Scientology….is it Real?

Wow, I have just perused a bunch of literature and websites regarding Scientology…. Pretty scary stuff.

Seems if you disagree with them (scientologists) you are automatically assigned the label of anti-religious hate monger or some such crap. They run a website called “Religious Freedom Watch” that goes after people that get too loud in their disapproval or bashing of the brethren. Reading the articles on the site, you can just feel the hate emanating from it.

I don’t know if the stories they tell about people threatening to bomb, kill, or destroy the “church” are true, but one thing I walked away from the site with was the feeling that they will do anything possible to make people stop expressing any negative feelings about the “Church.” In any manner.

Some of the stories going around is that the CoS (church of Scientology), hired private detectives to find dirt on a blogger that was saying something negative about them. They accused the blogger of being a terrorist. Others on their hit list are accused of being anarchists, neo-Nazi’s, propagandists, Anti-religious extremists, eugenicists, they are hiring the PI’s to search out old arrest records, and saying that they are vilifying “minority religions.” Oh, one woman was criticized for leaving her hubby and kids alone, for a short time, to participate in a picket line of a CoS facility
They go so far as to criticize one man because he is a proponent of James Randi, who they say is “a so-called Skeptic dedicated to attacking any belief for which he considers there is insufficient proof.” Well, yes, that is James Randi’s thing. He used to perform as a magician on various show business circuits, and he says that he knows a scam when he sees it. He’ll pay anyone a million bucks if they can prove something regarded as “supernatural.

I remember reading “elron” when I was a boy in the 60’s. His Sci-Fi writing was pretty good. I considered him one of the better ones, almost up there with Arthur C. Clark, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Silverberg. But, then one day I came across “Dianetics.” I was pretty young then, but I still recognized that the level of bull crap was rising quickly. The talk about “Engrams” and “Auditing” with their little “E-meters” and “Thetans” was such obvious quackery that I was turned off of any of his works.

I never could have imagined that that book would have led eventually to a worldwide scam. Who would think that such luminary’s as: Will Smith, Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Kirsty Alley, Mimi Rogers, Ann Archer, and “Bart Simpson” (Nancy Cartwright) would fall for it? And they have contributed perhaps millions of dollars…each!

An excerpt from Wikipedia that I think rightly categorizes Dianetics and Scientology:

“Hubbard’s original book on Dianetics attracted highly critical reviews from science and medical writers and organizations. The American Psychological Association passed a resolution in 1950 calling “attention to the fact that these claims are not supported by empirical evidence of the sort required for the establishment of scientific generalizations.”
Subsequently, Dianetics has achieved no general acceptance as a bona fide scientific theory. Many scientists have described Dianetics as a classic example of pseudoscience.

Few scientific investigations into the effectiveness of Dianetics have been published. Professor John A. Lee states in his 1970 evaluation of Dianetics:

“Objective experimental verification of Hubbard’s physiological and psychological doctrines is lacking. To date, no regular scientific agency has established the validity of his theories of prenatal perception and engrams, or cellular memory, or Dianetic reverie, or the effects of Scientology auditing routines. Existing knowledge contradicts Hubbard’s theory of recording of perceptions during periods of unconsciousness.”

Scientology seems to go to great pains to hide some of their core beliefs. They have their own ideas on where mankind came from (We’re space aliens), and what will happen at the-end-of-the-world (I’ll never tell), but you can spend years of time and tens of thousands of dollars to find out for yourself. I think the main requirement is the “tens of thousands of dollars.”

I wonder what their currant status is with the IRS?

The IRS, early on, proved that Hubbard skimmed millions of dollars from the “church” through dummy corporations. By the mid eighties defectors from the organization alleged that Hubbard had stolen as much as 200 million bucks. Wow. The IRS was hot on his trail (he was hiding out by then) when he died. Hubbard reportedly called new recruits “raw meat” and the prices he exacted from them were exorbitant…auditing sessions that cost as much as a thousand dollars per hour.

There are people out there who are falling for this scam just as fast as Islam or Christianity.

Remember Phineas T. Barnum? “There’s a sucker born every minute”

“When some people deviate from reality, others are often hurt.”
Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance

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Intelligent Design…Isn’t

Anti-Science.

To advance their anti-science and anti-secularism agenda, ID creationists at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture seek to use public schools “to defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies,” “to replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God,” and to “see design theory (Intelligent Design) permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life” (Discovery Institute, 1998).

Do American’s really want this in their public schools? Do we really want to start closing down the blossoming minds of our children and sucking our civilization down to the level of some theistic societies in the Middle East?

Most of the sciences have as their ultimate truth that nature, not God, is the driving force behind the physical world. Can you imagine a science class in lets say archeology. “Well teacher I know that the earth is only 6,000 years old, but the dinosaurs don’t seem to have left any traces along with human remains. We find human bones only in the top levels of earth strata and the dinosaur bones seem to be MANY years lower. At this point we can only surmise that God has separated them for some purpose that is a mystery to us, and that He may reveal to us in his own good time.”

An article in the journal Science, one of the world’s most respected scientific publications says that among 34 countries surveyed, the US ranks second to last in the number of adults who accept the theory of evolution. “The acceptance of evolution is lower in the US than in Japan or Europe, largely because of widespread fundamentalism and the politicization of science in the United States” (2006).

In a 1998 document entitled “The Wedge,” known informally as the “Wedge Document”

(Discovery Institute, 1998; Forrest and Gross, 2004a, 2007a, ch. 2). Using the metaphor of a metal wedge that can split a log, the ID movement aims to use aggressive public relations programs of book publication, lectures, etc., to create an opening for the supernatural (i.e. Magic) in the public’s understanding of science.

The various sciences are today progressing at a record rate, providing the means to enhance human life in many ways. The US cannot afford to allow Intelligent Design, fundamentalist thought, evangelical proponents, or any of the thousand and one religious right groups to hijack our school systems. We need scientifically trained minds as never before in history. Our low level of scientific literacy in the American public is shameful for a nation that has heretofore led the world.

God of Love? God of Torture and Death?

Do you feel the love emanating from the Bible? No? Maybe this is why.

2 Chronicles 25:12. “And the other ten thousand left alive
did the children of Judah carry away captive, and brought
them unto the top of the rock, and cast them down from the
top of the rock, that they were all broken in pieces.“

Deuteronomy 14:21. “Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth
of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy
gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien:
for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God. Thou
shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.”

2 Samuel 8:4. “And David took from him a thousand
chariots, and seven hundred horsemen, and twenty
thousand footmen: and David houghed [humstrung] all the
chariot horses, but reserved of them for an hundred
chariots.”

2 Samuel 12:31. “And he brought forth the people that were
therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of
iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through
the brick kiln: and thus did he unto all the cities of the
children of Ammon. So David and all the people returned
unto Jerusalem.”

2 Kings 2:23-24. “23. And he went up from thence unto
Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth
little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto
him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. 24. And
he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the
name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of
the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.”

Exodus 21:7. “And if a man sell his daughter to be a
maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do.”

Samuel 15:3. “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly
destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both
man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel
and ass.”

2 Samuel 4:12. “And David commanded his young men, and
they slew them, and cut off their hands and their feet, and
hanged them up over the pool in Hebron. But they took the
head of Ishbosheth, and buried it in the sepulchre of Abner
in Hebron.”

Num. 5:12-21. “12. Speak unto the children of Israel, and
say unto them, If any man’s wife go aside, and commit a
trespass against him, 13. And a man lie with her carnally,
and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept
close, and she be defiled, and there be no witness against
her, neither she be taken with the manner; 14. And the spirit
of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife,
and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon
him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled:
15. Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest,
and…18. And the priest shall set the woman before the
Lord, and uncover the woman’s head, and put the offering
of memorial in her hands, which is the jealousy offering: and
the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth
the curse: 19. And the priest shall charge her by an oath,
and say unto the woman, if no man have lain with thee, and
if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another
instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water
that causeth the curse: 20. But if thou hast gone aside to
another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and
some man have lain with thee beside thine husband: 21.
Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of
cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, the Lord
make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the
Lord doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell.”

Num. 25:3-4. “3. And Israel joined himself unto Baalpeor:
and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. 4. And
the Lord said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people,
and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the
fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.”

Exod. 21:20-21. “20. And if a man smite his servant, or his
maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be
surely punished. 21. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or
two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.”

Num. 31:15-18. “15. And Moses said unto them, Have ye
saved all the women alive? 16. Behold, these caused the
children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit
trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there
was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.17. Now
therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every
woman that hath known man by lying with him.18. But all the
women children, that have not known a man by lying with
him, keep alive for yourselves.”

Exodus 21:2-6. “2. If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years
he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for
nothing… 5. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my
master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: 6.
Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall
also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his
master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall
serve him for ever.”

Deuteronomy 25:11-12. “11. When men strive together one
with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to
deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him,
and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets:
12.Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity
her.”

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Biblical Flood Was Not Worldwide

The following story is semi-true, or maybe semi-false, I don’t remember. The names have been changed to protect the guilty.

“So, tell me Fred, what do you know about Noah’s flood?”

“What do you mean, what do I know?”

“You know, do you think it’s true; do you have any thoughts about it at all?”

“No, I don’t think it’s a believable or true story, I think it’s probably allegory.”

“Why would you think that? There are flood stories from civilizations around the world.”

“That may be, but most of the stories don’t have a close correlation to the Bible story. The only flood story that closely resembles it is The Epic of Gilgamesh, and it is written 400 to 500 years before the biblical one. I think it’s possible that someone took the Gilgamesh story and changed a few things and made it theirs. Besides, there is no real evidence of a worldwide flood, and no evidence at all for a flood around about the time mentioned in the Bible and in the area that Noah was likely to be at that time.”

“Well, I’ve heard that the evidence is all over the world and in all civilizations.”

Don, I don’t think that is true. Yes, there is evidence for floods all over the world, but it is for all different times in history. There was never a time when all the flooding occurred at the same time. And some civilizations that didn’t live near oceans, rivers, lakes, etc. never did have flood myth’s.”

“Well, a speaker at our church told us that all of the archeological evidence, you know, the layers of earth and such, are explained by the flood waters churning around on earth for a year or so.”

“I really don’t think that’s possible Don.” You look at the layers of rock and dirt and bones and artifacts in a archeological dig or in oil well cores that geologists take when they are trying to determine were to drill for oil. If you look at enough of these things and from all over the world you can’t help but notice that the first mile depth of the earth is sorted in exactly the same sequence. All the dinosaur bones are in one layer, all the trilobites are in another layer, all evidence of certain critters that have gone extinct are in another, and evidence of man is at the top. The layers that are found are the record of millions of years of life and death on earth, not only 4,000 years like they teach in church.”

Don smiles. “How do you know about oil wells Fred?”

“Didn’t I ever talk to you about it before?”

“No.”

“Back in the early 70’s I worked in the oil business in West Texas, around Big Spring, Midland-Odessa, Snyder, and Brownfield. The company I was with surveyed oil wells to determine at what depth and in what quantities the oil was coming from. By the late 70’s the oil business in Texas went into the toilet, but anyway I learned a lot about Geology at that time. Also if you read any modern Geology book you’ll find much better explanations than I can give you. I don’t think the explanation you got in church is even close to the real facts.”

“Well, that’s only one thing. I’m sure there are more things that back up the Bible story.”

“There are a lot more things that don’t back up the story, than do. For example Greenland ice-cores go back about 40,000 years and there are things that you would expect to find such as sediment, changes in salinity, oxygen ratios, stresses, and more that I can’t even remember—and there is no evidence for this. The Polar ice caps are another example. A worldwide flood would float the ice caps off their beds and break them into pieces, and there would not be enough time to regrow them to the size they are now. Another thing is that we have tree ring data going back some 10,000 years and there is no flood indication for the appropriate time. Some scientists have said that a flood like that of Noah would leave certain traces on the earth’s seabed’s that they don’t see. But, you know what seals it for me?

“What?”

“Egypt was building pyramids, had a written language and recorded everything, and they were right next door to Noah. They have no written OR geological evidence of a flood on that scale…Nada…Nothing. And another thing, in the UK the druids were building Stonehenge at this time…no evidence there either. There is much more, but I’m not a scientist and I can’t remember it all. You might want to do a little research before believing that story from church.”

The Biblical view of the World is wrong

If you are a religious person, what do you believe about the Bible? Do you believe it is 100% accurate as to real world events? In other words, if the Bible says that the whole Earth was flooded in Noah’s time, is that also your belief? If you do believe in The Flood, have you ever looked into the evidence for or against it? Do you know if science has supported the story, or disproved it?

What are your feelings about Adam and Eve being created about 6,000 years ago? Do you think that is true? Have you heard about the DNA and bloodlines from ALL of present day humanity being traced back to Africa and the relationship we ALL share with Africans? Have you heard that Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal people were certainly human and that they were living as long as 250,000 years ago for Neanderthal, and 50,000 years ago for Cro-Magnon? Did you know that ALL female bloodlines existing in the world today are traceable back to an “EVE” that lived in Africa some 160,000 years ago?

Now this DNA evidence is the same stuff that is used to put bad guys, murderers, rapists and such in prison and the electric chair. Do you think society has enough proof and is so confident that it’s true, that we can kill people based on it?

If you are an evangelical Christian today, you have to deny all of this, you have to deny radioactive dating works, despite the 10’s of thousands of times it has been proven and cross-checked with known historical dates. You have to deny most of modern day science in Biology, Archeology, Paleontology, Dendrocronology, Geology, Petrology, Botany, Embryology, Phylogeny, Anthropology, Biochemistry, Biophysics, Geophysics, and probably dozens more.

The fact is that living in today’s world, evangelicals are denying a lot of the science that makes living great in our times. If you are an evangelical reading this, how do you feel about it? Do you think that science is lying about the things they discover, or misleading, or wrong? Do you think that scientists are conspiring to deny to the world any existence or proof of a Supreme Being?

Have you ever thought about the story of Job in the Bible and wondered about a God that would allow Job to suffer through what he did with no explanation or thought of the mans feelings or thought of the pure terror he must feel? Is that your loving God? How do you feel about the genocide that a loving God perpetrated on the world of Noah’s time. Man, woman, child…
What do you think about the diseases that have been the scourge of humankind for millennia? Why would a loving God subject his people to the millions of deaths and unbearable agony of some diseases that have plagued us down through time?

Have you ever thought about the Tower of Babel? According to the Bible it happened about 115-125 years after the flood, so that would put it about 2260-2270BC. Now, at that time in world history almost the entire world was populated. The US census bureau (Really) estimates the world population, around that time, as over 15 million people. People were living in Australia, Europe, China, India, Central Asia, Japan, North and South and Central America, and the Pacific Islands were mostly populated by that time. Some of the Egyptian pyramids were already standing (Egypt, by the way, has no history or evidence of a flood in Noah’s time), and the Egyptian culture was in full swing. We know for a fact that Egyptians had a language. I think we can logically assume that civilizations all over the world had their own language at that time.

Archaeologists have uncovered and dug up and analyzed the Middle East and other ancient sites for well over a hundred years. The age of Babylon is over 6,000 years. Jericho goes back 8,000 years. Japanese people (The Jomon) were inventing the world’s first pottery 11,000 years ago. Neanderthals were burying their dead 50,000 years ago. Early modern man was painting cave walls in France 30,000 years ago. American Indians were hunting Mammoths in New Mexico and Arizona 12,000 years ago. None of this jibes with Biblical history.

The science behind it is checkable, repeatable and visible, and keeps growing year after year. The longer scientists work in their fields, the more the Bible is shown to be a book of myths. It needs some major revision to bring it in line with established facts. The sun does not revolve around the Earth anymore.

Internet Taxing and Other Bothers

FCC approves tax for Internet “wiretapping.” Isn’t this dandy? We have to pay for our own invasion of privacy.

http://www.news.com/FCC-approves-Net-wiretapping-taxes/2100-1028_3-6067971.html?tag=nefd.lede

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Police in London want to censor demonstrator’s speech and placards. May only make politically correct signs and their speech will be subject to censorship. “Proposed powers would clash with article 10 of the European convention on human rights which protects freedom of expression.” How Orwellian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1957831,00.html

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Got a war you want to sell to your countrymen? Go to this site and place your order for propaganda and mind altering “News” to make the country and people agree with you.

http://www.scl.cc/home.php

“As the world moves further away from the 20th century concept of the Cold War, it becomes increasingly clear that the very nature of warfare itself has changed. The old style conflicts were about overpowering the enemy and winning ground. The new wars are about ideas, belief systems and ideologies. The battle is no longer about winning territory; it is about winning minds.”
“SCL offers various solutions based on this methodology to help countries in specific governmental areas such as defense, foreign affairs, internal security, health, finance and tourism.
In a world where the perception is the reality, all countries need to have the capability to manage their own perceptual alignment – otherwise someone else will.”
The OpCentres allow for powerful PSYOP campaigns to be conducted, which can engender support within the national community for proposed military action and “develop national resilience and behavioral compliance for homeland security issues”.

The wordofme believes that England is using this service to placate any resistance to their draconian surveillance and increasingly Orwellian laws and practices. England has almost no credible resistance against what is happening there. They are nice little sheep.

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Federal, State, and Local police have been doing this ever since the Patriot Act passed. They take the laws that were to be used to counterattack terrorists and use it to make end runs around laws they consider to restrictive, such as the “Constitution.”
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060508/8homeland.htm

“U.S. News has identified nearly a dozen cases in which city and county police, in the name of homeland security, have surveilled or harassed animal-rights and antiwar protesters, union activists, and even library patrons surfing the Web.”

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Face-recognition software was successfully tested during Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa, Florida, with approximately 100,000 faces being scanned and identified. (Several law-breakers – mostly ticket scalpers – were noticed, but no arrests were made, since it was just a “dry run”)

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In an earlier post I talked about the Federal Governments intrusion into the world of OUR Internet. They (the Feds) seem to think they own the whole kit and kaboodle. Mr. Mike McConnell, our Chief Spy in Washington, says: “The government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/01/13/dancing-spychief-wants-to-tap-into-cyberspace/

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Ol’ Bush just lies and lies and gets away with it. There are impeachable crimes going on all the time and nobody cares.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2006/100206plotasham.htm

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And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. ‘Reality control’, they called it: in Newspeak, ‘doublethink’.
– George Orwell, 1984, Chapter 3

“It’s not paranoia if they really are after you.”

Intelligent Design, again raises it’s head…Go away

Instead of answering Mr. Parsons’s comment to my previous post about “Intelligent Design…Baaad Science” in the comment box, I will make a post to reply to it. I feel the principle behind my objections to ‘ID’ in schools is too important to bury in comments.

You wrote: >>>The aforementioned entities represent a shutout; the court’s criteria leave little latitude for divine intervention or the miraculous and, hence, any creationist views on the origins of man and the universe.<<<

I Answer. This is as it should be. I do not want someone else’s evangelical religion forced on my children. I especially don’t want it somehow passed off as science. This is pure lying.

You wrote:>>>The ruling of the court was summary: since creation science is neither associated with nor performed by court-accepted scientific entities, creation science is not science but religion and religion, as determined by the Supreme Court, may not be taught in the public schools.<<<

I answer: This is true.

You wrote; >>>The barring of creation science, however, is not irreconcilable. The high court left open the possibility that any views on origins, be it creation or otherwise, may be taught if established on sound scientific principles. Therefore, if creation science (Intelligent Design) were founded on a scientific basis, drawing from a continuum of defensible, established truths, it would be justly qualified as science and science may be taught in the public classrooms. <<<

I answer: Intelligent Design does not qualify under these terms. ID depends on magic. No qualified science has been found to confirm ID. It is improvable by real science.

You wrote: >>>Although evolutionists seized the moment, finding favor with a sympathetic judiciary, the battle for the minds and souls of the innocents in the classrooms is far from conclusive.<<<

I answer: Yes, leave my innocents alone. Your religion is not mine. Why do you want to pollute every young mind with your evangelical….stuff..? I have a right to have a school that separates church and state. Start your own schools and send your children to be indoctrinated and left out of the real world. Freedom of religion does not mean you, or anybody, has the right to indoctrinate my children with your religion. The sympathetic judiciary you mention is interpreting the law properly and correctly.

You wrote:>>>Fielding the issue once again, the definition of science, “that which scientists are generally associated with and perform,” is re-evaluated in The Quest for Right, a series of 7 textbooks created for the public schools, so as to determine if said definition is arguably correspondent or else gravely overstated.<<<

I answer: I prefer Wikipedia’s explanation for science. Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. It is based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses. Wikipedia
I suspect that explanations such as Wikipedia’ will be used to identify whether your book is science or religion.
I want to be plain about something. I do not object to your book at all, I’m sure you will find a market. What I’m going to object to is any attempt to place it in America’s schools. That is imposing a view that I don’t want my children or my children’s children exposed to. It is brainwashing to the Nth. Degree. You have NO inherent right to impose your religious views on my children. By the way, most science does not require quantum mechanic’s to be observable or true.

You wrote:>>>Bear in mind that the backbone of obstructionism is not evolution per se, but “electronic interpretation,” the tenet that all physical, chemical, and biological processes result from a change in the electron structure of the atom which, in turn, may be deciphered through the orderly application of mathematics, as outlined in quantum mechanics. Again, the philosophy rejects any divine intervention. Therefore, let the philosophy of obstructionism be judged on these specifics: (1) “electron interpretation” and 2) “quantum mechanics.” Conversely, the view of Christians that God is both responsible for and rules all the phenomena of the universe will stand or fall when the facts are applied. The view, however, will not be tested by the definition of science, as before determined by the court, but by the weightier principle of verifiable truths.<<<

I answer: Huh….the only part of that I can answer is the end. ‘The weightier principle of verifiable truths’

I posit that you have no verifiable truths (verifiable by science) for your position.

Can you imagine a farmer speaking to his county agricultural extension agent and asking why his crop that year wasn’t very good? “Well Clem, maybe you didn’t pray hard enough, or God has put a pox on your tribe.”

Some problems in science are very hard to answer or explain, but we don’t give up and say that it’s magic. God did it we can’t solve it. That was done in the Dark Ages, when religion ruled. We humans never want that to happen again.

Religion has shown again and again that it cannot be trusted, and the reason is that MAN is the one responsible for any using of it’s precept’s, and man cannot be trusted in matters of applying religious doctrine correctly, because they keep changing it. They make assertions or interpretations and adherents break away from time to time and interpret things differently. It has been that way since religion was invented about 1200-1500 BCE, and it will never change because of the character of men.

I have no doubt that in a few hundred years; your evangelical interpretation of the Bible will fade away to be replaced by another. Remember the Catholic’s ruled western society for over a thousand year’s; look at the mess they made. I literally shudder if I imagine theist’s ruling the Earth.

Keep your religion to yourself. Preach it, or witness it, in your churches or to your neighbors, but keep it out of public schools. I strenuously object to that.

Peace to all…

New Intelligent Design…BaaaD Science

“We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.” Nietzsche

The creationist and Intelligent Design pushers continue their desperate fight against science and rationalism. The recent sample I came across is filled with doublespeak and lies disguised as truths. It will be available the end of this month from Tate Publishing Co.There will three books in the series and they carve up Evolution and call it the ‘old physics of cause and effect.’ Seemingly aimed at the High School market, the excerpts I read made me more confused than I already am:)

Chapter 3 Book 1 The Quest for Right
The Agency of Revitalization

“The fact-finding investigation concentrates on the importance of the earth’s inner heat and reveals the hitherto unknown mechanism of said heat. The surprise findings, taken from the pages of the Bible, tighten the reins on those theorists who permitted their imaginations to slip past the boundaries of true science, beyond the pale of investigation. The vain assertions of geologists are pitted against classical physics, the old physics of cause and effect, and the scientific record of creation, the Bible.”

And this, from Chapter 4 Book 3
Filing Fictions Away
” The outlined premises, based on the dictates of classical physics, justify the disposition that the scientific record of creation, heretofore considered religious dogma by obstructionists and not worthy of scientific regard, remains intact as a responsible and verifiable truth; the evidence upholds the fact that the moon was formed within a 24-hour period only 6000 years ago. The conceptional errors of Baldwin are annulled by the bona fide truths presented by the investigation.”

Now of course I have only read excerpts from the authors page, and I may be wrong, but it seems to me that he is saying that magic is the new science. This is going to screw up more teen-age brains than all the pot in California.

George McGovern….Impeach the Prez and VP?

In today’s (Sunday’s) Washington Post, George McGovern joins those calling for the impeachment of President Bush .
Full Article is here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/04/AR2008010404308_2.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

excerpt….
“As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president.

After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to impeach President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the campaign. I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeated me.

Today I have made a different choice.”

excerpt….
“Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly “high crimes and misdemeanors,” to use the constitutional standard.”

Gee…..who would think our president and vice-president would lie to us or violate constitutional, and international laws…..

Yea, I think “high crimes and misdemeanors” phrases it exactly right. We can only hope a new administration will undo the damage.

Intelligent Design Pushers LIE

“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” — Stephen Roberts

Immediately below is excerpted from Discovery institute website, retrieved on 01.05.08. Their address is:
http://www.discovery.org/

” Peer-Reviewed & Peer-Edited Scientific Publications Supporting the Theory of Intelligent Design (Annotated)
By: Staff
Discovery Institute
July 1, 2007

Editor’s Note: Critics of intelligent design often claim that design advocates don’t publish their work in appropriate scientific literature. For example, Barbara Forrest, a philosophy professor at Southeastern Louisiana University, was quoted in USA Today (March 25, 2005) that design theorists “aren’t published because they don’t have scientific data.”
Other critics have made the more specific claim that design advocates do not publish their works in peer-reviewed scientific journals-as if such journals represented the only avenue of legitimate scientific publication.” end excerpt

Then they go on to list some ‘religious science’ that got peer review in the scientific arena. Among them is this jewel:

Begin excerpt again. “Stephen Meyer, “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories” Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 117 (2004): 213-239.

Meyer argues that competing materialistic models (Neo-Darwinism, Self -Organization Models, Punctuated Equilibrium and Structuralism) are not sufficient to account for origin of the information necessary to build novel animal forms present in the Cambrian Explosion. He proposes intelligent design as an alternative explanation for the origin of biological information and the higher taxa.” End of excerpt

Well this is great for the ID movement that the Discovery Institute not only backs, but actively pushes on schools and people. They finally got an article published in a scientific journal….but….
….Not long after the article was published, an embarrassed Council of the ‘Biological Society of Washington’ comes out with this statement

excerpt follows from Biological Society of Washingtom
“The paper by Stephen C. Meyer, “The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories,” in vol. 117, no. 2, pp. 213-239 of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, was published at the discretion of the former editor, Richard v. Sternberg. Contrary to typical editorial practices, the paper was published without review by any associate editor; Sternberg handled the entire review process. The Council, which includes officers, elected councilors, and past presidents, and the associate editors would have deemed the paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings because the subject matter represents such a significant departure from the nearly purely systematic content for which this journal has been known throughout its 122-year history. For the same reason, the journal will not publish a rebuttal to the thesis of the paper, the superiority of intelligent design (ID) over evolution as an explanation of the emergence of Cambrian body-plan diversity. The Council endorses a resolution on ID published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2002/1106id2.shtml),** see below, which observes that there is no credible scientific evidence supporting ID as a testable hypothesis to explain the origin of organic diversity. Accordingly, the Meyer paper does not meet the scientific standards of the Proceedings.” End of excerpt Their address is: http://www.biolsocwash.org/

excerpt from American Association for the Advancement of Science
** “Over the past several years proponents of so-called “intelligent design theory,” also known as ID, have challenged the accepted scientific theory of biological evolution. As part of this effort they have sought to introduce the teaching of “intelligent design theory” into the science curricula of the public schools. The movement presents “intelligent design theory” to the public as a theoretical innovation, supported by scientific evidence, that offers a more adequate explanation for the origin of the diversity of living organisms than the current scientifically accepted theory of evolution. In response to this effort, individual scientists and philosophers of science have provided substantive critiques of “intelligent design,” demonstrating significant conceptual flaws in its formulation, a lack of credible scientific evidence, and misrepresentations of scientific facts. Approved by the AAAS Board of Directors on 10/18/02″

Recognizing that the “intelligent design theory” represents a challenge to the quality of science education, the Board of Directors of the AAAS unanimously adopts the following resolution: ” excerpt ends. It goes on to basically say that ID is not science, never will be, keep it out of our public schools.
The full statement can be read here: http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2002/1106id2.shtml

What this little exercise in ‘investigative blogging’ is showing me, is that the Discovery Institute, as of 01.05.08, is knowingly passing off what they know to be rebutted, as mainstream science. In other words-they lie.

Gives me an all warm and fuzzy feeling when the pastor lies to me.

Peace to all

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