One Path to Wisdom
As a society, we value education. Enough so that we have made education available to everybody completely apart from financial costs. I believe this has resulted in a devaluation of education among the recipients. Had schools been a privelege to me and my generation rather than a given, we would have taken the opportunities we were afforded much more seriously. As it was, I felt I was being force fed. My parents disaggreed, largely because they did not get complete education. The more I learn about the application of agenda into our educational programs, the more I believe we are being force fed misinformation. This is one of the myriad reasons I advocate vouchers or school choice. If this school is doing a lousy job, I get to choose a better school just like I get to choose a better hamburger joint or auto mechanic.
I am a religious man but I have avoided arguing politics and judgment from a religious perspective simply because of the current bias against Christianity in the Western cultures. On this topic, I believe this is not possible because there simply is no better source for wisdom than faith in God. There is only one path to wisdom. There is only one path to understanding the benefits and consequences of world views. The rest are condemned to continuously circling around false assumptions because; all
men reason in a circle, or begin by assumptions. Their knowledge and
wisdom depend on their assumptions. The God-rejecter begins by assuming
his ideas and those of the fools before him are intelligent and
rational. He begins by assuming he has made great advances in the
twenty years since he was in diapers. The righteous man begins by
assuming faith in an infinitely wise God, Who has revealed truth and
wisdom in Scripture. He begins by thinking he knows nothing at all and
needs the help of Another.
The other you choose should be based on their fruit. I'll come back to this thought in a moment but I wanted to point out the carnal mind and its motivation. The reason the carnal person tears down the reputation of the good and builds up or covers up the reputation of the evil is they are biased by their desires for their own particular brand of evil and align with other brands of evil to overcome the majority's good judgment to protect their access to their favored brand of evil. Ergo, the Liberal elite college professor who denies the existence of God aligns with the Hezbollah terrorist who targets and kills innocents in the name of Allah. Its insane and the professor denies it, but his deeds reveal him. His fruit is supportive of Hezbollah and destructive to his own country and ideology. Carried out to its logical conclusion, his course would end in submission to Islam and Allah as described in the Qu'ran.
Back to the fruit of faith. If the fruit of belief in God is the Taliban, Hezbollah, Fatah, and the hundreds of other mainstream organizations which openly and proudly present their blood lust and domineering control of the population as the will of Allah, you might want to consider the consequence to you personally and those you love if their ideology is employed everywhere. If the fruit of faith is an environment which welcomes other ideologies and fights for equal opportunity for all, even for countries other than its own, then you might want to consider the Source of such an ideology. Perhaps someone can recall a civilization and ideology which welcomes other cultures to enter their arena of ideas, not just for purposes of debate, but always looking for the better to employ in their own society, but I can't recall one. Perhaps someone can recall a society in history which bleeds for other cultures without expectation of payment or profit, but I can't recall one. Certainly, it isn't Islam. Islam has been imperialist, expansionist, and violently militant from its inception and continues to be today in 44 nations around the world so they can bless the people with 'morality' by chopping off the heads of anyone who refuses to submit to their authority. Pardon me, but that isn't religion, that is a theopolitical movement to advance a government and the power of its leaders. Come to think of it, wasn't it the U.S. (a predominantly Christian culture) which went to war in Bosnia to protect Muslims from the Christians engaging in ethnic cleansing?
As for the faith of non-faith, what is its fruit in recent history? Nazism, Communism, Maouist, Taoist, etc., have all been the sources of the greatest bloodletting in history, even more than all three major religions combined. All of them stem from the Marxist ideology of eliminating faith in God. More than 100 million lives lost in the last century alone. The thing that sets Christianity apart from all the rest is its self correcting nature. It was the Christian which drove the anti-slave movement. It was the Christian which corrected the witch trials and the inquisition. You name the ill in Christianity from history and just know that it was Christians which corrected the wrongs. Not only that, but in the last century it was predominantly the Christian cultures which corrected the ills of the anti-God regimes of Nazism, Communism, Taoists and eventually pressured the Maouists to some degree of morality and value for human life and self will. This continues even today and it is predominantly the Christian culture which is exerting some control on the bloodlust of the Islamists.
This is a crucial proverb, for the rest are wasted without fearing the LORD. Solomon put it first! The basic foundation for learning is to fear God (9:10); but fools reject wisdom and instruction, for they are proud and selfish without regard for God. They love their own opinions (26:12). Rather than search for truth, fools simply want to promote their own thoughts (18:1-2). But you cannot even start learning without the true fear of God.
Who is the LORD? He is Jehovah of the Bible, the great I AM THAT I AM (Ex 3:14; 6:3). He created the heavens, earth, seas, and everything in them in six twenty-four hour days. When He came as a man 2000 years ago, He was named Jesus (Is 7:14; 9:6; Matt 1:21-23; John 1:1,14). Jesus Christ is Jehovah! And He is coming soon with His mighty angels in flaming fire to destroy His enemies (II Thess 1:7-11; I Tim 6:13-16).
The fear of God is an affectionate reverence for Him and humble submission to His word. Fearing God is loving His commandments and hating evil (8:13; 16:6; Ps 111:10; 112:1). Fearing God recognizes Him as the First Cause and Last End of all things (16:4; Rev 4:11)! It knows His forgiveness and seeks to please Him (Ps 130:3-4). A man fearing God trembles humbly at His word (Is 66:2). It is the whole duty of man (Eccl 12:13-14).
Natural men, who do not fear God, are fools (Ps 14:1; 36:1; 58:1). Their reasoning processes are perverse, for they reason in a circle from their own conceited ideas (Rom 1:20-23; I Tim 6:3-5,20-21). Spiritual men, who do fear God, are wise and reasonable, because their thoughts begin with faith in a Creator God (II Thess 3:2; Heb 11:3,6). The fool begins his thinking with thoughts of other fools, the believer with the words of God!
All men reason in a circle, or begin by assumptions. Their knowledge and wisdom depend on their assumptions. The God-rejecter begins by assuming his ideas and those of the fools before him are intelligent and rational. He begins by assuming he has made great advances in the twenty years since he was in diapers. The righteous man begins by assuming faith in an infinitely wise God, Who has revealed truth and wisdom in Scripture. He begins by thinking he knows nothing at all and needs the help of Another.
The fool cannot prove his theories. He calls hallucinations like evolution to be science, but he has never observed evolution, duplicated it in a laboratory, or adequately defined it. He is a fool! And his so-called science is merely a fable (I Tim 6:20-21). The believer knows the Bible is absolutely true internally and externally: but he cannot and will not prove it to the fool, because the fool is missing the essential factor - faith (II Thes 3:1-2).
Consider faith closely. The fool has faith - belief and trust - in himself and his other fellow fools. It takes more faith to believe man came from chaotic gases and baboons than it does to believe man came from an intelligent Creator. The fool has faith, but it is faith in man's hallucinations! The fool has faith in lies, which is self-deception! The believer has faith in God and His word (Heb 11:1-6), which is self-instruction (15:33)!
How did man originate? The fool says a big bang of chaotic gases formed order, design, beauty, life, and the ability and laws to reproduce and preserve them. The man who fears God knows the fool is a fool, because only an idiot could imagine such nonsense, and only the insane would say it! As a humble child trusting God, he cries, "The Emperor has no clothes!" He knows God made man from dust and breathed into him the breath of life.
Evolution is the result of God-hating and sin-loving minds given over to the devil, and it is God Himself Who blinds these fools to worship baboons as their ancestors (Is 44:9-20; Rom 1:20-23). Their "think tanks" today are to smoke hallucinogenic substances and see who can win the day by coming up with the most outlandish explanation for a thing! Do you doubt this accusation? How do you think they say the big bang was 14 billion years ago? They do not even know what men were doing on earth 4 thousand years ago!
The blessed God blinds men who are not thankful to Him for what they are and have (Rom 1:20-23). When they give more glory to the creature than to the Creator, He gives them over to a reprobate mind to do very inconvenient things like sodomy, abortion, child rebellion, rap, bestiality, Picasso, and same-sex marriages (Rom 1:24-32). Jehovah, the LORD, has committed Himself to destroy such men (I Cor 1:19-20; 3:19-20).
How did the seven-day week originate? Did Neanderthal man decide he was tired after working six days and needed the seventh for rest? The movements of the sun give us seasons and years and days, and the moon gives us months, just as God declared (Gen 1:14-19). Where did the week originate? By God's revelation (Gen 2:1-3; Ex 20:8-11)!
How did morality originate? Is adultery wrong? If not, why is polygamy wrong? If not, why is prostitution wrong? If not, why is pornography wrong? If not, why is bestiality wrong? If not, why is pedophilia wrong? How do you reason, fool? Did the caveman of your theories want to protect the woman and give her a loving and secure life in a monogamous relationship of two adults? Or did the blessed God ordain marriage?
Consider how an evolutionist reasons. He laughs at sexual abstinence and virginity, while pulling very small infants apart limb by limb with a suction abortion. He sues farmers for housing chickens in safe cages with constant food, water, and vitamins; but he viciously defends the so-called right to rip an unborn child to pieces! And they call this knowledge!
Fearing God is the beginning of knowledge ... about religion! If it were not for God and His Bible, men would still be sacrificing their wives and children in fire to make peace with their idols, as is still done in India today! They would still be cutting and painting themselves to make peace with the Great Spirit and go to the Happy Hunting Ground.
Fearing God is the beginning of knowledge ... about government! If it were not for God and His Bible, men would still worship their emperor as god, like the Egyptians of old and the Japanese of yesterday. Benevolent government was ordained in the Bible, and it is only widely enjoyed in nations that have been havens for Bible preaching. In all other nations, the peasants are used to satisfy the appetite for luxury of the ruler.
Fearing God is the beginning of knowledge ... about history! Most historians today write history to further a social agenda, and those that write honestly have little data anyway. As foolish man discovers that the Bible accounts of ancient civilizations are true, the same men outlaw the Bible in schools, lest the children have truth at their disposal. Consider the recent discovery of the Hittites that the Bible had described for 3,000 years.
The Bible has all the answers from the origin of the universe to what to do with your foolish child, from the origin of death to the cure for it, from perfect rules for marriage to the eternal state of the wicked. Fearing God means that you believe and trust His word, which gives you insight and answers for all the questions of life, while the evolutionist fool can only speculate about new ideas on the age of the big bang.
Fearing God means you do not fear man, which brings pressure to compromise (29:25; Jer 1:8,17). Peer pressure of elementary school students or academicians in your professional field cause men to accept traditional ideas or politically correct theories. It is time for the child to cry again, "But the Emperor has no clothes!" The fear of God saves a man from this bondage, for such a man despises all human opinions (Ps 119:98-100,128).
Where does wisdom originate? In the fear of the Lord! God opens men's eyes, ears, and hearts to truth and wisdom (I Kgs 3:5-15; Jas 1:5). God opens their eyes to His word (Ps 119:18). God shows them His secrets (3:32; Ps 25:14). And they fear no man (Heb 13:6). Wisdom cannot be found anywhere in the universe, but in the fear of God (Job 28:12-28)!
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One can argue that the Bible is Man's concept of God and or a history of the ancient Hebrews in the Old Testament and Jesus' followers in the New Testament. While I find both faith and wisdom to be a lifetime challenge I find it difficult if not impossible to understand morality without Christianity.
Theway2k, most of this belongs to the "Let God be true" site. Now that I'm reviewing my work, I see that I should have fleshed out a major point I was making but felt rushed by the schedule. I'll try to amend it a little before I re-post it across my various blogs. Thank you for the compliment just the same.
Zak, the arguments about the concept of God began in the Garden of Eden. Not much change in that arena since, except that the enemy uses every opportunity to confuse, degrade, and devalue our perception of God. A fellow manager and I talked at length the other night about the reasons things are the way they are in the world. He proposed an interesting take. quote: God is allowing every opportunity for the enemy to present weaknesses in God's designed society. Like a courtroom or a chess game, he is allowed to make every case against God, every strategy against God to prove His plan is flawed and now we are nearing the end of his ploys. Every possible strategy has been tested or is being tested and God is allowing it because He wants His design tested and proven infallible." I forget the name of the book he was citing, but the idea wasn't originally his, but it is an interesting theory.
Hello, JudgeBob -
Consider how an evolutionist reasons. He laughs at sexual abstinence and virginity, while pulling very small infants apart limb by limb with a suction abortion. He sues farmers for housing chickens in safe cages with constant food, water, and vitamins; but he viciously defends the so-called right to rip an unborn child to pieces! And they call this knowledge
Gosh, that statement makes me sad. I don't recognize it - is that a quote from the Bible? I don't think so. If you met Jane Goodall, would you say this to her face? To accuse any scientist of these things before you have met them is unethical. Please talk to us before you post such extreme statements. You are welcome on my blog any time.
Yes; if I met Jane Goodall, I would say that to her face. Ellie, its unfortunate that you take these posts personally so that they sadden you. But somebody has to answer the Hitchens's of the world. This is not an attack against knowledge. This is an attack on faith in theories which are being taught as given. But you aren't really JUST saddened. You're insulted because of your faith in such. My goal here is not to make you feel bad, but to make you employ second stage thinking as Thomas Sowell calls it. The Bible refers to it as fruit. I refer to it as considering the consequences of policy. Politics are involved in science fields because government is funding science projects. Politicians allocate the funds and do so according to the scientists which promote or advance their political agenda. The whole genre is being spoiled by these agenda being injected into the research through the fat milk cow with the big government tit.
Look at the numbers. 2,000 government funded scientists signed on to the report sent to the UN claiming global warming is a man-made problem we must act to correct. With all the heady, giddy work being done to confirm this report by still more government funded scientists, 100,000 scientists signed on to a petition denouncing this research including some of the top climatologists in the world. You will never hear that report on the nightly news. You have to go look it up on the internet.
That's just one example. The same holds true for political issues like racism, sexism, health scare after health scare. Politicians make hay on these scare scams. Look at the data on gun control. Less guns equal more violent crime including the involvement of guns. What's more, the stated gun crime statistics used over and over in the nightly news are centralized to the no gun zones like inner cities where the gangs are.
Let me ask you a personal question. Where do you stand on judgment? Do you judge your neighbor? Should you judge your neighbor?
I thank you sincerely for reading my blog. I hope you'll give my arguments due consideration. Your comments are always welcome as long as we can hold a civil discussion of the issues and the facts involved in them.
Hi JudgeBob. First let me say thank you for allowing me to comment and for being civil - there is so much rudeness on the internet - I really hope that changes! I love debates that can be conducted with civility. Thank you.
Gosh, it's a lot to comment on, what you said, and I don't want to "threadjack" so let me know if my comments are too long.
First of all, there is no such thing as faith in science. Now, I could go on for pages explaining this, or I could just point you to this video. Sorry to shuffle you off to another website (I normally don't do that to people) but it is short and explains it much better than I could.
As Padian says, science is not embodied in people. Science is embodied in the methods.
JudgeBob, suppose my doctor took a blood sample from me, and showed me the sample under a microscope. And then I saw red blood cells. That would show me proof that there are red blood cells in my body, right? What we see with our eyes and using scientific instruments is called proof. As a veterinary nurse, I did not have "faith" in scientists who discovered cat diseases; I could see changes in a cat's blood profile just by reading the test results.
Now I am a biologist, and I see the same proof. Fossil and DNA evidence clearly shows us proof of evolution. Creationists are using what's called a "negative argument". In other words, they are saying, "We don't beleive what Darwin said, therefore what we are saying is right". As the video demonstrates, they have not furnished proof.
Saying that evolution is "just a theory" is like saying that gravity is "just a law". Theories have been proven time and time again. The correct language in science is, "its just a hypothesis". That means it has not been proven.
One of the mistakes (especially in the media) is making global warming sound like a religion or political party. It's neither. Global warming is quite simply this: pollution. It's too much of a substance that has been concentrated by people for cars and factories etc. It's polluting out atmosphere. It's boring, really.....it's just a matter of chemistry, air pollution, blah blah blah. Zzzzzz.
You can see that it's just logic: the population of humans increases (we're second in number only to insects, for goodness sake)!, people have more cars (the family who live across the street from us own six cars), the cars create tons of air pollution and not only does CO2 skyrocket but so do asthma rates and lung cancer.
Here are some good articles that I'm reading as a grad student of environmental science:
Interpretations of High Projections for Global Mean Warming -
Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries
"Little Ice Age" (sorry I don't have the whole title for this one)
These are peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals, something that global warming and evolution deniers do not have, sadly. As Padian says, if a person does not follow all the rules that everyone else does in science, their "evidence" is not credible.
I mean really, anyone can say anything is true. The way we seperate facts from scams is by furnishing proof and testing hypotheses.
To answer your question about judgement: it's a great question!! I don't judge people, I judge their actions. I expect people to be polite. I expect people to talk civilly to each other. I don't accuse people of things they haven't done. I also don't take things personally. I'm a scientist and I look at the proof. Beleive me, if you had spent the past 2 years in the program I just did, you would see that there is proof for evolution and global warming.
As I said before, global warming is not a religion and it's not a political party. Of course it's our children, our grandchildren who will have to live with the consequences, not us. And wildlife species are dropping like flies because of it. But even it you don't beleive that, I think we all know that pollution is unhealthy and unethical.
So all I ask people to do is to not litter and consider what our actions does to the bluebirds and chickadeees who live outside our windows - no matter what you beleive, I think we can agree that Jesus, Buddah, whomever, would agree that we should not pollute.
Thank you for allowing me to comment, I hope it wasnt' too long :)
I am not afraid of long commentary here. I really do appreciate those who are really willing to engage me on the topics and the issues. I won't be able to answer you this weekend though. I'm literally dropping to sleep over the keyboard tonight, and I've still got to work again tomorrow. But I will get back to you as soon as I can put some effort into my response.
:) Hi JBodine!! :)
Well, I don't want to turn this into a threadjacking incident but I will certainly respond once - as per your question:
Please don't put words in my mouth. I never said God does not exist. What I said is that there is no proof that God exists. I am religious (not a Christian), and I "believe" in reincarnation, but I gladly and willingly acknowledge that there is no proof that reincarnation is possible! That does not interfere with my faith. But it's faith - not science.
As for the patients, that's called anecdotal evidence and it does not fly in the scientific community. Actor George Burns smoked like a chimney yet he lived to be an old man. Does that meant that cigarettes are safe? My uncle never wore a seatbelt in his life yet he never got injured in a car accident? Miracle? I don't know, but I know one thing: it's not scientific proof of anything.
Please don't put words in my mouth. I said Are you saying God does not exist
You have learned not to word banter with me. But it's faith - not science. That is true, science is not a thing, it is a process, and you do have faith in the process. I would (not to put words in you mouth) assume that you correspondingly do not have faith in the findings of the process. As the video discusses the findings are rarely true, the findings keep changes as more data is gathered and new hypotheses are promulgated in the light of the new data.
As for the patients, that's called anecdotal evidence and it does not fly in the scientific community. It is anecdotal evidence to you, that' fine, it is life to me, I lived it. I never said anything about it being science.JudgeBob's post is a discussion of wisdom and knowledge and from wince it comes. I was presenting real life occurrances where I did not know something and yet at the moment of great challenge I KNEW. How did I know that which knew not. Not miracles, just the use of knowledge in service to those in need. I closed with my OPINION not scientific proof. God is truely the source of all knowledge and wisdom and he will share with you, if you will allow him to do so. I stand by that statement. If you want to spend your time seeking the processes of how God made all things, have at it, I have no quarrel with you over it. What ever you discover changes nothing. I prefer to seek the knowledge and wisdom of God himself, and to bask in it, as it bring great peace.
You have learned not to word banter with me
I don't know what that means but I do apologize, I misread your statement, you did not try to put words in my mouth! Sorry, I'm just tired tonight! :)
As the video discusses the findings are rarely true
Um, what? He never said that. He said that many findings change over time - meaning they can be changed or revised. That does not mean that most findings are "wrong".
The argument used by the Creationists is similar to what you said: we can't find an explaination for it, therefore God did it. We cannot explain it with science, that is our proof that God exists. Well that is not proof, it is just an unconfirmed assumption.
But JBodine, I think your role as a healer (as you said on your blog, "The Healing Arts..." Is that what you called it)? is a beautiful thing and of course God may have been present. You're right, science is a process and there are tangible things there. I think that at some point in history, people beleive that magnetism was some kind of religious phenomenon, but it was proven to be science. Science is not claiming to disprove God, only to say there is not (yet) any evidence. As a healer I'm sure you can touch a world that most of us cannot.
Word banter, playfully teasing in word construction. No, you were just tired, sorry, thought you were teasing.
Are you bantering with this: "many findings change over time - meaning they can be changed or revised. That does not mean that most findings are "wrong." Or, are you serious? You know, if a finding changes, it means the previous finding was "wrong" and gives limited confidence that the new finding is true.
I will write a piece on my blog to carry this discussion of science, theory, etc. I don't think we should continue these comments to this article unless JudgeBob wants to extend it.
Thankyou for thinking me a Healer, I am not, many patients wished to likewise bestow. I will repeat my refrain to this. "I am but God's instrument. I only succeed when obedient. Failure is brought on by pride.
For mellenia the Bible has stood the tests of every doubt imaginable. Every attack against the faith and design God intended for us is set up against belief in God over and over and over again. It goes from false gods to no gods to some kind of force or all inclusive soup of life. Now if you're so much into evidence, why don't you consider the other side's evidence? Did you even guess that we might have evidence? Have you ever had to question the no-God philosophy? But you have charged the faith believers with requiring the faith-assured anti-God crowd to prove a negative. The opposite is true. We've been required to prove the negative. Evolution from species to species does not exist. Minor changes occur but dogs have always been dogs, horses have always been horses, butterflies have always been butterflies. The scientists in all their hallowed glory have deduced that fossiles' placement in the layers of dirt indicate their age. Then they turn around and say the fossiles placement in the dirt indicate the age of that layer. That's not evidence. That's circular reasoning. So I ask again, what do you do with the petrified trees that stand straight up through layers of dirt that are said to represent hundreds of thousands of years. How does a tree petrify through mellenia? All the trees I've seen dead fell down and rotted. They may continue to stand for up to one year but as long as they are exposed to the air, they rot. This evidence suggesst the layers of dirt and rock do not indicate age necessarily but probably does indicate the larger animals were able to move faster in their attempts to gain high ground to avoid a flood disaster.
Is this an argument about symantics or is this a debate about scientists exercising faith in science? Regardless of the terminology, the anti-God crowd are not following the evidence. As demonstrated in the last paragraph, they are 'interpreting' the evidence the way they want to believe and disregarding the evidence that suggest something other than what they want to believe, even going so far in admittedly rare cases, as to make up evidence to support their hype-othises. You can point to a myriad of so-called Christians who make claims about God/Bible/faith etc., that are obviously false... I can point to a myriad of scientists who make claims that are obviously false. How is this not a faith with the authority of the hallowed genre of science. The magic words, "Studies show" are taken on blind faith by political idealogues who do not want to be held accountable to a moral authority. That alone should be considered evidence that 'studies' are every bit as suspect as any theology. They are demonstrating ulterior motives This too, you will not hear on the nightly news. Its politically incorrect.
Well, you're almost there. You just haven't dug deep enough. The media not only hype the global warming, they are advancing a political agenda along with their preferred political party. All kinds of political consequences go along with the scare scam including lots and lots of dollars to preferred scientists and institutions. Cap and trade limits the productivity of our country while simultaneously giving a pass to the worse polluters. Its not about pollution. Its about power brokering. If it were about pollution, the scientists would be condemning the worse polluters. But let's dig into what is being measured. Carbon. The stuff in your soda pop. Its in the sea, its in the air, its in the dirt. Its in you and me. In fact, we are made mostly of carbon. As I mentioned earlier, they are not following the evidence, they are interpreting the evidence to get to the conclusions they want. In history, we see warmer times produce more food. The gases follow the temperature changes rather than preceding them. The main engine in climate is the sun. The energy output from the sun determines how much of the water covering 2/3 of the planet is evaporated. Water. Water is dense with carbon measured in parts per BILLION, carbon output from everything else combined is miniscule including volcanoes and forest fires and yes, man-made polution. The effect man has directly on the carbon mix is so tiny as to be grossly insignificant. But this is there evidence that we have to 'do something.' They are preaching this to children in state run schools. Ask any student above grade 3 if they watched Al Gore's inconvenient lie in school. Ask them if they've had a homework assignment about recycling and energy conservation and water conservation. Its rediculous how badly they are scaring the kids with this faith.
No; I can't see this is JUST LOGIC. Population: Let's do a little math. Let's take the billions of people on planet earth and arrange them in 4 member family groups and give each family group a 1/4 acre to live on. How much space do you guess they will take up? The continent of Africa? Perhaps North America? How about the area West of the Mississippi to the Pacific ocean? How about just Alaska? Still too much room! We would all fit inside Texas. You're counting exhaust pipes? SIX clunkers!! Come on. Either there are six drivers or those clunkers aren't all running at the same time. Jay Leno has hundreds of vehicles and they nearly all are used by him, but just one at a time.
Here we can agree. This is sad but I believe for very different reasons. The design folks have been shut out of the discussion. The warming deniers are literally financially punished for not toeing the politically correct line. See the interview with the top climatologists explaining how their compatriots are being gray listed from grants and other forms of funding for their research.
You're half way there. I don't judge motivations either but I do follow the criminal investigative practice of looking for motivations. It is one indicator of where to look for evidence. It is on the evidence that I base my judgment. AIG, Freddy and Fannie all paid hundreds of thousands of dollars into Chris Dodd's, John Kerry's, Barack Obama's, Hillary Clinton's, and other key members of Congress campaign funds. Similarly, the Washington elites have found ways to make political hay out of Global Warming scares, teaching evolution in state run schools, etc., by detaching people from their moral influences. Its all about redistributing the wealth, taking from the producers to buy votes from the non-producers. What they can't buy, they can scare into the uninformed. "Those right wing Christian nut-jobs are going to fill your kids' heads with their nonsense and force us all to live in to live according to their bizarre interpretations of the Bible." That's literally the kind of language I see and hear everywhere when I browse the internet or discuss faith with the anti-God people.
Hi JudgeBob, glad to see you return, and to read your reply for Ellie. You stated yourself nicely. I enjoyed reading it.
I look forward to Ellie's reply.
Oh sure, just ignore me forever then expect me to come running back....
LOL just kidding! Thank you for your reply. I hope this doesn't sound weird but my mom would just love this "debate", we used to watch the McLaughlin Group on PBS together and she would get so riled up at the conservatives! LOL
Proof of evolution has made the news, but you've obviously ignored it. JudgeBob, I respectfully state that you have not ever bothered to take classes that would explain the process to you. You have only educated yourself on how to "argue" against evolution.
Do you know what shifting gene expression is? Do you know what non self-renewing oligolineage progenitors are? I've read the articles in 2 years of graduate school and 4 years of college. It took me about 7 years total to get a grasp on it. I can waste my breath and 18 hours of my time trying to explain it to you, but I feel like you are so defensive I should just assume it's a waste of time. I suggest a cell biology or evolution class if you're serious about understanding this stuff.
And again, with all due respect, you guys have got to stop using terms that are clearly a slap across the fact to all scientists. I don't know one scientist that is "Anti-God". That would be like me calling pro-life people "wife beaters". It's rude and it's a lie.
Richard Dawkins is a real piece of work convincing everyone that all scientists are Athiests. Many Athiests are using our work to get their message across. If you want to be brainwashed, watch Fox News for your information about scientists. If you want to know the truth, take a class. Or talk to us, like you're doing now. But there's only so much I can get across with my carpel-tunnel inflicted typing fingers.
This age of extinction is not just "another extinction age". It's exponentionally worse. Your spickleback example is sad. Do you really think it's fine to kill off animals with toxic oil slicks as long as we still get to giggle at them on television? These animals don't magically disappear into the night. I used to be a wildlife rehabilitator and you haven't lived until you've seen the x-ray of a mallard with fishing line and a hook wrapped around its intestines.
And since we killed off the wolves in New England, lyme disease has ravaged both dogs and humans because of deer overpopulation.
Your pollution examples don't account for concentration. Your tree core sample examples don't account for the life span of trees (living things) versus rocks (not living things).
And I'm sorry, but I don't know how you can argue global cooling is the case and not present a shred of evidence. My Earth Science professor in grad school has a PhD in Quanternary coastal paleogeography. Are you seriously suggesting I just disregard what he taught us about global warming for your comment?
Show me evidence, show me articles, and I will show you the lie behind your sources.
I probably have more to say but I prefer bite-sized pieces. I apologize if I comment twice, I don't like to blog-hog (hey that rhymes)! :D
Thank you again for letting me comment. I see you are upset with the insults you have heard about Christians / people of faith. I think you have been listening to the extremists for too long. If you allow me it would be my honor to continue this discussion. But I'm pretty long winded and boring so feel free if you want me to buzz off. ;)
Cheers :)
Oh, I forgot to post my link.
My point was, I know a boatload of Christian scientists. As Padian points out in this video, they believe that God created "every beat of a sparrow's wing" - but He did it using all the principles of evolution.
Real scientists aren't Anti-God. Far from it. Although I'm not the same religion as you, I beleive in deities and the afterlife. But I don't need proof. That's why I call it "my faith". And I do so with pride.
Here's the video.
God Bless and have a great weekend. ;)
Hi Judgebob!!
No worries at all. Vox is acting dum du dum dum dum! Seriously, it's all messed up. So take your time - I'm struggling with both school and the computer. It's just nice to have a civil conversation with people! Thanks for the discourse. Now if we could just get the computers to behave! LOL