I hate environmentalists

John A. wrote:

There have been countless examples given as being "impossible" to have
come about without a divine hand. The eye is one, but it has been
shown how one can progress through simple steps from simple
photosensitivity to a focusing modern eyeball, through localization,
concavity progressing to invagination, protective cell layers, etc.,
each of which is conveyed by simple developmental variation and gives
an immediate advantage along the way.

One could argue that these 'improvements' were due to evolutionary
(genetic) mutations - they were deemed improvements because the host
enjoyed a more survivable existence through better hunting skills or a
higher likelihood of successful mating with the improved vision, thereby
passing the genetic mutation on to his/her progeny far more often than
the others without the non-mutated gene. A one-eyed fish got around
okay whereas a two-eyed fish did a lot better, and therefore survived.
I forget which chapter Darwin wrote about this.


--
jer
email reply - I am not a 'ten'

Alan Browne wrote:
Ron Hunter wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:
Rich wrote:
These people are the kind who want nature reserved only for their kind,
What you know about man's impact on the environment can be written
with a Sharpie on a postage stamp.


Probably better than what rabid environmentalists seem to believe, which
is that humans should just disappear from the face of the earth, and
leave it to the animals.

What a pathetic and angry distortion. Environmentalism is about harmony
and balance with the environment.

The environment is our sustenance. Better take care of it. We're
collectively failing to do so.



Are you saying that there AREN'T those in the environmentalist movement
that DO advocate the end of all human existence? If so, then you need
to pay more attention to them. Many of the ideas rabid
environmentalists advocate would result in human beings becoming
extinct, never mind that MOST of the ideas these people propose would
result in collapse of civilization, followed by massive starvation, and
disease, perhaps to the point of extinction.

If your idea of 'harmony and balance' means living in a strictly
agrarian society, without technology, and eschewing anything that would
cause harm to any species of animal, or plant life, that is pretty much
the definition of 'rabid environmentalist'.

Alan Browne wrote:
Ron Hunter wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:

Point is that "creationism" seems to have an origin time that is
slightly less than the time that humans have been writing things down.
That is the root of creationism: real written history.

I'll take the simpler path which is evolution. Inexorably each
so-called "hole" in the theory is filled while ever wilder counter
claims by creationists are debunked.

A most amusing trend of late being creationists 'back interpreting'
passages in the bible to make them fit various scientific proof (ref:
Scientific American, May 2009 issue, Shermer). This is really, per
Shermer, "hindsight bias".

I ask only that people who espouse evolution apply the same scientific
method to its flaws as they apply to 'intelligent design'.
Unfortunately, as many people seem to take evolution 'on faith' as do
religious fanatics who take a story written by scientifically primitive
people trying to explain what they found in the world take their
religious beliefs, and writings.

That's failed logic. A rational view of things requires evidence and
this is what science seeks: evidence (through observation, measurement
and experiment) to develop or support theory. Evolution theory and fact
has been building inexorably, step by step. Where faiths say they are
complete, science always knows that there is more and that things
unexplained have to be declared as "not yet known".

(A simple example is string theory - lot's of math and physics but no
evidence and likely no definitive evidence will ever be found - so it's
a declared unknown - unless some experiments at CERN prove it not to
exist. So its non-existence can be proven, but not its existence.)

As to flaws, will every little part of evolution be filled? Probably
not. Geologic time has destroyed or irretrievably buried a lot of the
evidence. Interpolating between that evidence is reasonable. Further
where evolution scientists have made errors, they have been corrected
when new evidence emerges. Again the triumph of science is that
bad/wrong theories are discarded. OTOH, I cannot see the leaders of
Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. getting together
to weed out what is 'wrong' with their individual faiths to distill it
to a "true one faith" that everyone henceforth adheres to. Much more
likely to start a holy war (example: the two major branches of Islam
have distrusted and warred against one another over what we would see as
a rather minor spat back in the early days of Islam. So getting Islam
on one page is hard enough, never mind all religions).

Faith is rarely based on factual, concrete evidence so scientific method
cannot go far with it. It's all old documents which report oral
history. This includes such "bedrock" as the 10 commandments, which
nobody has ever seen after Moses smashed them. (Ironically, the 'good'
of the 10 commandments has percolated through into our laws while we
shucked off the chafe of the religious nonsense).

Face it. The only reason the large monotheistic religions survive is
indoctrination of the young setting their core beliefs early in life.
This is the survival mechanism of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

A sign I saw in West Virginia outside a Baptist Church a couple years
ago sums it up: "Reason is the enemy of faith."

How bizarre that God bestowed intelligence on us and then religious
parasites want us to ignore that gift.


I don't agree with that statement, at all. Reason and faith coexist
nicely in my head. I believe in God as the cause, and science as the
method. There is no real conflict, only a misinterpretation of the
message. If you want a really good description of the 'big bang
theory', in strictly non-technical terms, read the first chapter of
Genesis. From there, it is mostly allegory. The Bible is pretty good
history, but it is a bit of a stretch to take it all literally, given
that even the earliest texts were recorded from oral tradition. As you
probably can guess, I am not a fundamentalist Christian.

John A. wrote:
On Sat, 11 Apr 2009 09:34:21 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:

Faith is rarely based on factual, concrete evidence so scientific method
cannot go far with it. It's all old documents which report oral
history. This includes such "bedrock" as the 10 commandments, which
nobody has ever seen after Moses smashed them. (Ironically, the 'good'
of the 10 commandments has percolated through into our laws while we
shucked off the chafe of the religious nonsense).

Although it could be argued that the ten commandments came from
commonsense laws and/or social conventions of the time, with the
religious parts added on.

Face it. The only reason the large monotheistic religions survive is
indoctrination of the young setting their core beliefs early in life.
This is the survival mechanism of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

A sign I saw in West Virginia outside a Baptist Church a couple years
ago sums it up: "Reason is the enemy of faith."

How bizarre that God bestowed intelligence on us and then religious
parasites want us to ignore that gift.

I think the thing that scares them is that ultimately, if not
artificially suppressed, scientific inquiry leads to the conclusion
that all gods are anthropomorphisms of the universe and parts thereof.
Religions that don't suppress that don't survive. Societies that
suppress science wholesale are at a disadvantage. So we have the
continual competition of ideas as religious society tries, consciously
or unconsciously, to integrate science to its benefit without allowing
it to dismantle religion altogether.

And so we have another example of evolution - this time social
evolution. As long as there is a social benefit in both religion and
science we will have both, and the total suppression of either will be
disadvantageous and ultimately short-lived. I think though that while
science is on the stable bedrock of material reality (and, by its
nature, continually strives for a stronger hold on it,) religion is
much more malleable and could very well evolve into, or be gradually
displaced by, something very different while retaining its social
advantages. It does have its own mechanisms, though, to reduce or
suppress changes in itself, of course, but as can be seen by the
multitude of denominations and variations in just the Abrahamic
religions, religion is as subject to schisms as populations are to
speciation, if not more so. So who knows where things will go, but we
do know that science is here now and the knowledge and material
benefits it conveys cannot help but be a factor.

Okay - enough rambling.
How, then, do you explain that the countries of the world that are the
most advanced in science and technology are the most religious? Strange
contradiction, isn't it?

C J Campbell wrote:
On 2009-04-10 19:46:10 -0700, (Ray Fischer) said:

Rich wrote:
C J Campbell wrote in
news:2009040908225316807-christophercampbellremovethis@hotmailcom:

On 2009-04-08 16:31:14 -0700, Rich said:

These people are the kind who want nature reserved only for their kind,
the hemp-sandal wearing KOOKS who like to protest G20 meetings.
Those guys are running things now. At the more extreme end, people like
Bill McKibben, author of "The End of Nature," are demanding a
moratorium on ALL wildlife photography.
Rachel Carson wrote "Silent Spring" about DDT's effects on bird eggs. So
they banned DDT. Result? 40 million Africans dead of malaria.
Rightard propaganda.

An exaggeration, but not entirely untrue. There are trade-offs. And
banning DDT does make it more difficult to control malaria-carrying
mosquito populations.

Environmentalists, the hardcore, are human-hating, anarchist vermin.
Quite the neo-nazi, aren't you?

Godwin's law already? Guess you lose the argument with Rich. Quite a
feat, actually -- losing an argument with *that.* However, there really
are people at the core of the environmental movement who even advocate
human extinction. You do realize, of course, that extremist views like
that bring a great deal of disrepute to the environmental movement?

They certainly don't help the cause any more than radical Islamic
terrorists help the cause of Islam. Both tend to make rational people
run screaming from their ideas.

C J Campbell wrote:
On 2009-04-10 19:46:10 -0700, (Ray Fischer) said:

Rich wrote:
C J Campbell wrote in
news:2009040908225316807-christophercampbellremovethis@hotmailcom:

On 2009-04-08 16:31:14 -0700, Rich said:

These people are the kind who want nature reserved only for their kind,
the hemp-sandal wearing KOOKS who like to protest G20 meetings.

Those guys are running things now. At the more extreme end, people like
Bill McKibben, author of "The End of Nature," are demanding a
moratorium on ALL wildlife photography.

Rachel Carson wrote "Silent Spring" about DDT's effects on bird eggs. So
they banned DDT. Result? 40 million Africans dead of malaria.

Rightard propaganda.

An exaggeration, but not entirely untrue. There are trade-offs. And
banning DDT does make it more difficult to control malaria-carrying
mosquito populations.

Environmentalists, the hardcore, are human-hating, anarchist vermin.

Quite the neo-nazi, aren't you?

Godwin's law already?

The Nazis referred to people as vermin. So does Rich.

The similarity isn't my fault.

--
Ray Fischer

Ron Hunter wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:
Ron Hunter wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:
Rich wrote:
These people are the kind who want nature reserved only for their kind,
What you know about man's impact on the environment can be written
with a Sharpie on a postage stamp.


Probably better than what rabid environmentalists seem to believe, which
is that humans should just disappear from the face of the earth, and
leave it to the animals.

What a pathetic and angry distortion. Environmentalism is about harmony
and balance with the environment.

The environment is our sustenance. Better take care of it. We're
collectively failing to do so.

Are you saying that there AREN'T those in the environmentalist movement
that DO advocate the end of all human existence? If so, then you need
to pay more attention to them.

Guilt by association is a sleazy ploy.

Many of the ideas rabid
environmentalists advocate would result in human beings becoming
extinct,

Many of the ideas rabid anti-environmentalists promote would have the
same result.

--
Ray Fischer

Ron Hunter wrote:

How, then, do you explain that the countries of the world that are the
most advanced in science and technology are the most religious?

Hmmm, let's see
- Afganistan under the Taliban
- Iran, Saudi-Arabia, Indonesia (to cover the most islamic countries)
- Vatican
- Spain, Poland, Italy, Phillipines...
- Tibet, Nepal (to cover the most bhuddistic countries)
- India (to cover the main hinduistic country)

None of those with maybe the exception of very recent India strikes me
as particularly advanced in science or technology.
For Israel (to cover the last major religion) you need to differentiate.
The technological and scientific advances don't come from the orthodox
jews but from the progressive or liberal people, who don't care, if they
touch an elevator button on Sabbath.

Actually, looking back in history it's rather that people like Kepler,
Galileo, and many, many others had to denounce their inventions and
discoveries or be burned as heretics. And this doesn't apply just to
Christianity but equally to Islam. That doesn't strike me as
particularly innovative, either.
Quite the opposite, actually. Progress and innovation happened in the
Rennaisance because the dominance of the church was broken.

jue

John A. added these comments in the current discussion du jour ...

About the only part of the so-called Intelligent Design movement
that I agree with is that is MUST be true that all that we know
of in the universe could NOT have possibly happened by accident,
it MUST have been the work of some intelligent entity or being.
Where the ID people quickly turn into Loons, though, is the
nonsense that Adam and Eve lived just 6,000 years ago.

More anthropomorphism. Just because we haven't pinned down the
ultimate origin doesn't some guy did it. That's just our bias as
a social tool-using/making species with brains evolved to
recognize and imitate the handiwork of others. We also see
bunnies in clouds and faces on Mars.

No one will ever "pin down" the Garden of Eden, but there IS more
than ample proof through carbon dating that human beings, i.e.,
homo sapiens, existed in excess of 150,000 years ago, so, ID is
total horse****.

There have been countless examples given as being "impossible"
to have come about without a divine hand. The eye is one, but it
has been shown how one can progress through simple steps from
simple photosensitivity to a focusing modern eyeball, through
localization, concavity progressing to invagination, protective
cell layers, etc., each of which is conveyed by simple
developmental variation and gives an immediate advantage along
the way.

I'm not going to try to reason with fools about the general subject
of miracles, but if you really want to engage me in a meaningful
factual discussion, please START with your views on the FACTS I
have already cited.

A quick couple of examples I like to think about to support some
sort of divine intervention in the universe is the facts that
ALL life is carbon based, for mannels, the basic anatomy of
males and females and their reproductive processes are the same,
and as best we can tell, the basic laws of physics exist across
as many lightyears of the universe as can be studied.

Or perhaps the conditions on any particular planet will tend to
lend themselves to one form of biochemistry. Or maybe life on a
particular planet tends to become homogenous in time as one
chemistry becomes dominant. (A less common chemistry will likely
have less edible food organisms available and would thus be at a
severe disadvantage.)

You're like my daughter who likes to play "what if". Why don't you
try answering my points with specific facts - if you can, but I
already know you cannot as there is more than sufficient scientific
proof on these issues.

It's hard to say which is the case (though they are not mutually
exclusive) since we have only looked at one example planet thus
far. Scientists have, however, postulated other possible
biochemistries based on different base elements and solvents.

To put it simply: carbon and water aren't the only
possibilities. They're just what we happen to be the workable
combination we have here.

And so we have another example of evolution - this time social
evolution. As long as there is a social benefit in both
religion and science we will have both, and the total
suppression of either will be disadvantageous and ultimately
short-lived. I think though that while science is on the
stable bedrock of material reality (and, by its nature,
continually strives for a stronger hold on it,) religion is
much more malleable and could very well evolve into, or be
gradually displaced by, something very different while
retaining its social advantages. It does have its own
mechanisms, though, to reduce or suppress changes in itself,
of course, but as can be seen by the multitude of
denominations and variations in just the Abrahamic religions,
religion is as subject to schisms as populations are to
speciation, if not more so. So who knows where things will go,
but we do know that science is here now and the knowledge and
material benefits it conveys cannot help but be a factor.

Some excellent thoughts, John, thanks for sharing them.

If there is ONE huge danger in the United States today, it is
the euphemism of "secular progressives" who want to rob us of
our religious heritage and right to worship. Although we as a
nation highly value religious and cultural diversity far beyond
Christianity, it is still instructive to remember that this
great country was founded along Judeo-Christian principles and a
large amount of our ideas expressed in the Declaration of
Independence and later the Constitution and Bill of Rights come
from the strong faith and religious feelings of the founders as
well as many basic teachings from the Bible.

A common myth.

Of course, our law is also founded on British common law,
although we corrected many of the deficiencies yet until perhaps
the modern secular progressive movement took hold a few decades
ago, no one really questioned one's right to "freedom of
religion", yet today, Christmas and Easter are under fire and
these Loons demand to rename such benign holidays as St.
Patrick's Day as Potato Day. Puleeze!

Puleeze, indeed. See my "cookie" post.

I think I misjudged you. You're nothing more than one other brand
of Loon. Maybe a Far Left Loon, maybe a Far Right Loon, maybe an
Intelligent Design, or maybe just an ignorant Loon who likes to
argue. No matter which, I quit. As I said, I do not try to reason
with fools.

--
HP, aka Jerry

"Laid off yet? Keep buying foreign and you soon will be!" - popular
bumper sticker

Bob Larter wrote:
Jer wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:
Jer wrote:

Besides, the exhaust from mountain bikes is quite different from
that of horses, and a horse fart disturbs the neighborhood a lot less.

Not sure about that ... hiking in the Grand Canyon and a bunch of
lazy asses on mules go by (pun intended). Their mules decide to
****. It's about 35C out under the hard sun and there is no wind.

I did not vomit by sheer force of will alone.



I often feel the same way about personal fragrances.

Ditto. There's nothing worse being stuck in a crowded train or elevator,
next to someone drenched in perfume or aftershave.




Yeah, that makes it worse, but it isn't an issue of being too strong, I
just find the odor to be so incredibly unpleasant. BO, while not
pleasant, it more tolerable to me than things people do to smell
likable. For me, no odor is far preferable to anything artificial. For
years, I've recommend my special lady friends refrain from adding
anything after their bath - save that nonsense for someone else.

--
jer
email reply - I am not a 'ten'