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Since Monday is my day off, my wife and I decided to take a trip down to Virginia Living Museum in Newport News Va., hoping to learn a few things. Mission complete.
After reading up on all sorts of wildlife that can be found in the beautiful “Old Dominion,” talking to sweet old ladies and the other kind staff who volunteer their time to care for the animals, I ran across the following placard:
“Since the end of the dinosaur age, eastern Virginia has been covered by ocean water many times. Beneath these seas, layers upon layers of shells, bones and teeth from abundant ocean life accumulated to form fossil-bearing sediments. Coastal river bluffs now display these ancient sediment layers, in particular, a 3.5-to-5 million-year-old fossil-rich band called Yorktown Formation,” (Virginia Living Museum).
You mean to tell me that long before the internal combustion engine was invented that the planet was in such constant flux that much of eastern Virginia was submerged underwater “many” times? Answer: Yes.
The next time someone warns you that unless we hand over more power to politicians in Washington, D.C., that the eastern seaboard will be underwater in a decade or two, ask them the following question: Did dinosaurs literally drive themselves to extinction in really big gas-guzzling trucks made for reptilians with tiny arms?
There is no doubt that the climate “changes.” The question is: How big of a role does man play? Is it big enough to warrant the redistribution of wealth — to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars — from the private sector to a bureaucratic Leviathan? Answer: No. Is shaving a few degrees off computer models that even the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change now admits are flawed worth the price in individual liberty? Of course not.
The IPCC is in full damage-control mode after it leaked advance copies of an upcoming Summary for Policymakers to what it assumed would be friendly journalists. The journalists, however, quickly realized the IPCC Summary for Policymakers contained several embarrassing walk-backs from alarmist statements in prior IPCC reports.
Two of the most embarrassing aspects of the Summary for Policymakers are (1) IPCC’s admission that global warming has occurred much slower than IPCC previously forecast and (2) IPCC is unable to explain the ongoing plateau in global temperatures. IPCC computer models have predicted twice as much warming as has occurred in the real world, and virtually none of the IPCC computer models can replicate or account for the recent lack of global warming.
These days, instead of admitting that they used fear mongering to try and consolidate power and enrich themselves, the Climate Change crusaders (formerly the Global Warming police) are doubling down: global warming is hiding … at the bottom of the ocean, but will return sometime in the future. How convenient.
Want to increase the probability of causing a climate change disciple to go into a fit of rage? Visit museums. Talk to the staff. Read the literature. Learn some science and write about it on your blog.
Douglas Ernst Blog 
Global Warming is one the sillier examples of myths meant to control people and the Kyoto Protocol was a measure specifically designed to cripple America’s economy. The late Michael Crichton approached to topic in his novel State Of Fear and the 700 page tome was a master piece among masterpieces. As a theoretical physicist I try to find answers to lingering questions about our cosmos and it was my research on Global Warming gave me the sudden burst of inspiration for a theory three years ago. The earth is designed we know that it has a number of natural cycles that make it extremely difficult (but not impossible) to throw it out of whack. Is there climate change? Of course otherwise there wouldn’t be a climate. Is CO2 hurting the environment of course not it’s not like the gas is being manufactured in a factory of evil no it’s being released from the carcasses of dead plants. All emissions will do is speed up the recovery of the rainforests when people stop tearing them down. The earth has a natural warming cooling cycle it goes to far either way and it immediately triggers a shift in the opposite direction I wouldn’t worry at all because assuming that the earth is still warming the cooling will start again after less than a degree rise in temperature. We have no idea how much geology plays a role in sea levels as well. Mount Everest the tallest peak on our globe grows at a rate of about 3 feet per year at that rate the tallest mountain in the world is less then 10,000 years old. (I’m not one of those nuts that think the creative days were literal 24 hour days but rather epochs all after our planet formed that being said in 2370 B.C.E there was a rather monumental example of climate change.) The funniest thing however is that whale carcasses have been found in the alps.
Indeed, Michael Crichton was an intelligent man. State of Fear is a pretty good book and I liked it because exposed global warming/climate change/religion of Al Gore for the sham that it really is. It’s just fear-mongering from the environmentalists. Another example I use against them is the end of the Ice Ace and the Little Ice Age from the Middle Ages.
“I’m not one of those nuts that think the creative days were literal 24 hour days…”
Um, not to sound rude, but you do know what kind of blog you’re on and the kind of person (like myself), it attracts, right?
“Global Warming is one the sillier examples of myths meant to control people…”
The Four Functions of Myth as described by Joseph Campbell:
1. Metaphysical.
2. Cosmological.
3. Sociological.
4. Psychological.
On that note, you mean like Nietzschism, Socialism, Communism, Facism, Darwinism, Evolution, and the idea that theoretical physicists and other scientists should replace theology and follow their word and should get grants for things that don’t have any hopes of practical application within a fifty year time frame?
No one viewed the days as literal until the 1950’s it was a result of fundamentalist backlash against evolution (although carbon dating is so fundamentally flawed its not even funny) like the Greek philosophy inspired earth centric view of the universe it is an unbiblical notion that undermines the bible. Read Genesis carefully it’s quite clear that the days start after the earth was formed. If your certain that a day in the bible is always 24 hours read Psalms 90:4 do I replace theology no I condemn Darwinian Pseudoscience and I go to church twice a week. But like Isaac Newton, Joseph Priestly Dmitri Mendeleev, Michael, Faraday, Michael Servetus and countless other scientist my work is enhanced by looking at it through a creationist lens. My theory has no speculation at all to it we don’t need to invest billions of dollars to find new particles it just explains a third of the lingering questions in physics by actually bothering to notice the behaviors of cosmic bodies as if they serve a function rather than being a side effect and anyone can verify it in a half hour. Turns out that a careful look will reveal that like the earth the universe has a series of checks and balances that means 1. we will never have to worry about a “heat death” of the universe 2. Light and Heavy elements will always remain balanced. 3. Radioactive decay wont turn all of the Neutrons into Hydrogen. It’s practical applications 1. Putting go back in science 2. Getting scientist to stop focusing on doomsday scenarios that would take place trillions of years from now so that they can spend that grant money on things that do have practical applications. This theory went into 1 of 18 chapters of a book titled Learn About Your Grand Creator.
I never read that book, Arachnobat. I’ve gotten away from fiction for quite some time, but if I ever find a way to clear through my current reading list I’ll keep that in mind.
It bothers me that public policy that affects billions of people is being crafted on computer models that are incredibly flawed. You had people years ago who said, “Yes, Global Warming is ‘settled.'” Well, then it become “Climate Change” when it wasn’t settled, and now the IPCC has admitted it (even if they’ve tried their best to bury the evidence in their own reports).
Like Hitler’s first propaganda tool, a printing press made in Milwaukee, the computer is a merely a tool in the propagation of The Big Lie.
RE: global wamring data: My sister, a Cornell graduate, has a joke photo taken in a research lab there years ago that sums it up. On the wall hangs a sign that reads:
“When the data does not support your preconceived hypothesis, manipulate the data.”
clearly, it’s the Agenda 21 globalists who use the concept of sustainability to enact their evil plan. they hatched it at Bohemian Grove, and then they built the Georgia Guidestones, mocking us with their plans, which include depopulating the earth to a more manageable number–500 million. our Kenyan socialist president is obviously a manchurian plant sent to us by the communists to destroy America from within so the globalists can swoop in and put us all in FEMA concentration camps. climate change and all those scientists who feed on government welfare are all a part of the globalist conspiracy to enslave Americans. I know all this because Alex Jones told me.
Poor Lizard19. How many times do I have to say it? I just feel sorry for you. You do realize that there are other bloggers out there who gladly entertain emotional vampires, right? If your decision is to now to go full-troll, I will treat you accordingly.
Lizard19 thought I was joking. His deleted commented proves I wasn’t. One day, when he decides to act like an adult, perhaps he can move back from the troll table to the adult table.
Never go full-troll. Never … go full-troll. Everybody’s gotta learn sometime.
hehe it’s always a treat to see a troll on delete.
I notice he’s not been back to comment on my blog since I administered a severe verbal beating and deleting a few months ago. Adios, muchacho.
could you provide the comment and subsequent verbal beating Jim?
When Lizard19 wants to act like an adult, I’ll treat him like one. I’m not going to entertain full-troll. My blog, my rules. On his blog, it’s his rules. I don’t care what he does with his blog, but I’m not putting up with the worst aspects of his little schtick over here.
I love how he insinuates that we’re Alex Jones groupies because we don’t fall for the climate change hysteria. Personally, I think Jones is a nut, largely because of his 9-11 Trutherism.
For quite some time now I’ve made it clear that I have no desire to engage Lizard19 when it’s obvious he wants to argue for the sake of arguing. His response has been to up the ante with replies that are just one long double-helix of sarcasm and condescension. Wrong answer. I’m just deleting that junk from now on. He can address the issue with cogent points, or he can go somewhere else. Those are his two options.
Arachnobot:
What do you think is the most glaring flaw in the theory of Evolution? Is it the reconciliation of the fact that biological mass comes from biological mass yet, without an intelligent creator or some such to spontaneously create the first biological mass in the first place , then how did life begin since it’s obvious rocks and air don’t create biological mass?
Evolution has so many flaws its not even funny. I could devote a thousand pages to explaining it and I have 226 but maybe you should just watch Expelled No Intelligence Allowed 40% of my colleagues don’t actually believe that nonsense but we keep our mouths shut because of the Atheist Brain Trust so much for intellectual freedom the slightest hint of a suggestion of creation being plausible in our work and you’re fired and torn apart by the liberal media. It is hard for me to select just a few from the wide variety of examples but here are some.
1. The sheer mathematics. Scientist admit that any event with a probability less that 1 against 10 to the 50th power is impossible the likelihood of all of the Ingredients of a cell to form 1 against 10 to the 40,000 power. And yet atheist assert that its egotistical to think that there aren’t aliens.
2. A number of geneticist have spoken out that the human genome is actually deteriorating at an astonishing rate.
3. There is no missing link there are human bones, there are ape bones and there are forgeries where they combine the bones of different species. Homo Erectus were identical to modern man, Lucy was an Ape and Neanderthal’s were taller stronger and probably smarter than “Cro-Magnon” man so they had ugly foreheads it’s a simple genetic disorder.
4. One gram of DNA, which when dry would occupy a volume of approximately one cubic centimeter, can store as much information as approximately one trillion CDs [ There is no junk DNA otherwise we would be useless blobs. Every gene in the human genome does at least three things on its own and every gene affects the expression of all of the others.
5. If I went back in time and told people thirty years ago that a digital camera was the result of an explosion at a camera factory would they believe it? Would they believe there was a similar explosion nearby with the same result and that if you rubbed the two together you would get little baby camera’s. Of course you wouldn’t!
6. The bible states that every species reproduces according to there kind this is not some man made classification but a range somewhere between genus and family. No life form can occur naturally beyond the barriers of these kinds you can breed dogs and cats all you want but you’ll still end up with dogs and cats a horse and a donkey can mate but there offspring the mule is sterile. Species can become extinct but as long as the root kind is still present the variation can reemerge. No person has had any success breaking through these barriers even by entirely different means.
7. Stanley Miller cheated on his experiments preserving what few molecules he could scrounge up by removing them from the experiment before the very conditions that created them would have destroyed them.
8. In the 80’s a Seal that had been dead for two weeks was carbon dated at 26,000 years old. Carbon dating and the assumptions behind it are so flawed that Paleontologist ignore it 95% of the time say that they dated it and publish their “Educated” guesses.
9. Have you Seen where Darwinian thinking has done to the world all of the horror of the twentieth century rest on that one idea it justifies racism, warfare, genocide, murder, rape, polygamy without offering anything to man except for an “Eat drink for tomorrow we shall die.” mentality that destroys everything! For all of the horrors and the inquisitions that religious (or should I say Greek philosophical) thinking has heaped upon the world does it even come close.
10. The Bible offers us scientific facts that were way ahead of there time. In the Pentateuch we have hygienic and disease control measures that were 3,000 years ahead of there time, in Job we learn about the water cycle, the circle (or sphere) of the earth and that it indeed hangs upon nothing.
11. The Sheer Mathematics of so many prophecies coming true! Jesus fulfilled many dozens of prophecies in his life many of which he couldn’t have controlled. Someone did the math and figured out that the probability of just eight prophecies being fulfilled is one chance in one hundred million billion.” Putting those odds in perspective, he stated: “If you took this number of silver dollars, they would cover the state of Texas [an area of 266,807 square miles to a depth of two feet If you marked one silver dollar among them and then had a blindfolded person wander the whole state and bend down to pick up one coin, what would be the odds he’d choose the one that had been marked?” He then stated that those are “the same odds that anybody in history could have fulfilled just eight of the prophecies.”
THERE IS NO EXCUSE!
Boom. That is a pretty powerful argument. Kudos.
It’s called, “Expelled No Intelligence Allowed?”
Here you go.
Thank you Douglass.
Atheist Brain Trust you say? Well, you called down the thunder…
No. Just no. “God of the gaps” isn’t science.
1. The sheer mathematics? No. So the mathematical improbability of the spontaneous foundations of life bother you yet your entire Christian religion is predicated on the belief that, out of the estimated 107 billion people who ever lived on the earth, only one created life without sexual reproduction. Is the math better? By the way, atheist don’t have a unified belief about aliens, however, we are generally as skeptical of unproven UFO’s as we are of unproven deities.
2. Dr. John Sanford doesn’t count as “[a] number of geneticist have spoken out that the human genome is actually deteriorating at an astonishing rate.” How many is “a number?” Plus, I don’t think you’ve thought this all the way through since Sanford’s opinion seems to validate aspects of Darwin’s mutation theory. Which you disagree with.
3. You have nothing to back up that claim. You just want to believe it. If you had an open mind, you would have researched the topic and learned that recent DNA sequencing found where the ancestors of humans and great apes split from the Cercopithecoidea. Not entirely definitive by any means, but also light years away from suggesting we sprung from a handful of clay and divine will and the “bones are fake.”
4. It’s true that recent science has made some revealing discoveries that genes thought to be “junk” actually do something. This doesn’t help your cause either. It shows how science is based upon our understanding which, like organisms, evolves over time based upon a bedrock of the scientific testing, scrutiny by peer review, and more testing, not based upon immutable Bronze Age “facts” recorded by men on behalf of a sky god of dubious authenticity.
5. I’m not sure whether your analogy was addressing the Big Bang or sexual reproduction or was just something you heard in a sermon. Sounded good, though.
6. Just because ancient civilizations realized different animals didn’t have any luck inter-breeding doesn’t exactly bestow them a PhD in genetics. I can see the sun rises; that doesn’t make me the Hubble Telescope. The bible also lists lists unicorns, satyrs, cockatrices, and a race of Giants who managed to survive Noah’s flood. Where did they go? I wouldn’t look to the bible for much help here.
7. Evidence that Stanley Miller cheated during experiments? Hmm. Scientist discovered “lost” Miller Experiments he never analyzed and validated some of his findings (that creating the building blocks of amino acids from electricity and base chemicals is possible). Bonus points for Google caching the page since the NASA site is currently down. Thanks dysfunctional US Government!
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uV3GleWTXHcJ:www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/releases/2011/lost_exp.html+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari
8. Part one about the anomalous readings is true. Anomalies are a fact of life. Carbon dating is not exact, just an estimate, and can certainly be wrong. However, it does not disprove, on a whole, science or scientific dating. Do you discount Genesis 1 and 2 because they don’t always agree?
9. Ah, yes, Darwin lead to all those activities in the past 100 years. Like how you tossed in the preemptive rebuttal about the horrors of the Inquisition. However, we only need to crack open the Old Testament to find rampant examples of deity-approved racism (Nehemiah 13:23-30), warfare (Deut. 7:1–2), genocide (Deut. 20:16-17), murder (Zechariah 13:3), rape (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), and polygamy (Exodus 21:10). I do give you credit for at least trying here. Subjugating an “inferior” or “unchosen” race is a frequent topic in the Old Testament. Must have sucked to be an innocent kid born into that tribe and summarily put to the sword because of your race and creed, huh?
10. The Old Testament contained hygiene elements ahead of it’s time? Absolutely true–there were some practices that pre-dated the modern re-implementation of those practices by millennia. But… those practices were often discarded during the backward Dark Ages (yay Christianity) during which believers had a strong anti-science sentiment like… well, today. It is hard to overlook other gems in Pentateuch like “neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.” That might be ahead of its time fashion-wise, but as a command from a deity, it’s a little puzzling.
11. Interesting visualization of silver dollars, but I wouldn’t allow circular logic to dazzle you. An unverifiable ancient religious text (New Testament) was written by men so it fulfilled an even more ancient unverifiable religious text (Old Testament) written by men? That is the basis of your “sheer mathematics?” The prophesy of the chosen one in the Matrix was fulfilled in the Matrix Revolutions. Does that prove anything? No. The latter was written to support the former. Same thing.
I know I’m not going to sway you to come over to the side of logic and abandon superstition, but the psuedo-scientific gobblygook you wrote begged for me to come out of retirement and be the horrible atheist bad guy who holds you down from pushing your fake science on me and my children. Keep your beliefs in church and out of my government and classrooms and we’re cool.
Peace be upon you.
“Keep your beliefs in church and out of my government and classrooms and we’re cool.
Peace be upon you.”
Sure. When YOU keep your own religious and philosophical beliefs out of the government and classroom OR let it all be taught. Because, really, atheism and darwinism has become a belief system almost to the point of destructive Global Warming and Climate Change induced by man.
Bloody no good hypocrite.
Either that, or when you can spontaneously produce actual living life from matter that wasn’t living and not just the kind of things life needs to survive (IE, when those amino acids you discussed suddenly produce cells and stuff on their own without being exposed to an environment that ALREADY had livings things inside) or when you can find a NATURALLY occurring example of those amino acids being formed and spontaneously making life instead of, funnily enough, a test conducted by people with the purpose of proving the evolutionary theory of life’s origins by a controlled experiment conducted by “intelligent” people who “designed” said experiment.
Angry, are we? Keep my religious beliefs out of government? How many atheists in Congress? Google it. I’ll wait.
There isn’t a single admitted atheist in Congress. Please enlighten me how us unclean nonbelievers are pressing our godless agenda in the hallowed halls of our government and persecuting your majority religion. I’m also curious that believing a scientific theory like Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection is a religion unto itself. Do tell. Keeping philosophical beliefs out of government is going to be pretty tough, since all but the brain dead have beliefs. Mine are based on science and logic. Some of you get it from ancient texts. Like I said, it’s all a-okay. Believe what you want.
When you can prove your god using the scientific method, by all means, we’ll invite him into Science class. Until then he/she/whatever stays in either World Religions, Mythology, or Theology class. Belief doesn’t count as proof. Neither does a book.
Not so clever using the “god of the gaps” argument against spontaneous generation. Gaps in scientific knowledge, i.e. things that can’t be explained, must be God. Like when ancient Greeks thought that the sun was just Apollo riding his flaming chariot once a day across the sky. Made sense to them. Their god myth filled the gaps.
Science doesn’t know or claim to know definitively how everything works, especially things that occurred billions of years ago–nobody has Doc Brown’s DeLorean standing by. They have theories, all unproven. Science readily admits its ignorance. Guess who doesn’t? Someone who believes in the god of the gaps. If I am a hypocrite, it is utter arrogance to claim you read and unquestionably *know* the answer to the origin of life because a book, written during the intellectual infancy of mankind, purports to be the word of a mysterious deity said so.
Still, if it makes you happy, great. I will happily respect your freedom of religion if you respect my freedom from religion. Peace.
Do you really not see how an adherence to atheism is a religion in and of itself? Atheists have an agenda of their own and followers vying for political and social power.
Go to Poland and talk to some old people about the Soviets destroying churches. Just to be clear: I’m not saying that you, Lightbringer, would ever be the type to destroy churches. I am saying that when you have large concentrations of men who a.) don’t believe in God or b.) Want to replace devotion to God with devotion to The State, what you historically get is 100 million dead bodies.
The problem with society isn’t religion — it’s that all men, because they possess free will, are capable of embracing either the darkness or the light within them. Whether you believe in God or not doesn’t change the fact that you are capable of performing acts of great good or great evil.
Well said, Doug. Modern atheism is a lot like religious fundamentalism, with people like Dawkins as their demagogues.
Stalin was an atheist. He killed more people than Hitler. Pol Pot was also an atheist. So was Mengistu Haile Mariam, dictator of Ethiopia. His Red Terror in Ethiopia led to the deaths of half a million people.
I do not. “Atheism” is defined as the absence of religion. If people who lack religion rally together to push back against the intrusion of those who would institutionalize religion into the political sphere in a subversive way, and at the detriment to the minority atheist, that doesn’t establish these actions a religion. There is no supernatural controlling element whatsoever. Call it a movement, a cause, anti-theism, whatever, but a religion it is not.
You make great points about the free will and the possibility of mankind to devolve into madness and anti-social behavior. I wholeheartedly agree. I think your view on “The [Soviet] State” replacing religion in the USSR is very close to my viewpoint, though I go a bit further further and think Stalin used the religion playbook to fashion himself a god and his state as his church. Hitchens touches upon this point in this video:
He also landed a whopper of a point about North Korea, which I totally agree. Messianism in totalitarian regimes is a common theme. The Kim Jong successors, Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, the list goes on and on. Calling them atheist is a misnomer–each essentially established a religion (by all definitions) by a) assuming the mantle of a messianic figure and b) removing any religious competition.
“I know I’m not going to sway you to come over to the side of logic and abandon superstition, but the psuedo-scientific gobblygook you wrote begged for me to come out of retirement and be the horrible atheist bad guy who holds you down from pushing your fake science on me and my children.”
If you feel like your children are SO OPPRESSED and SO PUSHED, why the heck do you even send your kids to public school? I thought they taught your religion of evolutionary theory and, funnily enough, forced THAT ideology down the throats of children. I thought someone like you would LOVE a system like that that taught the younglings the “truth” without even letting their minds “open” to the possibility that your “truth” has some MAJOR holes in it. It seems that, however, when the system turns against this “TRUTH” and either teaches that it’s one of several possible “TRUTHS” or that other things are “TRUE” or allows OTHER systems like private or religious schools to teach things that go against it, THEN that’s when you have a problem with it.
So, on other words, you seem to like it when other people force YOUR VIEWS down the throats of the young and seem to ignore freedom and stuff then (like a lot of Republicans did to George Bush’s invasive and intrusive Orwellian program of government surveillance just because he was one ‘them’ when in fact he was a Neo-Con RINO and not a true conservative, even though his actions were slightly more justified then Obummers, much to their everlasting shame) but when other people force OTHER PEOPLE’S VIEWS, THEN that’s when you get all defensive of and seem to selectively remember only PART of the first amendment, when in fact, it’s freedom both from AND OF religion.
So, in other words, you’re a hypocrite, like I said.
Evolution isn’t a “truth,” it’s a scientific theory. I’m not oppressed. ID is losing big time. Evolution is the one that makes the most sense right now. Trying to shoehorn your deity of choice (psst… it’s really Jesus) into school curriculums using a blatantly illogical god-of-the-gaps idea isn’t science at all, therefore has no place in Science Class.
The rest of what you wrote was crazy talk. You disqualify yourself from intelligent discourse immediately when you use the word “Obummer.” Wish you would have wrote it sooner so I could have bailed out of your post.
So I’m an anti-science scientist good to know. Let’s fire half the scientific community because we don’t follow the party line and everyone knows how dangerous ideas are. Historically the theories of religious scientist are rarely more than partially disproven whilst Atheistic thinkers are paraded around the square simply because there crippled or brand opponents as “stupid, ignorant or insane” doesn’t matter how many holes there ideas have. (Iv pointed to no less than ten in Hawking’s the Grand Design in a chapter of my book) Why does Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 differ because Genesis 1 was a written record of god’s explanation of human’s existence in the garden before the fall Adam wrote Genesis 2 through the beginning of 5 after the fall.
“The more one studies paleontology, the more certain one becomes that evolution is based on faith alone; exactly the same sort of faith which is necessary to have when one encounters the great mysteries of religion. . . . The only alternative is the doctrine of special creation, which may be true, but is irrational.” (L. T. More) “Evolution itself is accepted by zoologists, not because it . . . can be proved by logical coherent evidence, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible.” (D. Watson) “Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable.”—Sir Arthur Keith.
Today some still see creation as fitting the facts. J. H. Corner, Cambridge University botanist and evolutionist, stated: “I still think, to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favor of special creation.” In the Physics Bulletin, May 1980, Professor Lipson reluctantly said: “We must go further than this and admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation.”
The fossil record does not support the theory of evolution. Creation fits its facts.
What kind of scientist are you? Are you published in a scientific journal?
What I don’t get is if there is this Atheist mafia in the scientific community that holds down the ideas of the godly within your profession, how are you able to quote half a dozen scientists who are believers?
This comment reminds me of the time you cited the existence of stories that talk about gang violence and guns as evidence that it’s actually meaningfully covered in the news. For instance, when The Washington Post buries a story about Marion Barry being censured for accepting cash gifts on page Z-47 of its print edition, it still technically can say that it “covered” the story.
I see your point, but you might agree that a minority opinion isn’t necessarily an suppressed opinion and even if it was the suppression doesn’t automatically grant any credence to the validity of the aforementioned opinion.
I would agree with those statements, although the “Climate Gate” emails showed quite nicely that those who try to swim against the establishment’s tide are not particularly welcome in their waters. That’s true whether you’re a devout Christan in the scientific community or an outspoken atheist in Congress, October 2013.
I personally don’t see any conflict at all between Creation and Evolution. I’m a Lutheran whose beliefs are a mixture of both. I don’t believe the world was created in 4004 B.C., however… it’s much older than that.
I agree with you Carl. I’ve said it before on random posts, but the more I learn about science the more my faith is strengthened.
Here is a question for atheists: How do they know their spouse loves them? How do they know they are unconditionally loved? Is there some sort of weird blood test where a doctor can prick your finger and say, “Yep, you totally love your wife and your wife loves you”? Are there George Lucas-like love Midi-chlorians? How depressing would life be if atheist logic on God was applied to the love of one’s husband, wife or child? (i.e., I can’t “prove” you love me, so a small part of me is always going to be suspicious of your motivations for being with me, or I’ll assume you’re just acting on random electrical impulses in your brain that can twist and turn and cause you to leave me at any moment, etc.)
If you’ve never read it, I suggest “What’s so Great About Christianity,” by Dinesh D’Souza.
I ask her.
You question is what’s known as a “loaded question,” but I’ll indulge. One has to work off some assumptions–like the sun rises, water comes out of the faucet, things like that–so I take what what I have seen and heard and form an opinion. If I really wanted to be a stickler about it, I could do research on modern sociological and anthropological pair-bonding rituals, and biological and physiological tests to determine a common definition of “love” in a corporeal sense. But who has the time?
Allow me to address your real question: how do atheist, supposedly devoid of wonder due to our skeptical nature, enjoy life without a supernatural being to calm our fears of the very scary question of what happens after we die? I see wonder just like you do. Does the fact that a sexual researcher spends their days researching the biology, physiology, and sociology of sexual behavior mean he or she can’t enjoy the wonder and pleasure of orgasm when they make love to their partner? Very unlikely.
Plus, there is no such thing as “atheist logic,” there is just logic. A better term is “reasoning.”
No. Again, my real question was: “How do you really know your wife loves you” since there is no way to quantify it? The answer is that you have to go on faith. Faith fills in that gap between what you know and what you can never truly know. That’s why I find it strange when so many atheists kind of sneer at those of us who happen to use faith more frequently in our day-to-day lives.
Here’s a question that I don’t think I asked the last time I wrote on faith: Do you believe that the universe can be understood (on a long enough timeline) using just the five senses, or do you believe that perhaps there are forces at play that might be beyond our “wiring” to pick up and understand?
If I walk into a room full of blind men, does that mean I don’t exist in the visible spectrum? Of course not. Likewise, I would say that it’s a good bet the universe has secrets that will forever be beyond the human mind’s comprehension because the human body only has five senses at its disposal.
How do I know she really, really loves me and isn’t just involved in a time-consuming and elaborate con job involving lengthy cohabitation, a pair-bonding marriage ritual, and producing offspring? That loaded question? I answered it in paragraph #1 above. Since that didn’t suffice, allow me to elaborate.
There are indeed ways to quantify love, but we’ll get to that later. First, you are commingling both definitions of faith for the sake of this argument.
faith
fāTH/
noun
1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
2. strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.
Do I have faith (definition #1) my wife loves me? Yes. Do I have definition #2’s version of faith? No.
How, you ask? Well, she demonstrates her love in both word and deed. But how do I *really* know? Well, see #1 in the previous post. However, if I were so inclined to indulge in the skepticism you described, I could create some experiments to “prove” her love for me via science.
I’d start with having her define her personal definition of love, then find… say… 100 people with the same definition. I could do psychological, physiological, and biological tests on a test group of 50–showing them pictures of people they don’t love and their lovers while hooking them up to an MRI, heart-rate monitor, devices to test pupil dilation, galvanic skin response, and genital arousal; plus blood tests, psychology exams, etcetera–then do the same to the control group. You see where this is going… There is a rather robust scientific basis for love. Here’s a bit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/love/
On a side note: if you get a chance, check out the advances in MRI resolution and “reading” of minds and even the visual images in a mind! Wild stuff. Scary stuff.
“Do you believe that the universe can be understood (on a long enough timeline) using just the five senses, or do you believe that perhaps there are forces at play that might be beyond our “wiring” to pick up and understand?” – Doug
Both! Absolutely. I don’t think they are mutually exclusive. And when I mean “both” including the five senses, I mean our five senses interpreting the results of instruments of our creation (i.e. particle accelerators, telescopes, electromagnetic spectrum analyzers, etc).
You are right, there are smug, arrogant atheists who would patently reject ANY possibility of a “higher power,” deity, unknown force, etc. That’s pure arrogance. If on a 10 scale, with 10 being “I hung out with Jesus” and zero being “that’s impossible,” I’d be a 1. I can’t disprove a higher power exists, but I also can’t disprove Zeus, Ganesh, Druaga, Buddha, Isis, or the Flying Spaghetti monster exist either. The burden of proof has always been on the person making the claim. Until there is more than just faith #2 above, I’m going to hang around a 1 on the scale.
Using a telescope is not the same as understanding the universe outside your five senses, nor is reading the results of any machine for that matter as it all must be interpreted by the “hardware” in your brain.
Poor science. It’s so beautiful, yet so limited. It can answer so many things, but it can’t answer the one question everyone really cares about: “Why?”
How bizarre is it that Vertical Horizon sums up wavering atheists everywhere? Look what you’ve made me do: “He says all the right things at exactly the right time … but he means nothing to you and you don’t know why.”
Dude… I gave you a long, thoughtful reply after changing what could easily be describes as the diaperpocalypse (which required a full bath and running a load of laundry), and your reply is a combo of god-of-the-gaps and a crappy late-90’s alt rock video with vague references to me (a “wavering atheist”) missing godly signs?
Actually, I wasn’t talking about you. I thought you were rock-solid in your non-belief. If you are wavering, that’s news to me.
Sorry my response wasn’t up to snuff. I do work on Saturday, and since I can’t remember the last time I took an actual lunch at work I used a few minutes to reply. The video was supposed to be a light-hearted joke (with a certain amount of truth to it, of course).
You dodged my question, asked the question you wished I gave you, and then responded to that.
Truthfully, your response highlights quite nicely the divide between us. However, I think when objective observers look at the different between us (you, icily talking about how to define love, as if it could one day be broken down into 1’s and 0’s and downloaded into our brain via science, and me seeing evidence of God all around me) they will see way atheism is such a hard sell.
You mentioned diapers. I’m not trying to be cruel or mean, but when I look at a newborn child I see evidence of God. I suppose if I was looking at my own son it would be impossible to see him (when you really get scientific about it) as merely a collection of cells and randomly firing synapses that would one day go dark … or that he was without a soul … and that I would never see him again upon my death.
I’ll watch your video when I get a chance. I’m not in a location that’s conducive to watching video at the moment.
Side note: I’m surprised you never commented on my Christopher Hitchens post.
I didn’t know you still worked on Saturdays. I appreciate the reply more now. Thanks. I apparently didn’t get the joke. Be fair, I did answer your question twice, though you may not have thought my answer up to snuff.
I’m sad you feel my answer is “icy” because I don’t ascribe any supernatural element to my emotions. That goes right back to my question unanswered to you about the sex researcher. To put it in a less salacious way, does the rose smell less sweet because we know about how our olfactory organ works? I think you would agree no.
It’s neither cruel or mean. His diaper was, though. I wouldn’t wish that on you, Jim, or anyone else. You can look at your future son or daughter and see evidence of whatever you like. I look at him and see a wonderful thing, a conscience like none that ever existed. When I die, he will hopefully live on as will a bit of me for as long as my bloodline exists. That gives me enough comfort. Plus, the fact that life is fleeting and death is forever makes me appreciate each day more than anyone who is waiting for a second go of it in an eternal paradise.
The video makes all the points I can make on this topic. I’m not trying to convert anyone. The only reason I commented was to rebut Arachnobat’s fake science, not to engage you in a long discussion about the evidence of god. Let’s agree to disagree, shall we?
In response to your side note, I never saw that Hitchens post even though my first comment pre-dates it by a few months. Remember “RealityCalling” and Leo’s diamond paint job?
http://douglasernstblog.com/2011/08/20/dicaprio-i-dont-want-to-control-you-i-want-the-bureaucrats-to-control-you/
Have we being going around two years? I stand by what I wrote that day: “You seem like a good, honorable guy, but on some points, misguided.” If I could do it over, I would add that you *are* a good, honorable guy. Though, still misguided on some points. And still working too hard and on Saturdays. 🙂
Thanks, man. I was talking to some friends that were in town for the Values Voters Summit this weekend in D.C., and we were discussing writing novels down the line, etc. I was telling them that if I didn’t write 700+ blog posts over the past three years I probably would have had a book or two under my belt by now. However, I added that I think it would have been a mistake. I’ve had the chance to meet you, Jim, Lizard, Carl, Hube and a whole host of others. As cheesy as it sounds, I don’t think I’d trade that for a book deal any day. Yes, I have my issues with people that post here, but I’ve learned a lot from each and every one of them. In many ways, you have changed my “misguided” ways. I won’t give you the satisfaction of knowing exactly how (yet), but maybe I’ll write a post on it in the future. 😉
I really do mean it when I say “thanks” to people who comment here. They have busy lives. They have diapers to change. They have bills to pay and loved ones to care for. They give me precious seconds of the life that they will never get back. They gave me one of the most valuable things there is in this life: time.
The moral of the story is, thanks for giving me your time! I’ll try to continue to grow as a writer and, more importantly, as a person. It’s the least I can do for the people who have made an effort to make me a part of their life.
Thank you and you’re welcome. I’m flattered. And to be equally candid, your blog has taught me a lot and made me re-examine some beliefs that I held. Even change some of them.
Your reply reminds me of the Lincoln quote from a few emails back. You have destroyed me as an enemy by making me a friend. No bare knuckles or duels at dawn required. I look forward to that post you mentioned, if you ever opt to write it. If not, that’s okay too.
About the blog… you shouldn’t shut it down even if you shift focus to writing a book. You do crank out a lot of posts, and I mean A LOT. Especially for someone not getting paid to do it (and I still am baffled why you don’t accept advertising dollars). I think you’re readers will still enjoy a less frequent schedule–a weekly or bi-weekly post perhaps–or even shorter posts. Maybe post less but encourage more audience participation (ask the readers a question at your conclusion) and change up the WordPress commenting to something easier to distinguish and promote threads.
Conservatism needs more minds like yours. Keep it up.
Just to be upfront: I did sign up for WordAds, although it should really be called WeirdAds. I’m not sure how they do the math to pay you, but essentially what I get from this blog has … gone back into the blog through upgrades. In fact, when I get some down time I’ll probably be plopping down another $100 to the wizards of WordPress.
My friends who were visiting D.C. were asking me about writing for this blog, and I said sometimes I get home from work and I really want to go to bed, but there’s something inside that says, “Nope. You need to write on this story.” I sort of feel compelled to write. I figure, if it’s something I would do for free because I just want to do it … then it must be right. I almost always go with my “gut” instinct, and the vast majority of the time I’ve been rewarded.
God has time and again proven his existence to mankind. Guess what he eventually gave up. Jesus performed countless miracles but it didn’t convert his opponents did it? No rather they killed him and when one of his followers proved to them how undeniably wrong they were they responded by stoning him. the Apostle Paul prophesied that powerful works would cease once those who had been contemporaries of the apostles died (160 CE or so) there would be no one alive with that kind of holy spirit. Miracles continued to occur if people were paying attention and MYRIAD prophecies were fulfilled if people were paying attention but you tell me that “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and stick my finger into the print of the nails and stick my hand into his side, I will certainly not believe.” You will never believe sure iv mostly offered information here that merely tears down evolution rather than uphold creation but I can point to the common source of all pagan religions and doctrines can you? I could offer you a twenty page study of the biological backing of creation, the virgin birth and the ransom I could offer you twenty pages on physics, a breathtaking examination of mathematics and a fractal self symmetrical pattern in the process of creation that will continue to unfold when the 2nd epochal week starts I could show you the brilliance of the universes perfect self maintaining systems or perhaps the most satisfying explanation of God’s preexistence the world has ever seen but I won’t because this is a forum not a book and because I know that nothing that will convince you. Go enjoy this world while you still can I know who its ruler is and you are going to go down with him when Armageddon comes and you see the sign of heaven then there will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth because you will know that you are indeed accountable for your actions and you will die a death just the kind of death you’ve wanted permanent unconscious but also… eternally humiliating.
So, am I correct in assuming Lightbringer is a troll who sometimes harasses you, Douglass? He seems the type, ESPECIALLY with his idea that gang violence is adequately covered in comparison to mass shooting or possible mass shooting episodes.
I will give Lightbringer this though: after perusing through some of your other posts, Douglass, he does in fact have greater raw courage to face you in your own “Dragon’s Den”, if you will (not saying that you’re a dragon, just remarking on how scary it is for the visitor to play on the home team’s own turf) and actually talk to you than Dan Slott appears to be.
I respect Lightbringer. I believe he also used to post as MeAgain. While we sometimes have pretty strong disagreements, he almost always keeps it above the belt.
If Dan Slott was so incensed at the things I’ve written and he came here and talked to me like Lightbringer, I have a feeling that a.) Many of the posts I’ve written might not exist or b.) if they did, the tone would be strikingly different. He wanted to take pot shots at me on Twitter and stalk me around the internet, and so things unfolded as they did.
I promise I’ll never refer to myself as Smaug, although my wife would probably like it if my voice sounded like Benedict Cumberbatch.
Side note: Can you spell my name ‘Douglas’? The mispelling (with ‘ass’) has been a pet peeve since I’ve been a kid.
Thanks, Doug. And I respect you. To be fair, we both take shots below the belt from time to time, and that’s not cool, but unkind words sometimes win over rational ones. I do try to be civil.
Your wife likes Cumberbatch’s voice, too? Let’s hope he never visits our wive’s respective hospitals.
I don’t know what it is about the guy, but women love him. He’s not particularly good looking, but I guess he does have a magnetic personality and a cool voice. And he seems to be a pretty darn good actor.
He is. Check out “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.” Great movie. Also, the BBC’s “Sherlock.” I don’t watch much TV, but I caught that show on Amazon Instant Video. Or was it Netflix. Can’t remember.
Then again, Tinker Tailor has Tom Hardy in it too, so my wife was in heaven to have both he and Benedict Cumberbach in the same movie. Perhaps you win, because given a choice, she might run off with Hardy given the chance. lol
I saw a single episode of ‘Sherlock’ because my wife forced me to. Actually, I was half asleep … although I did force myself into pseudo-consciousness to see how it ended. I don’t like many shows, but I’d consider watching ‘Sherlock’ on Netflix.
Sherlock is a pretty good show. I was initially skeptical of a modern reimagining, but the show is well-written and well-acted.
And Lightbringer: I also enjoyed that movie. Great Cold War spy thriller.
A girl at the local grocery store told me that she thought my voice was just like Cumberbatch’s. I’ve always had a deep voice, at least since middle school.
Note to self: Don’t meet Carl and introduce him to my wife. 😉 I must conclude that the girl at the grocery store liked you. I haven’t met one woman who dislikes that man.
The latest hysteria from the alarmists is that the planet is going to be unbearably warm by 2047. I love how it’s always 30-40 years in the future.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/10/09/ap-temperatures-go-charts-around-2047
There are those computer models again… I suppose if you make enough predictions than some of them will be right. 😉
LOL! These same “geniuses” also predicted in 2000 that snow would be a thing of the past within a “few years,” to name one example. In the 1970s they claimed a new Ice Age would be coming in a few years and that everyone would die.
Here’s a list of botched forecasts from these alarmists:
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/12/8_botched_environmental_foreca.html
I know that this thread is about global warming and has strayed pretty far already but could I post something about Adaptation you know if it’s not as Lightbringer put it fake science. Also a note on the ID movement I’m not terribly familiar with them but everything iv learned suggest that nearly half of them are atheist/agnostic themselves (So much for shoehorning Christianity into school) and its a more respectful/successful less botched approach to study nothing more or less.
One, I did not write “adaptation” was fake science. Two, if you think that half of the proponents of “Intelligent Design” include atheists, you have a lot more learning about them to do.
Intelligent Design could mean anything I confessed that I haven’t researched Intelligent Design much but isn’t it true that there are a lot of individuals that want to demonize them. You didn’t write that Adaptation was fake science anyone would notice I was being sarcastic. And I do accept viruses as “perfect Darwinian machines”
“[I]sn’t it true that there are a lot of individuals that want to demonize them?”
No. I would not equate “discredit” with “demonize.” If you want to talk demonization, let’s discuss where you wrote I was going to hell earlier in the thread. Actually, not really. That would be a waste of both of our time.
I did not say your going to hell you know why because I don’t believe in hell its unscriptural Immortality of the soul was Satan’s first lie what I said was that since the human soul is mortal something we both can agree on that your death would be permanent and unconscious just as you want it to be. I simply indicated that Armageddon is so near that your demise would probably occur when it goes down. also on the subject of Adaptation here is something I wrote on it a few years ago
What about the field of biology. Biology is the study of life from the simplest virus to the largest whale biologist use a number of methods to do there work including microscopy, genetic analysis and direct observation. Biologists distinguish life under a large group of very inadequate artificial classifications species, genus, family, kingdom, phyla, and domain are just a few examples. For the sake of simplicity im going to start with viruses the simplest form of life which aren’t even categorized because so many scientist say they aren’t alive.
The average cell contains anywhere from twenty to thirty thousand genes the reason they have so many is because a single cell has to carry all the information necessary to make a human animal or plant. Bacterium’s are much simpler roughly twelve hundred genes since they only need to carry all the necessary information for there own function. Viruses on the other hand normally vary from a mere seventy to seven hundred genes of simple RNA form. (there are some notable exceptions such as Mimivirus which is on par with Bacteria) That combined with the fact that they don’t use, consume, or excrete any fuel makes them rather different from other forms of life.
Little to nothing is known of the origin of viruses but we can rule out the idea that they were some sort of early step in the evolution of life since they are naturally produced by the cells of placental mammals to suppress the immune system and therein lies there possible purpose a purpose that they fell from. Viruses are so simple in there action being the only life that does not require any real energy input/output. All they do is seek out cells and hijack them to reproduce this originally was to prevent the immune system from killing baby humans and animals but as everything else involving man the processes that created these viruses fell from there original purpose drastically so because of there small amount of genes. They are now responsible for some of the world’s most dreaded diseases.
Many viruses are capable of changing the genetics of there host. As much as 42% of the human genome has been altered at one point by viruses thus they are both a blessing and a curse. In a perfect world they would be the symbiotic engines of survival and adaption but in the post Eden world they are one of the greatest accelerants of imperfection.
After viruses the next simplest of god’s creations are bacteria and archea these are two distinct domains of cells that do not combine to form a larger organisms. Bacteria are a well known and versatile group of creatures common features are a nucleus, outer membrane, and a flagella the first two displaying a degree of preprogrammed intelligence and the later featuring a powerful motor that can spin at 17,000 RPM and change direction in a mere quarter of a turn. If just a single component was missing from the flagella its power would be reduced by at least 50%. Bacteria are autonomous from plants and animals even so no multicellular life could really exist without them because they are responsible for many of the chemical reactions that provide plants and animals with energy. Bacteria can survive in many environments and in the average human body they outnumber cells ten to one.
Bacteria are rarely aggressive by design often when they exert a detrimental effect on a person’s body the problem is simply that the bacteria species excrement is not a chemical that is good for people. Bacteria have the amazing ability of swapping genes with one another this process has limits but even so it means that they can rapidly adapt to antibiotic attack speaking of antibiotics some biologist suspect that antibiotics aren’t a chemical weapon bacteria use against each other but a lethal overdose of some sort of communication chemical like pheromones in animals.
Bacteria and archea are the only known forms of (universally accepted) life that do not require energy that ultimately comes from the sun. Both sometimes reside deep underwater near hydrothermal vents where the suns light never reaches the water pressure is sufficient to crush most multicelled life forms and the vents release some of the heat and pressure deep within the earth’s interior coincidence I think not. In fact archea the little known type of cellular life are often called extremophiles because they are almost always found present in the most extreme environments. While bacteria can have a negative positive or neutral relationship with man so far all evidence points to archea species having a positive to indifferent effect on man. Yes even at the Very simplest levels of life we see systems that would take humans millions of years to intentionally design if at all.