hephzibah wrote:thanks sozobe. I've looked at that one and haven't posted because I have yet to figure out how it went from Setanta's original questions to an argument about gay rights... once again...
The discussion got dragged there because that's MOAN's hobby horse, and she gets nailed for it everytime she comes into a thread and goes all self-righteous on us.
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As to your question about the burden of proof, these are things to which i referred:
The reference to stealth candidates actually goes back to California in the early 1990s, when christian candidates with education agendae ran for local school boards. In an article printed in
The New York Times more than a decade ago, one evangelical political organizer freely acknowledged that it was a technique that he and others hoped to exploit, so as to "put the family first" (see Eorl's post about this "family" dodge in use in Australia). A more recent and pointed example of this is the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania. Several of the members of the the last school board (not the one which was just elected, but the one before that) were stealth candidates who did not make known publicly their evangelical fervor or their intent to shuffle creationism in the back door by promoting the "teaching of intelligent design." They lost in court, and Dover, Pa. has a whopping great legal bill to pay. The voters turned the bums out in the last election.
My reference to self-professed christians lying to Congress is a refence to Oliver North. He has run for public office in Virginia, and made a point of professing his christianity, and his support for "family values" (that shibboleth is very popular in the evangelical crowd). He was convicted for lying to Congress. Conservatives will rant and rave and say that the conviction was reversed on appeal--but that is a lie, the conviction was set aside by a judge appointed by Reagan, in an obvious
quid pro quo--North was working for Reagan's Iran-Contra covert aid program.
The Discovery Institute is a group whose purpose is to promote creationism in school science curricula. However, the Supreme Court has prohibited this, so they work through the promotion of "intelligent design." One of their favorite techniques is known as "quote mining." They pore over books by earth and life scientists to find quotes which, when taken out of context, and especially when carefully edited, can be made to suggest that the scientists in question are critical of a theory of evolution, or dispute the conclusions of other life and earth scientists who refer to a theory of evolution. Answers in Genesis is a web site which provides talking points and "mined quotes" for evangelicals who are searching for ways to rebut the arguments of those who consider a theory of evolution a plausible, scientific explanation for the diversity of life forms on this planet.
I also have it in mind that one or more of the loud-mouthed type of christian at this site are willful liars, but have made no specific accusations because of the burden of proof. Several self-professed christians at this site parade the entire Discovery Institute/AIG dog and pony show of mined quotes and rigged data in the attempt to claim that a theory of evolution is scientifically unreliable.
