's beautiful about trees and flowers looked at that way?

Spendi continues to demonstrate that he has much more common genetic material that he shares with oysters than was originally thought.

He's a careful reader and a good thinker though...

Those are attributes not always found in oysters.

Is this thread about ID in schools (public) or just about ID as a scientific theory?

It began, aidan, as a scientific question but it has tended to become dominated by the problem in schools.

I sometmes try to bring the science back in but I'm content to let it go the other way because that raises some interesting political points.

In Chapter XX1 of Volume 1 of Tristram Shandy Sterne has Tristram's father say " in Foro Scientiae (the forum of science) there is no such thing as MURDER,----'tis only DEATH, brother."

Which leaves Darwinists a little in shtuck. And the same applies to other categories of behaviour.

Uncle Toby Shandy reacts to this by whistling Lillabullero with eye-rolling accompianment I take it.

This leads Sterne into a pasage where he seeks to label species of argument with a view to finding a label for his brother's retort.

Argumentum ad Verecundiam An argument to modesty.

A. Absurdo A. from absurdity.

A. Fortiori A. from an accepted conclusion to an even more evident one.

A. Baculinum A. of a staff. Threat of force.

A. Crumenam A. to the purse.

A. Tripodium A. to the third leg. (Never used but by the woman against the man).

A. ad Rem A. to the thing. (used only by the man against the woman).

Sterne claims that the Argumentum Fistulatorium is his own original label and it is the one which signifies Uncle Toby's whistling argument. It is, of course, much the most popular argument put up against my posts although occasional glimpses of Verecundiam, Absurdo,Fortiori and, shameful as it is, Baculinum appear, but sadly no Crumenam.

Most of my arguments surf around the shorelines of the other two but only on quiet days. I only do Rem when provoked.

But welcome to the thread aidan.

Thanks Spendius - I've been here before - once when I wished Farmerman a quick recovery from a health issue he had and once when Canaan Maine was mentioned.

I do read along - because I am interested in it from the perspective of science as it is taught in the public schools as well as certain reservations I have about religion (in any form) being introduced as a matter for discussion or debate in the public schools (at least in the US where it can get so very tricky in terms of the student/teacher/parent triangulation (not to mention administrations and politicos and their agendas)- but I'll have to study your Shandy references.
As someone unfamiliar with the entire context of your more recent conversation - the relevance doesn't jump out at me right at this moment - but I may be able to understand eventually.

aidan-

My last post was a bit of by-play. Discussions very rarely proceed along the lines of a man driving his mule in a hurry along Highway 61. Digression is the art of discussion. Otherwise it would be "how much", "$50", "get em off", bang,bang and "Thank you Madam". A futuristic version under scientific guidance would have requisitions and approvals I imagine. If only to control STDs and raise tax revenues.

Wouldn't it? When Darwin speaks of "sexual selection" he is referring to the process only in those cases, the vast majority admittedly, where no discussions take place.

My post was designed to make AIDsers, my opponents, shrivel up and burrow down into their--well--burrows although I have little confidence in it doing so. My side are ID-iots or ID-jits and that's only when AIDsers are not particularly cranky.

aidan wrote-



That's science aidan. It's boring alright. Too true.

I hope you are not suggesting that the price the female exacts from the male for essential services is somehow uninteresting. If you are you have cancelled both the literary and Darwinian canon at a stroke.

In fact, that the female exacts these burdens upon us piteous males is the only interesting thing in the whole life of our earth. Sedimentary rock formations and fossils of bats very rarely figure in pop music or sporting endevour.

Spendius said:


I'm exactly sure to what you may be referring. What price? I mean, I know what I think, but I want to be clear on what exactly it is that you think.

Spendius wrote:


There you go - so you admit that you guys (males) do get something in return.

You're a...
a) bigot
b) idiot
c) all of the the above

It's okay if you take the test at the pub spendi, I'm sure you'll score at least a 50%.

T
K
O

And what does this say about you, Diest?

(SHHHshhhhh) TKO, Aidan trying to have a conversation with it, er, him. Who wants to start a pool? How many posts in a row before he drives her away?

Joe(five bucks on six)Nation

6 bucks on 5

You're on.

Joe(puts elbows on desk, rests chin on hands, watchs)Nation

You guys both lose - I already told him - I don't think religion belongs in the public schools. What else is there to say?

I also think that Intelligent Design is a component of a religion - not a science. I reread the thread title - that's all it took for me to come to my conclusion- aren't women so much more efficient than men? (Or I guess I should say some women are so much more efficient than some men.

I can't help him with his girl problems...someone somewhere hurt him deeply but if he won't divulge anything other than his extreme bitterness- what can anyone say to help him with that?

I am curious though Diest (Alias- - whenever I know someone's real name I feel stupid calling them a pretend one) how he's bigoted- or was that just a choice you used as a filler for your multiple choice quiz?

I've never seen any sign of bigotry- that was available for me to read anyway...am I missing something?