BS: Unfit for SCOTUS

Subject: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 Jun 15 - 01:07 PM

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/05/1390877/-Scalia-commencement-speech-Humans-have-been-around-for-at-least-some-5-000-yea

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Jun 15 - 04:43 PM

Scalia has always been an ass. No surprises here. But it could be worse -there's Thomas, perhaps the least qualified individual to ever sit on the Supreme Court.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 09 Jun 15 - 01:25 PM

This sounds like a non story. I hope he is a bible believer, but even if he believes in the evolution story, there is nothing illogical in what he said, he might just be covering the bases. And to conclude that such a learned and experienced man is unfit for a post simply because he MIGHT not have the same religious bias as yourselves, strikes me as an unsound assessment .

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Jun 15 - 03:10 PM

Nothing about "religious bias" pete. Its about being able to think critically and differentiating fact from fantasy.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Jun 15 - 05:32 PM

He appears to give credence to the idiotic fantasises of creationists. Such a mind has no place in ANY court.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jun 15 - 06:08 PM

There was a nice long piece in the Guardian today about Richard Dawkins. It reports that he once tweeted that religion is an organised licence to be acceptably stupid. Brilliant, and so accurate.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Jun 15 - 06:49 PM

But of course, the statement from Dawkins is universally true only if all religions are the same. Dawkins has an annoying tendency to make broad, dramatic, and rather witless condemnations that his fans find quite witty....

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Jun 15 - 07:02 PM

Unfortunately, Joe, these days its more often true than not. Take the Republican Party Presidential Candidates ..... PLEASE!

With apologies to Henny Youngman

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Jeri
Date: 09 Jun 15 - 07:20 PM

The problem is when these jerks start believing their personal religions should be universally accepted and religious rules should be treated as law. Supposedly, legislating according to religion isn't constitutional, but these guys don't understand the Constitution, or maybe they just think they're right and the Constitution is wrong. It's so frightening these days because every once in a while, they get away with their attacks.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jun 15 - 08:11 PM

But of course, the statement from Dawkins is universally true only if all religions are the same. Dawkins has an annoying tendency to make broad, dramatic, and rather witless condemnations that his fans find quite witty....

All religions are the same in that they share the common delusion that God exists. That unites religions far more than any contrived differences separate them. You would find Dawkins witless, wouldn't you. He would find you to be the perpetrator of a groundless and evidence-innocent myth that, worse still, you have no compunction in passing down to your children. I know which attitude I prefer.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,#
Date: 09 Jun 15 - 11:23 PM

Book of Installments 462: 139-43

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 10 Jun 15 - 02:52 PM

Well, Richard and co, no one is going to accuse you of tolerance are they.   And if you think creation is a idiotic fantasy, I suggest you demonstrate it, instead of tossing around derogatory sound bites. What we had was a judge making a comment that was not even definitely creationist, but such is the evangelical fervour of the atheists here that they jump all over it........and then be complaining when theists respond !

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Jun 15 - 05:12 PM

Pete - there is no point in giving you facts - you fantasise. It has been demonstrated time and time again, and you come up with new fantasies.

No judge has any business giving credence to fantasies. Deciding the balance of probabilities is what a judge does all day, every day.

If he can't do that, he is not fit to be a judge.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 10 Jun 15 - 05:21 PM

Pete, my daddy always said we can't expect more from a pig then a grunt. It's always the same atheists spewing the same shit at anyone not buying in to their religion.. That is the religion of atheists. Gets old real quick

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 10 Jun 15 - 05:23 PM

Congress decides, not you but if you had your way a king would pick right

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 10 Jun 15 - 05:26 PM

All hail pope Dawkins

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 10 Jun 15 - 05:37 PM

well dan, I reckon that popes pronouncements are more eagerly devoured with great relish than francis'are.
are they intolerant, are they religiously antitheist ?.......is the pope a catholic !

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 10 Jun 15 - 05:38 PM

I understand that Richard is not a citizen so I will explain it slowly. The president recommends a candidate, Congress approves or doesn't. See that's how it works

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 10 Jun 15 - 06:10 PM

I used to feel really bad when Richard own countrymen would harass him. I figured it was bullying. Now I understand, an ass that just wants to pick fights is the bully. I know nothing of British politics. I could not tell you what a labor is or a bpn or anything else represents. But people decide by vote they are entitled to vote as they see it. People are entitled to believe what they want without harassment by him or anyone else.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jun 15 - 07:04 PM

Huh?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 09:25 AM

I said nothing about who picked judges who sat in SCOTUS. I pointed out that a "judge" who gave any credence to the idiocies of creationism demonstrated that he was intellectually incapable of making a proper decision.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 09:27 AM

And, incidentally, I did not criticise the fact that he had a religion - only that he gave comfort to the idiot creationists.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 10:58 AM

Freedom of religion, pal!
'So-called liberals' only like to cherry pick what they like, in regards to our Constitution....bullshit artist political wanks try to manipulate it, and some insanely inspired morons, try to redefine the vocabulary, and the definitions, just to promote their agendas, in the behalf of politically inspired liars, who are so corruptly bribed, by their 'owners'!
True story!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 11:49 AM

so , Richard , it's ok to have a religion.......just as long as they don't believe what the book says , eh...

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 11:49 AM

Gee, Goofus, don't you ever tire of vomiting the same assinine horseshit over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.....................................

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 12:16 PM

When people knock on my door be it for religion or for politics my response is the same. My beliefs and politics is personal. I don't thump my bible nor do I campaign. If Dawkins works for yo , I am happy for you. It doesn't work for me or my political views so don't try to convert me in every thread. You won't like my response

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,#
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 12:56 PM

At present, the Supreme Court of Canada is the only part of 'government' saving us from a totalitarian regime. The ruling Conservatives are batting zero after twelve challenges to either our Constitution (the BNA Act of 1867 which was finally patriated in 1982) or our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Without the courts we would be screwed.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 01:04 PM

Perhaps my belief is relevant after all?

I really do believe that believing in superstition and fairy stories, whilst leading to wonderful imagination perspectives and group hug syndrome (Which isn't a bad thing) also shows a lack of intelligence.

To insist on fantasy as credible is rather insulting at the intellectual level. Still, f=ma regardless of how much you ask your imaginary friend to interfere.

This story is of interest at one level. I support the right of people to believe in their particular sect and good luck to them. But rational people are subject to courts too and in The USA every bit as much as in more advanced societies, expect to be judged rationally.

Leave it at home. Don't pack it with your sandwiches and robe.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 01:15 PM

Greg F: "Gee, Goofus, don't you ever tire of

What?..That we have been corrupting our Constitution with hypocritical political agendas, masquerading as 'progress'????...or that we have religious freedom here??...even IF you don't agree with that particular religion??

YOU are the one spouting, and ,"..vomiting the same assinine horseshit over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over..."

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 01:16 PM

...and saying NOTHING!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 01:57 PM

Well, Goofus, saying "nothing" is an appropriate way to deal with someone who vomits the same assinine horseshit over and over and over and over and...............

What would be the point of saying "something"?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 02:20 PM

Cut the village idiot a little slack, Greg. It's all he's got.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 03:46 PM

I feel the same way musket about your prophet Dawkins. Let us all kneeling to the gospel of the church of Dawkins. I don't see one thread where religious people are trying to convert anyone here. But a thousand of your bullshit atheist church conversation threads. You are the problem not me or Joe

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 03:50 PM

Let me say it again, Congress decides who is fit for the position. Not some foreigners with their own atheists church agenda

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 04:21 PM

I have no idea how one separates a liberal from a conservative. The major conservative rand paul is the only one who said the patriot act violates the bill of rights.. Go figure, I don't get it in a million years. Seems like everyone is mixed up lately

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 04:41 PM

Richard Dawkins is no prophet, he has not started a religion and he is not trying to convert you. In fact, he expects a good argument. Not one "atheist" here has ever tried to convert anyone. In fact, honest-to-goodness atheists all believe in freedom to believe whatever you want to believe. We're a cheerful and disparate ragbag mixture, without a boss in sight. You are arguing from an extremely uninformed position, olddude. It's far better to know thine enemy. In fact, if you read a book or two of Dawkins', you may well find that your true enemies are the authoritarian evangelisers of the Christian and Islamic faiths. It takes a bit of effort to get yourself into a position from which you can put the case from an informed standpoint. "It's Dawkins, I know bugger all about him and I hate him" simply doesn't cut it.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,#
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 05:31 PM

"I have no idea how one separates a liberal from a conservative."

With a crowbar, Dan, with a crowbar.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 05:40 PM

Good one!!! 'Guest #'. If they brought in a new sheriff into town, , they'd run into the hills like bandits......that is IF they couldn't 'buy off' the new sheriff!!

So far, all they've been doing, is playing different characters!....some times arguing AGAINST what they argued about, in 'their last exciting episode'!!!


GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 04:22 AM

No prophets Dan. No worshipping a scientist either.

You know, if you can't see beyond following a belief as real rather than abstract comfort, don't assume lack of belief is just another belief.

f=ma

Today

Tomorrow

Regardless of prayer.

Normal people in The USA deserve better.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 05:41 AM

I do think that you can be a brilliant scientist as well as being a person of faith. Religious delusion can be compartmentalised and kept apart from scientific endeavour except at certain interfaces (the "when we found the Higgs Boson did it bring us nearer to God?" type of idiocy, for example). Most practising Christians I know are Christians on Sunday mornings but the same as everyone else the rest of the time.   But if you believe in creationism it means that you are far too easily hoodwinked by the evidence-free nonsense that the average believer, who might still least be making a valiant, yet ultimately fruitless, attempt to reconcile evolution with God, might be trying to avoid. If you're hoodwinked into ignoring vast bodies of evidence and harbouring the nonsense of creationism, you can't possibly be possessed of the sound enough mind required to officiate in a Supreme Court. You're a menace to society there, frankly. As for Congress deciding, well Congress is always so infallibly wise, isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 10:36 AM

Musket sorry to go off on you, I get testy sometimes my friend. I am glad that it works for you guys

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 10:59 AM

I like musket, I will apologize to him. But Richard.. Go fuck yourself

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 11:58 AM

usual bluff and bluster from the evangelical atheists. we are not religious, say they , yet some judge, over the pond ,makes a passing remark about being here at least 5,000 yr , and he is attacked with religious fervour. and then they say they are not trying to convert anyone , but they seize any opportunity to hiss their venom ,and consider a judge unfit if he ...may...possibly...at a stretch...is declaring himself a biblical creationist ! in fact, if he does, he is more in line with observable , testable repeatable science. in all the threads they have started they have never been able to demonstrate microbes to men evolution. it is just an interpretation of data, a mindset at variance with both biblical revelation, and observational science. go ahead, prove me wrong, show me some evolution !.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 12:17 PM

He's not some judge Pete, he's an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the USA. If it were you're country would you want to have a justice who promotes an "evangelical atheist" (your term) agenda on it's highest court?
Btw, Supreme Court justices are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 12:43 PM

Most everyone in the Congress or state government has some belief system. Still they uphold the law. People can and do separate the two as most feel it's personal. One only has to look at same sex marriage or rowe v Wade to see what I am saying is true. In this country your beliefs or non believe doesn't disqualify anyone unlike many other places on earth

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 01:08 PM

And Richard, shove a broomstick up your ass and rotate.
(filling in for spaw)

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 01:21 PM

I tried to make the distinction between those people of faith who try to accommodate science, that is the advancement of human knowledge via evidence, and those who wilfully deny overwhelming evidence in order to espouse a completely unsustainable, mad notion such as creationism. Judges are there to weigh evidence. A man who jettisons evidence in favour of the teachings of demented madmen is patently not fit to be a judge.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 03:39 PM

Steve Shaw: " If you're hoodwinked into ignoring vast bodies of evidence and harbouring the nonsense of creationism, you can't possibly be possessed of the sound enough mind required to officiate in a Supreme Court. You're a menace to society there, frankly. As for Congress deciding, well Congress is always so infallibly wise, isn't it?"

Steve Shaw: "I tried to make the distinction between those people of faith who try to accommodate science, that is the advancement of human knowledge via evidence, and those who wilfully deny overwhelming evidence in order to espouse a completely unsustainable, mad notion such as creationism."

I think you are the one who can't make the 'distinction'.....
Let's say it all began with a 'Big Bang'....and everything that came about, came from that 'Big Bang'.....and everything that came to be, consists of elements from the 'Big Bang'......(Fair enough?)........

Now if light, from which all things are made, and consist of suddenly came into being, as in 'Let there be Light'....and it just came into existence...isn't THAT a creation???????

Also, you might consider this:

John 1:3 "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. ..."
Acts 17: 28 "For in him we have life and motion and existence; as certain of your verse writers have said, For we are his offspring."

Now how else would you describe this for the common man to understand, given the times and limitations of the language??

Think about it.

....and this is consistent with other 'religions, AND the laws of physics.......(for what it's worth)
It is a shame that this has been reduced to rituals and 'Church politics of made made structures....(from which you have been bit, and alienated from the fuller meaning, of what people call 'God').

Fair enough????

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 03:43 PM

Oh..I forgot to mention...IF light suddenly came into existence, on a massive scale, would not that result in a 'Big Bang'?????

Yes, science of physics, AND the spiritual explanations, of the realms that we cannot see, ARE compatible.
It's is a shame that BOTH have been bastardized!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 03:52 PM

Yes, light is indeed the life force......the sun is god.
My historical hero Aknaton Iknaton Akhenaton, observed this almost 4 thousand years ago....well before "science" came into existence.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 04:01 PM

"Fair Enough"? Do keep it up, Goofus - with those last two you're proving yourself to be even more of a total jackass than I thought - difficult as that may be.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 04:06 PM

Yo Dan. I have days when I growl at everyone.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 04:21 PM

Mind you, growling is one thing.....

The demonstrable existence of a Higgs Boson does indeed show that things can "create" and indeed the present thinking is that the big bang was indeed such an event.

Sadly for the likes of Goofus, it merely shows that you don't actually need a god. Nothing can have created the big bang because conscious thought requires a before, and it has been quite comprehensively demonstrated that there cannot have been a before.

Mind you, there was certainly a "before" biblical stories. A good few billion years of it.

pete. There is a difference between demonstrating microbe to man and having the capacity to accept the principle.

Let there be light eh? Chance would be a fine thing.

Most people of faith realise the difference between faith and literal belief. Those of faith have the intelligence to note the difference.

Even Kryton had faith in Android heaven. 😇

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 04:54 PM

What do you mean by " the principle " ,musket ? I would have thought that the guiding principle should be, does it accord with observable testable science, of which the general theory of evolution does not. Therefore, I say that microbes to multimuskets has never been demonstrated. Creationism however, does accord with observable science in a number of ways, but the evolutionary story contradicts it in many ways, as I have formerly pointed out.   So , go on. Show me some evolution !.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 05:30 PM

I borrow, with thanks "A man who jettisons evidence in favour of the teachings of demented madmen is patently not fit to be a judge."

Olddude - enjoy your own sexual fantasies. I am not that surprised.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 06:15 PM

It's amusing to see how this thread has drawn the complete nutters out of the woodwork. Joyfully for them, though somewhat frustrating for the sane among us, they don't know who they are. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 06:21 PM

Reminds me of a line from Monty Python

"Dinsdale was a loony but he was a happy loony, lucky bugger."

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 06:40 PM

Steve Shaw: "It's amusing to see how this thread has drawn the complete nutters out of the woodwork. Joyfully for them, though somewhat frustrating for the sane among us, they don't know who they are. :-)"

Well, if you noticed..I was replying to your post...how does it feel to be out of the woodwork??!!??

Musket: "Nothing can have created the big bang because conscious thought requires a before, and it has been quite comprehensively demonstrated that there cannot have been a before."

That is a stupid post....could it be that conscious thought came AFTER the 'Big Bang'? ....in fact, maybe everything did.....but somehow, you and Steve are a separate world unto yourselves.....go figure....

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 06:51 PM

I notice everything and I notice nothing. I cannot converse in a constructive manner with someone who's as crazy as Joe C*unt's cat. If you're not already permanently on illegal, mind-altering drugs, dear Guffers, then I suggest you find a source immediately.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 08:07 PM

For what???...the obvious?

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 08:29 PM

No issues at all with the big bang or anything else. Science only stregthens my faith. As a math and computer science prof, the beauty and elegance of mathematics and order from caos makes my belief in God stronger. It works for me, others have their own private path to follow. AND RICHARD, BLOW ME (FILLING IN FOR SPAW)

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 08:54 PM

The awkward aspect of that is that the God usually envisaged, if you think about it, is the very antithesis of beauty and elegance. He's distant, he's never going to be explicable, he breaks all the rules and he's invisible. He can never help you to comprehend the beauty and elegance you perceive, because he can't speak to you. All he can do is shroud everything in the kind of mystery that stops us using our brains to look for the real answers, which are all out there.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 09:02 PM

"...people decide by vote they are entitled to vote as they see it. People are entitled to believe what they want without harassment by him or anyone else. "

All of which ignores the principle that one cannot reasonably vote to ignore the Constitution... which includes the principle that believing what one wants does not entitle them or others to impose those beliefs on all others.

The practical application of this is the 1st amendment, which prohibits the establishing a particular religion as binding on others. The problem is that many fundamentalist Christians believe that their religion SHOULD be recognized as 'correct', no matter what the Constitution says. Those who take the bible literally seem to believe that God's law supersedes any man-made 'constitution ', and that therefore, they are **justified** in trying to get their interpretation of the bible accepted as the norm. They are not 'usually' content to simply practice their religion privately,but continue to judge all issues as if they were ultimately religious issues... THAT is what Scalia sounds like he is doing. Several of the current Republican presidential candidates wish to promote supposed biblical 'rules' as campaign issues. They assure us they would sign legislation currently forbidden by the Constitution.
In the USA, there should be NO way to impose one group's religious views on everyone. It is important to comprehend that "belief' means that it is merely an opinion, no matter how many hold it!

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 09:05 PM

Exactly bill same with the atheists here who want toimpose their ppersonal belief on me and others like me. Show me a thread where I or any like me preached. I will show you a thousand where you preached your religion to us

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 09:11 PM

You don't like some one's religious views, don'tvvote for them. Real simple. As far as the court, if Congress ie Senate doesn't like him, hewwon't be approved. You want people that follow your religion of atheists only, but you see others can vote also as is their right to elect those who represent them best. However if you want a king to decide.. Well wrong country to live in

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 09:15 PM

Kinda sick of the atheist religion preaching also. Ya my want to keep your beliefs to yourself as we are pretty sick of it. At least the salvation army gives soup after the preaching unlike atheists here

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 09:40 PM

How did someone saying that embracing creationist lunacy casts legitimate doubt on a person's ability to reason and think critically morph into a campaign of and by militant proselytizing athiests (whatever they are supposed to be) to convert the faithful?

What did I miss?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 10:06 PM

Blame Richard Greg, he is a prick

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 10:21 PM

Spaw would say he has a needle dick also, I would not know but that's the word on the street.
Any way we use to talk about fun stuff but mudcat likes starting fights instead
Want some one of your religion in office instead of those terrible Christian people, elect someone cause that's how it works unless you prefer a taliban type of government

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 10:21 PM

There is a big difference between "atheist religion preaching" (whatever that is), and objecting to certain fundamentalist claims by others.

The point of the thread, I thought, was to assert that no one who inserts his own personal religious views into the public record should be considered as a Justice of the Supreme Court. Scalia's and Thomas' often go way beyond what a justice ought to publicly espouse, no matter WHAT his private beliefs are.
In lower courts, such pronouncements can get one removed from certain cases, but some justices treat a 'lifetime appointment' as an excuse to meddle and sound off in inappropriate ways.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 10:39 PM

Then elect your senator who will say no. In my life I have worked with people of no faith, great faith and represent a world of different beliefs. Guess what, we all got the job done. The supreme court has all kinds of people all of which uphold the constitution even when it goes against their private beliefs. There would be no abortion or gay marriage or anything else if that wasn't true. Most elected officials have some faith and still the law works. You are biased and simply want your guy in the court. Personally I don't care if they have faith or are atheist. I care that they uphold their oath to protect the constitution and for over 200 years now it still works.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 10:47 PM

Justso I am cclear, I detest abortion. But I would never stop those who choose. I think it's a terrible thing but it's their choice and the law of the land. It appears all of the scary Christian judges on the court now set aside their beliefs for the constitution. Wow how can that be, they are people of faith... Hmmm maybe the oath to protect the constitution means something

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 10:49 PM

The most important qualification for a judge is that he follows the evidence and the law. If he does not do that he is not fit to be a judge. Olddude, you clearly need professional help nearly as much as fugitive from sanity.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 10:56 PM

I am That and more Richard you jadrool. By the way you don't get nominated for the supreme court unless you have a lifetime track record of upholding the constitution. It is not something given for political favor.   If the guy had a track record of favoring his personal belief over the constitution, he would never be nominated

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 11:05 PM

I am a crazy fucker but a happy one and don't starts fights like you Richard but to each their own

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 11:42 PM

"We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:546

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 11:57 PM

By the way I like gfs, I may not agree all the time but I don't like those who want to bully him all the time. It's wrong but muck heads like Richard don't see it cause they are to self absorbed. Wanna pick another fight or are we done

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 12:03 AM

Anyway I done with this, fight on if you want its not productive. Those of you who are friends ofmmine you know where I coming from. Others whatever floats your boat. Richard go fuck yoursel ....

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 02:28 AM

Even from you OD, this is stupid, stupid, stupid. Your posts immediately above suggest an evening of heavy drinking. Even your pointless insults are inconsistent and self-contradictory.

How a judge is appointed is irrelevant to whether his public utterances show that he is unfit to be a judge. And if you really believe that US judges in SCOTUS do not make decisions based on their personal political and religious beliefs, you are from another planet. And if you really believe that their only job is to "uphold the constitution" (which clearly they often don't) then that planet is billions of lightyears away.

But more importantly than that, if a judge is unfit for office, we should all say so.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 04:02 AM

I'll have a pint of whatever Goofus is on.

Get one in for Stephen Hawking whilst you are at it. Roger Penfold wants lager and Einstein a stein of the stuff.

Reminds me of a Chris Smither song I like called Train Home with the wonderful lines ;

I don't think I see there's anything for me
In visions of the past or the ever after
What is is meant to be
All the rest is wait and see
Those prophets they don't hear that cosmic laughter.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 06:44 AM

May I call you Dan?

Dan, your vote is a very blunt instrument that you use once every few years. You vote for your senatorial candidates (if you're mature) on a whole host of issues, not just the one. After that, you either accept that you are at their mercy as to what or who they vote for in your Houses, or you kick up if you suspect that they are in danger of making a stupid decision, such as electing a creationist judge. You make a fuss and get a groundswell going in order to pressurise the fellow to not make the stupid decision. It's called living in a democracy. And, if I may say so, you have rather more faith in the integrity of your political nominations procedures than they probably deserve.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 07:26 AM

The problem of course for people of faith, is that your opponents here are only interested in the destruction of the Church and Christianity itself.

It is seen as an obstacle to the "great agenda", the promotion of a false equality. As I have said often the inequality in our society is an absolute disgrace.....inequality in life fulfilment and living conditions for all our citizens, but that does not engage the "liberal" left......they are moved only by irrelevancies, like whether 2% of 1% of the population should be allowed to use the word marriage to describe their sexual relationship.

This is where the real venom comes from....my advice? If you have faith, protect it and do not be intimidated by these people.
There is in the Christian Church, a "fifth column", who seem to put pressure on to change and modernise.....this is suicide, death by a thousand cuts!.....take a leaf from Dan's book and start to fight back.......All this said as an atheist, but not a militant one, I feel faith is beneficial to society, but have not the strength to accept the contribution required.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: pdq
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 07:52 AM

...here is Richard "Low" Bridge's very first post on Mudcat:


Subject: RE: Guns, to my friends here at Mudcat
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 May 99 - 07:18 PM

You have missed the point of recent events. The fault lies in a society that rewards for belittling and alienating others. Soner or later the worm will turn. If you deny it the power to do so you are one of the opressors.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 08:06 AM

You don't half expend a massive amount of energy and hot air on a matter you regard as an irrelevance, Akenaton. And no-one uses the word marriage to define their sexual relationship. They may use the word to describe their relationship, however.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 08:59 AM

Well here's another one who shouldn't be let out without a minder:

While speaking at the California ProLife Legislative Banquet last week, California Assemblywoman Shannon Grove (R) suggested that the state's worst drought in 1,200 years may be divine retribution for California providing women with access to abortions.

Article Here

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 09:29 AM

Anyone here agree with her? P.......

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: pdq
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 10:55 AM

...here is post that proves Gargoyle to be prophetic:

Subject: RE: Welcome New catter Steve Shaw From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 16 May 07 - 09:43 PM

Stevie boy - stay on yur island

There are lots and lots of webfolks that welcome yur type.

Find them. Seek them out. Prim them. Cultivate your kindred kind.

Don't come here. We are AMERICAN folk, blues, jazz, and most of the drivel contributed by the UK contingent is worthy of a piss-pot initiation to Friar Tuck's Band of Morris Dancers.

Sincerely, Gargoyle

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 11:39 AM

I think you mean pathetic, PeeDee - much like yourself.

Now, back to the topic under consideration.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: pdq
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 11:53 AM

...here is a classic post from Greg Feces:


Subject: RE: BS: Cultural genocide
From: Greg F. - PM
Date: 30 May 15 - 10:09 AM

Not so, Keith- YOU deserve to be persecuted. Killed? I'm not sure.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 12:20 PM

Steve you certainly can my friend. Your one of the good guys. Hey Richard bite me.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,#
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 12:28 PM

As long as everyone's happy . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 12:29 PM

Which one do you like OD?    ;0)

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 12:32 PM

Marriage describing a sexual relationship? Too much information Akenaton. Unlike you when talking of gay couples, the bedroom activities of married people aren't the sort of thoughts healthy people have.

Mind you, marriage can indeed change a sexual relationship. They reckon the best way to stop a woman from giving you a blow job is to marry her... Personally of course, I wouldn't know.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 12:34 PM

He's got merr faces thin Big Ben.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 12:41 PM

Lol priceless, I like everyone ake. I take no offense when insulated back, even from the dick head Richard. He can't help it he is a dick head. He was born that way

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 01:52 PM

Ah, PeeDee, you 12-year-old silver tongued devil, you!

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 04:57 PM

well, having read the article, I would say that I agree with her , but that article quoting her, only suggested it as a possibility , in light of what the bible contains, and seemed far from definite in ascribing the drought as divine retribution. it is of course a tangent thrown in by greg, but I suppose not entirely of no relevance, since abortion on demand [ and other things once thought unacceptable ]are a natural consequence of a rejection of religious/Christian faith, and the embracing of evolutionary belief that views people as merely rearranged pond scum.
but to go back.....why should a judge [ possibly a creationist ] be blasted for expressing/hinting at, his belief.    in fact , if he is consistent with his Christian profession, he will be a more faithful judge. I suppose that if he had said what you atheists believe, that would make him a worthy judge !. but why,- he might get an evolutionary advantage by being dishonest, and course, as long as he could get away with it, he would have no god to answer to ?!
steve, is right though, that democracy means you can get a groundswell of opinion to change things if possible....but of course that goes both ways.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 05:20 PM

bill, why should a public figures beliefs be private, if he is happy they are public. and if that figure is a Christian, profession of his beliefs is part of that faith anyway. I know we differ, but I am surprised if you agree with the ridiculous idea, that this judge [ however elevated ] should be disqualified for believing in creation [ if he actually does - and I hope so ]. I am sure the atheists would be screaming blue murder if Christian America suggested the same about evolutionist judges !.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 05:56 PM

So society's problems are because of rejection of superstition pete?

Rejection of your weird nonsense led to a fairer society in the first place. We don't need misogyny, homophobia, bigotry or child abuse, thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 06:08 PM

I am sure the atheists would be screaming blue murder if Christian America suggested the same about evolutionist judges !.

We scream blue murder when Christian America suggests it about science teachers who tell their children about the truth of evolution. As a total stranger to the truth, pete, you wouldn't get that.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 06:26 PM

There is no such thing as "Christian America", any more than there is Hindu Cuba.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 06:53 PM

I was being ironic, Greg. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 08:32 PM

That comment were aimed at pete, Steve.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jun 15 - 09:09 PM

I know! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 12:47 AM

We believe in the separation of church and State. A man entrusted with the highest discrimination on Constitutional Law has no business injecting religion into the discussion, beyond identifying it as beyond the pale. To do so is to disqualify oneself as a constitutional advocate.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 02:07 AM

Every president since Washington was a man of some type of faith. Every justice of the supreme court has been men or women of some faith. If the path of atheistism is a complete disregard for the first admendment then I would not hold my breath waiting for oneof your non faith candidates to be appointed to anything. You see when the guy was asked about his belief, he answered truthfully. The law is the law, he is absolutely qualified to render law opinions. He is not asking to be a bishop in a church. He is entitled to his belief without discrimination from a group of atheists bigots who hate others with faith. Mudcat is the perfect example of of the intolerance of most atheists. Hence it Is you who are unfit for office.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 02:18 AM

People of faith who have studied the constitution have rendered more than a few opinions that are directly contrary to their beliefs. Why, because their oath is to uphold the constitution and they have for more than 200 years. However, you want someone who would throw out the first admendment because of your atheist religion. Explain how that works.. Because it doesn't.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 02:29 AM

Like I said before, I would have no problem if any atheist had a track record of upholding the constitution was appointed. If they are qualified. Because in your bigotry, you don't get it that it's not about religion. It's about the constitution and mainly the bill of rights. People do their job and uphold the law if they have a lifetime track record of doing so. You don't get nominated for political favor. Not in the supreme court you don't.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 03:51 AM

Having faith is one thing.

Not being able to differentiate it from reality is another.

Inflicting it on intelligent people?

The leaders you speak of Dan, they fit in comfortably with the first. They had been brought up to fit in with the second.

When people were more simple, less educated and had no reason not to believe in fantasy as real, law making with a superstitious angle wasn't an issue as everybody was comfortable with it.

Society, even in The USA, is more sophisticated now.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 05:32 AM

It is my considered opinion, that most people of faith are neither stupid nor unintelligent.

I cannot say the same for the sector of the population who follow the media lead.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 05:35 AM

OD...I admire your stance tremendously....wish some of the others here were prepared to stand up to these bullies....good man!

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 05:43 AM

Well, Dan, a judge is a person whose job is to weigh evidence. This particular person has shown, by embracing creationism, that he does not have the ability to do that. No- one is saying that only infallible human beings should be judges, but this man does not possess the main fundamental skill required for the job.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 07:35 AM

Fuck, the post eater has done it again.

PiddlyDee – you forget that much Mudcat data was scrambled in the great (mudcat) crash. If you READ it, it's pretty obvious that that was not my first ever post to Mudcat.

OldTwat: you appear to have lost the ability to read accurately or to think. Judges use logic to interpret and apply the evidence and the law. In doing this they reach conclusions of fact. A judge who cannot or will not do that is unfit. A judge who deliberately ignores the vast body of the evidence - evidence about which there is NO serious scientific controversy or doubt - and gives comfort to falsehood is unfit. A judge who gives comfort to creationism is deluded or mentally ill.

The earth is not 5,000 years old, nor 50,000 years old, nor 5 million years old. It's about 4.5 BILLION years old. The first signs of evolutionary change that eventually lead to mankind are something like 4.5 million years old. Lucy can be dated to about 3.2 million years old. Recent publications discuss evolutionary changes in jaw structure about 400,000 years before that.

ANYONE who believes in creationism is stupid, deluded (by religious fantasy or otherwise) or mentally ill.

And if, OldTwat, you can find a moment of clarity in your mental fog, stop to consider that being supported by Akenhateon is not a badge of merit.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 10:18 AM

Guess it ain't just us:

Sunday, Jun 14, 2015 06:00 AM EST
Antonin Scalia is unfit to serve: A justice who rejects science and the law for religion is of unsound mind
The justice claims to be an originalist, but his real loyalty is to religion and a phony man in the sky

Article Here

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 11:52 AM

olddude says: "The supreme court has all kinds of people all of which uphold the constitution even when it goes against their private beliefs. There would be no abortion or gay marriage or anything else if that wasn't true."

Sadly, that is not quite accurate, nor has it ever been. Abortion was not approved by all of the judges in Roe.v. Wade.

The problem is as noted in the article.... judges are chosen from people, and there is/was wide disagreement as to whether the Constitution even says anything to warrant a decision:

"Opponents of Roe have asserted that the decision lacks a valid constitutional foundation.[50] Like the dissenters in Roe, they have maintained that the Constitution is silent on the issue, and that proper solutions to the question would best be found via state legislatures and the legislative process, rather than through an all-encompassing ruling from the Supreme Court.[51]"

Now, note what that implies.... opponents of abortion are suggesting that they wish the question to be decided locally... as if people in Alabama get to follow a different standard than those in Oregon- just because the 'majority' is more conservative (which usually means Christian fundamentalist). Right now, various conservative states are inventing ways to get around Roe v. Wade by artificially applying laws & rules which restrict the freedom of doctors & clinics to operate. They don't try to overturn Roe... they just run clinics out of business with arbitrary... and usually unfair... requirements. They deny rights granted by the 14th Amendment using rules that are irrelevant to the actual issue. In some cases, a woman in one state can legally request an abortion, while her sister across the river cannot. This IS de facto inserting religion into judicial decisions in ways that SCOTUS can't easily defeat. It is imposing the beliefs of one group onto all groups.
   



Pete says: "bill, why should a public figures beliefs be private, if he is happy they are public. and if that figure is a Christian, profession of his beliefs is part of that faith anyway. I know we differ, but I am surprised if you agree with the ridiculous idea, that this judge [ however elevated ] should be disqualified for believing in creation [ if he actually does - and I hope so ]. I am sure the atheists would be screaming blue murder if Christian America suggested the same about evolutionist judges !."

Well Pete, what I believe is that judges should be chosen according to their rationality. And even though some folks wish to assert that there are 'rational' ways to defend the more conservative aspects of Creationism, this is **NOT** the majority view. Most scientists (as I and others have noted before here) understand & accept that evolution is a rational way of explaining the status of life as we find it.
   Judges are appointed ... and sometimes voted into office... to be fair & reasonable and apply the law- and even YOU will know of instances where they make rulings based on personal whim, careless reading of the law, bribery...etc.
   When bad rulings are appealed in the US, SCOTUS is the ultimate recourse. If they can get 5 members to refuse to hear an appeal, or to rule in ways that negate the opinions of the majority of citizens, we have a problem. The real problem is that Liberal vs. Conservative is not just two sides of the coin, like preferring pie to cake... but in the basic ways the two sides approach decision making. A very conservative judge, often because OF religious beliefs, may rule in fundamentally non-rational ways. When he does so, he is likely to be considered as unfit to BE a judge. If he hides the source of his opinions well by simple rationalizing about the law, he may continue with only suspicions as to his private beliefs, but when he makes statements like Scalia did, his basic competence to BE a judge is called into question!
Now.... there is no easy way to deal with this. The SCOTUS justices are appointed by presidents we VOTE for and approved by senators we VOTE for, which seems like a great way for 'the people' to have basic control over the process, but in the last few years...especially since 2010, when the Republicans controlled how voter districts are apportioned... attempts have been made to deny voting rights to those who are more likely to vote for Liberal senators.
You see? If the very process of getting fair & rational judges is undermined by UNfair & IRrational means, then judges like Scalia will be in a position to flout the Constitution at will and to flaunt their opinions openly.

If this debate were about ingredients in ground meat instead of abortion & gay marriage and similar topics, you'd see quickly that court rulings in favor of companies that try to sneak in dangerous additives to ground meat were irrational & unfair. Why not make the process of getting fair judgments into ALL issues work better?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 12:03 PM

Dan, his faith is his own personal business.

I have no objection to an individual electing the faith that seems most valuable to him or her.

But when you take on the robes of justice, your faith must be anchored in people and the law. Otherwise you cast the seeds of dissent and disunion.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 12:24 PM

Bill, it is perfectly possible for any rational person, either religious, atheist, or agnostic, to be opposed to "abortion on demand"

In my opinion, "abortion on demand" is a crime.

Of course I do not oppose abortion in all cases.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 01:18 PM

olldude has it pretty well dialed in....far above our Brit egocentric maniacs, who still worship their monarch and family.
We in America fought to get away from that type of rule....and then bailed out the Brits when they were about to get the shit kicked out of them...along with the rest of Europe...only to be taken out by another threat, the one of financial take over. To accomplish this goal, they exacerbate every 'injustice' or 'perceived injustice', and even make them up, and politicize them, to being about their tyranny of control.
Just take a look at it.
This is all a cultural backlash to the industrial revolution. Now we are dealing with the technological revolution and the backlash to that. It is a power grab, being felt by most....and by the way, 'religion' means, (literally) 'a way of life'. is politics a 'way of life'??...is greed???.....is being purposely stupid???
Talk about 'fantasy world!!!
The list of 'religions' could go on.

You've got yours, other people have theirs....I guess it defines itself by what you 'worship' and serve. Some people worship their opinions...based on reality or not!!!

THINK about it.......if your false (Gods) of unfounded opinions don't get in the way.....but then, who do you serve?

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 01:43 PM

Dear Richard,
Go fuck yourself

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Peter from seven stars link
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 01:43 PM

Richards post especially is bluff and bluster. There is , and has been considerable discontent and questioning of the validity of the Darwinian dogma.   And it has not just been from yec,s , of which many are very well qualified , and offer scientific defence of creation. Going down the scale, there are the id,ears, then there is the altburg synposium, which was a group of leading evolutionists apparently trying to find a new way, since the old dogma is done with. And then there is a list of scientists registered as Darwin doubters. Richard try's to imply that dating methods settle it , yet even he says....can be..., not definitely that age. Fact is, they are all interpretations of the data, and sometimes there has been massive age reading differences.   The so called ...fact....of evolution is far from it, and the succession of threads started by the evangelical atheists is only evidence for my charge, since they have not been able to substantiate that bluff and bluster. Go on Richard , give me one piece of indisputable evidence that validates microbes to mudcatters evolution. I

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 01:56 PM

Whatever judge , bill, has some kind of belief that may possibly colour his judgment. I am glad you are not one, since you seem to support the discrimination against bible believers in public office. I am disappointed you take that line, as I had thought you a more moderate atheist

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 01:58 PM

The only people I know that are intolerant of the belief of others is the church of atheistism. They would throw out the first admendment. Mudcat is a prime example of it. You don't see threads started daily by people here of faith railing against them. Nope, because most of us believe faith is a personal matter with free will being most important. Not so for and asshole like Richard

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Modette
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 01:58 PM

What on earth are 'evangelical atheists'? Can someone please translate Pete's post into English, please?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 01:58 PM

So pete, what's your take on the theory of gravity?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 01:59 PM

Sorry, No one has ever been able to translate pete's posts into English.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 02:07 PM

Some of the finest people I met here were atheists. I call them brothers. Did you brits ever hear will fly rail against another's personal belief. Never because he respects all people. Would be nice if more people were like will or art thieme. It gets old people, you can only push others so far

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 02:31 PM

Reality Check: At bottom, this thread started out as, and at bottom is not aout pro or anti religion, pro or anti - "personal belief".

It is about the fact that persons who have demonstrated themselves to be idiots should not be placed in positions of responsibility, making decisions that effect the lives of millions.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 02:42 PM

You know what, I really like you guys and you are my friends. Even if you mistakenly follow shit for brains Richard once in a while. Yeah I know, a good Christian guy would not use such
LLanguage. Howeve , who said I was good.

You are a sick fuck Richard

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 04:03 PM

Goofus. We don't worship the royal family. However, we keep the show on the road because foreigners, especially Americans do worship them. Trust me.. The Chinese factories that make Union Jack T shirts and plastic Big Bens would shut tomorrow without Wilbur and Myrtle III Jr.

Why do superstitious people assume rational thought to be a superstition itself? It's as if they are ashamed of their hobby at the intellectual level. Hope for em yet.

Pete seems to be wittering about pond life again. When I hear of senior church leaders covering up child abuse, I note that the journey from pond life to intelligent humans is a multi speed evolution. Some haven't got very far yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 04:30 PM

Musket: "Goofus. We don't worship the royal family."

No, you just have them hanging around.....sorta like a crucifix on the wall of a Catholic Church.
Don't feel bad, though, over here lot's of people worship the Kardasians...however, I don't know any of them!
Speaking of 'celebrities' the media created one during the election of Obama....sorta like the Kardasians, again!...(How'd that turn out?).

Olddude, though I agree with some of your sentiments toward Dick Bridge, you ought lighten up on him. The more you feed it the more it grows. You don't want to start sounding like Greg F., do you???
Love ya', though!!!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 05:42 PM

on reflection, modette, it was a poor expression to convey the thought. after all, I don't know any evangelical Christian who is anywhere near as pushy and intolerant as the atheists here that keep pushing their beliefs. maybe, I should prefix...ultra... to evangelical, when speaking of these atheists. apart from a few, in the past , started by keith, the plethora of threads on religion and origins has been started by the usual atheist suspects. I am happy to oblige them though, it will be evident to anyone at all neutral, or of good will, that there is a lot of talk about facts and rationality from them, but little substantiation of those claims.
thank goodness we not got that lot " making decisions that effect the lives of millions !" they cant tell the difference between observable, experimental , testable science like gravity, and the interpretative and unobservable science of origins.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 05:51 PM

Gibberish.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 05:58 PM

I don't know what counts for reading on Planet 7, but I did not criticise Scalia having a religious belief. He'd be a better man without one, but that is not the point. I criticised his appearing to recognise total stupidity as valid.

OldTwat - you don't appear to have a leg left to stand on - and at your age your third leg is not going to add much to a tripod. Mind you I'd rather fuck myself than fuck you. A much better class of company. You are a living demonstration of George III's admirable statement that Americans have not yet demonstrated that they are fit to rule themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 06:00 PM

ake: " it is perfectly possible for any rational person, either religious, atheist, or agnostic, to be opposed to "abortion on demand"
But it is also possible for rational persons of all those types to be in favor of the "freedom to choose". The common attitude is that abortion is almost always unfortunate & regrettable, but sometimes necessary. My view is that because rational people can disagree, free choice is the only rational rule to follow. No one should be forced or intimidated to undergo an abortion, but neither should they be prevented from it by those who disagree.


Pete.."... you seem to support the discrimination against bible believers in public office. "

That is not what I said. I said...or tried to say.. that those in public office should not use their religious beliefs in administering their office. Please understand that "bible believers" does not necessarily mean the most fundamentalist ones... such as you. There are many judges, members of Congress and clerks who consider themselves to be good Christians, but who are not Creationists, and who do not assume that the Bible is the final, official word on matters of conscience.
Once again, because even rational believers in various religions differ in their interpretations, the rule should be that *choice* is involved, and that the most conservative view is not the only reasonable view. (Isn't that easy to understand when seeing what the most conservative Muslims sometimes do in the name of their religion?)

When Scalia implies that his religious beliefs may influence his legal decisions, it indicates something beyond just rational disagreement. As I have said often, there are reasons why the word "belief" is used for certain things. If I were to assault you, saying that I 'believe' that you are possessed by demons, I assume you'd want to be defended on the grounds that I have no reasonable proof of such beliefs. My right to act on some beliefs ends where YOUR rights begin... and THAT is why fundamentalist religious beliefs should not be allowed to be imposed on those who do not accept them... and why those who deny various scientific findings should not be in positions where they can restrict what science tells us is good for people in general. They can try to DO science, but if they begin with a settled view of how the answers must be arranged, they are not actually doing science.

(and by the way... I have never called myself an atheist. I am a skeptic.... and a rationalist who has not seen what my reason tells me are good reasons for most religious beliefs)

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 07:29 PM

Bill. You make the point that you do not consider yourself atheist. Fair point.

Atheism is two things in my book.

1. The antithesis of theism.

2. A sneering term of reference used by people who feel they are in some sanctimonious club, and the "atheist" isn't.

Regarding point 1., most people in The UK have never considered theism in order to have a position, and that by the way is an almost verbatim quote from Rowan Williams, a retired Archbishop of Canterbury. My experience working in The USA is that faith is seen by many to be the norm, and here, the opposite. Not universal, but enough to draw a norm conclusion.

Regarding point 2., I find that those who need to bolster a shaken faith in supernatural phenomenon and ascribe it to their version of a god tend to feel better by thinking themselves superior to normal people. Hence the danger of the US judge who can't differentiate between fact and fantasy, but thinks that qualifies him to a position of trust and assessment of others.

Me? Irreligious. Just like the vast majority.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 07:58 PM

Bla bla bla Richard as always you ape

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 08:00 PM

The point is NOT "bible believers in public office". It is "religious policies injected into the dialogue of the commons". If Scalia is allowing his private religious convictions to color or warp his sense of justice under the Constitution, he is hardly suited for the job. The great principle of the Constitution is that there should be NO religious test (one way or the other) for public office, and likewise that there should be NO mixing of religion and state issues.

Everyone may have a different deiity, but the nation has only one majority at any moment. It is impossible to derive justice from so many deities, but it can work to derive it from clearly established fundamental laws and the will of the individuals taken collectively. That's what a democratic republic does.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 08:01 PM

Well musket my friend it has worked fine for over 200 years. However you are welcome to your opinion with any bias from me. Now Richard on the other hand, lets just say idiot and leave it at that.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 08:28 PM

Worked fine? You still have the death penalty, you have the world's stupidest gun laws, you had racist segregation until 50 years ago, you've been absolute bastards to Cuba, lynchings were de rigeur until the early 20th century, you had McCarthy, you wiped out the buffalo, you've been the prime mover par excellence apropos of global warming, you destroyed native American culture and your foreign policy would be a bloody laughing stock were it not so tragic. Could you explain to me what part of "worked fine" I don't understand, please?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 08:37 PM

Well Steve, stay in England.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 10:18 PM

When I insulated you Richard it was only to show you how bullying feels. So please no more bullying. I am done insulting as I made my point. With that I meant nothing by it other than a lesson. I respect your beliefs or non belief, kindly respect mine also

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 14 Jun 15 - 10:22 PM

olddude: "I respect your beliefs or non belief, kindly respect mine also."

Not possible for wannabe liberal socialists. They only believe in the government's handouts....It's their god, from which all blessings flow.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 01:08 AM

By the way, the discussion seems to revolve around Christians holding a judicial office. Does anyone have any opinions on Muslims doing the same, and/or influencing governmental policies??

Just thought I'd ask.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 02:28 AM

Same tune, different words. You cannot have a republic of popular consent and common law if one person's absolute metaphysics gets to interfere with other peoples'. It's too simple to have to even explain.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 02:29 AM

OldTwat - not only can you not spell, you also cannot formulate an insult with any of the essential core that makes an insult sting. An impotent old man without an argument that holds water. Probably rather like his bladder. Beliefs are not automatically entitled to respect. Stupid ones deserve derision. But NONE of that was my principal point. The point is whether a JUDGE (you do understand that word, don't you?) who apparently cannot follow logic or evidence is fit to be a judge in the most powerful court in the USA. And it looks like game, set, and match to those who say that Scalia has demonstrated his own unfitness.

Fugitive from Sanity - How many judges in SCOTUS are Muslims who are suggesting that there are validities in the fantasies of extremist Muslims? I say again that the point is whether a JUDGE (you do understand that word, don't you?) who apparently cannot follow logic or evidence is fit to be a judge in the most powerful court in the USA. And it looks like game, set, and match to those who say that Scalia has demonstrated his own unfitness.

Steve - well put.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 05:56 AM

I hope to get back later........if this is,nt already closed down for abuse and jingoism !

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 08:43 AM

the discussion seems to revolve around Christians holding a judicial office

No, Goofus- it revolves around cretins holding judicial office.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 09:30 AM

Well said Greg

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 11:03 AM

Lest anyone think Scalia is being singled out, here are some disturbing statistics from Pew, Newsweek and Gallup polls conducted 2012-2014:

* 76% of Americans (U.S.) self-identify as Christians. [so far, so good]

* 42 % of these believe in "creationism" - and that "God created humans pretty much in their present form, all at one time, within the last 10,000 years or so".

* 47% believe that "Jesus will return to earth in the next 40 years or so".

* 45% believe that "the world will end, as the Bible predicts, in a battle at Armageddon between Jesus and the Antichrist".

So, there's at least 101 million of 'em out there.

Gives one pause to think.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 11:38 AM

I think Dan was right, Richard's much too ignorant to insult; better to insulate him, a few rolls of insulation wrapped round him would be a service to the community.. :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 11:40 AM

That has to be satire, doesn't it?

"God created humans, pretty much in their present form, all at one time, within the last 10,000 years or so".

You MUST be kidding me.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 12:24 PM

Bla bla bla Richard

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 12:26 PM

You know very well, Richard, that we are not kidding.   If I am a Christian and see that the bible teaches a youngish earth, that is a consistent position,and you have demonstrated nothing to demonstrate your microbes to men belief. Go on, show me some evolution !.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 12:30 PM

Pete, don't bother he just wants to fight.
Can someone rename this thread to a bunch of old men fighting :)

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 12:32 PM

So, there's at least 101 million of 'em out there.

Gives one pause to think.

Yes. To think that religious fundamentalists are not far from having control of nuclear weapons.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 12:44 PM

Yeh, I know dan, but it ain't about them as far as I,m concerned. They might already be too hardened to be able to change, though I hope not. It is about anyone willing to listen, and of course, about God my saviour and creator.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 12:50 PM

Musket,   You seem to have a persecution complex, if you think the term ...atheist...is sneering. If you call me a theist, I don't think it is sneering, but you,s add plenty of obviously sneering remarks, which would seem to make you a hypocrite.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 12:56 PM

What was that about the " truth of evolution " Steve .   You,ll be getting the snail after you at this rate.   Go on Steve, show me some evolution !.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 01:15 PM

Bill, whose freedom to choose....certainly not the child in the womb ? You can only justify, IMO, abortion on demand if you view the unborn as not being human. Perhaps the evolutionary religious outlook accommodates that thought ? It seems paradoxical that there is a call to save convicted murderers from the needle, while it is acceptable to rip a child out the womb on demand.   Yes, i expect a Christian judge May try to make rulings that accord with his beliefs if possible, but so would an anti theist who thinks we all miraculously ascended from the slime millennia past, to present.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 01:28 PM

You have millions, we have pete.

Luckily, nobody asks him to to anything more complicated than use a tin opener.

I can imagine the clerk of the Supreme Court trying to explain things to this sub intelligent judge in the Father Ted fashion, with a picture of two small cows.

"This is a small cow. This cow is far away."

I would show pete some evolution, but he clearly makes me pause, judging by his bizzare post above. Most humans evolve past that stage once they realise going swimming on a Sunday morning with the money they were given for Sunday School is a better use of their time.

They tend to be, recalling back, about eight years old at the time.

The evolution you speak of but don't understand tends to take much longer than what you reckon the world has been around for, so it wouldn't sink in if Steve or others with a professional interest even tried to explain to you. Educating pork isn't always a successful past time.

We used to be starfish apparently. Judging by some photos in magazines I recall as a teenager, we still have what appears to be one, although you need two mirrors to check your own.

Just wandering past, peering at the exhibits...

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 01:39 PM

Don't be hard on him pete. The word on the street is if you tug his beard three times, your wish is granted

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 02:15 PM

Tell me, does that curly powered wig make you feel like lady Gaga? My wife has a little black dress you can borrow

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 02:27 PM

And it's Mr old twat to you sir. I earned it

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 02:34 PM

Bloody hell. Everyone should have a view on emotive matters such as abortion, however, stupid comments such as "evolutionary religious" are not befitting of any adult debate.

This is a moral issue. Far above superstition, so leave your silly comments for fellow God botherers eh pete? Moral dilemmas require sober mature input, not make believe fantasy.

Regard slime. Live with it. The word you are looking for is, I believe, "primordial."

Anyway? What do you think everybody and everything must have been descended from? If we are in the image of your imaginary friend, I am Loki g over the bar at my mate, who is, let's face it, adorning the sort of face you never tire of kicking. Surely, this god character could have done better than him? Mind you, if he looks a bit like me, fair play to him. We both know perfection.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 02:40 PM

You MUST be kidding me.

Sorry, Richard, but its all frighteningly true.

Even more terryfying is that 75%+ of that 101 million plus are members of the REPUBLICAN PARTY and so vote.

Now, if that there ain't enough to give ya the fantods.......

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 02:46 PM

You can cream on prescription for the fantods.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 03:13 PM

A man's perspective is as great as his singular or multi sourced perspective.
As for Scalia goes, his written opinion on torture is illuminating.
He said that since torture always worked for Jack in the book 24, torture is a valid and useful tool.

Case closed.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 04:04 PM

Pete, there is NO serious scientific support for creationism. None. The whole concept is a fantasy. You have been shown this in this very site by a well qualified person - but you will not listen. Go back to la-la-land.

Oldtwat - when you have learned to formulate an insult, I may rise to one. Right now your invitations to blow you are unlikely to have a beneficial effect on your nonagenarian soggy egg noodle. All you are demonstrating is your own stupidity. You have not earned any mark of respect. Quite the converse.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 04:16 PM

I see you took a break from scaring little children Richard to answer me Lol

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 04:45 PM

Rich

I knew Don Riccles, you are no Don Riccles. Still you do a good parody of a mean fool. At least I hope it is a parody.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 05:53 PM

Donuel, stay safe somewhere. I never can see any rationality in anything you post. But I think your heart is in the right place. Maybe. Maybe you intend to refer to Don Rickles - of whom I had never heard until today.

Oldtwat - you really don't need any answer. Your gibberish lost.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 06:09 PM

On a related subject.

A senior Vatican official has been arrested for abusing children in the name of God in Latin America

The bad news? He is to be tried in a Vatican court. The same Vatican that protected him till the pressure became too much.

Superstition and courts. They go together like farts and astronaut suits.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 07:07 PM

Richard or should I call you dick. You seem to want to be American as every post is about our country. Real easy put your hand on the bible and swear to uphold the constitution. Which does include the 2nd admendment by the way.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 07:47 PM

Country envy I guess, can't think of any other reason to concern yourself with another countries laws or government. A wanna be yank I guess. Hoorah god, guns and country

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: olddude
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 07:55 PM

I am now done playing with you so I will bid you farewell. If you want to be an American then apply and you will have a vote and the right to debate our system of government. Since I do have connections to the government, highest levels I may say, i probably can help you with the citizen issue.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 08:19 PM

Are you at least as intelligent as George Bush? I think we should be told...

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jun 15 - 10:54 PM

Pete..."Bill, whose freedom to choose....certainly not the child in the womb ?"

**Child** is a loaded word until about the 20th week of pregnancy. Before that it is a zygote, then a fetus. Even then a fetus needs to be over about 24 weeks to have a 50-50 chance of survival. The statistics are available for everyone, but people differ about the relevance of them.
If one 'believes' that a zygote receives a 'soul' at conception, they treat abortion one way, if the believe that only a child after birth receives a soul, they see it differently, and if they do not think that 'soul' applies to anyone, it is entirely a different matter.

In any case, 'choice' is not something relevant an unborn of any stage. People of different cultures have treated the choice that parents & other adults make in many ways. Like all subjective issues, opinions differ.
We can agree that abortion is not a happy solution to a problem, but neither is war.. or theft.. or lying. Different problems require adjustment of one's moral guide. If you wish to say 'no' to ALL abortions, you severely limit choice about important issues. Even so, those who DO have religious objections to abortion should be allowed to follow those beliefs... in their own case! It is like other subjective views, religious & otherwise, it is personal and should not be decided by clergy, community, friends, or media. It is something for the parents.. especially the woman... to decide.
We have fairly good birth control to help avoid the problem...(except for genetic problems, rape, incest...etc.) but the issue will ALWAYS be there, and no one can design one single rule to cover everything. 25 years ago, *I* had to help make the decision when a planned pregnancy was determined to be not viable. It was about the saddest thing I can imagine, but there was no way around it. You might ask God why such things happen. I just treat it as bad luck. Such things happen to good Christians, good atheists and good agnostics. The decision is for each one to make.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 12:59 AM

Oldtwat - your country, alas, is probably the most powerful in the world. Yet it is alarmingly primitive and dangerous in too many respects. It deserves the criticism. I have worked there, in New York and Hollywood and have no desire to return. It is a danger to the rest of the world, both economically and militarily. And you sound more and more like Sheriff J. W. Pepper with each post.

I no longer post about UK politics only because the (US based) mods routinely delete any threads about UK politics before they get started.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 02:22 AM

Bill, I think you miss the point, most people take the view that abortion is necessary under certain circumstances.....but modern society is moving towards the use of abortion as a convenience.
This has more to do with modern economics than morality.

It seems clear to me that "life" begins with conception I don't see how any scientist(and this forum seems to be full of them), can disagree. It is simply more convenient for the "abortion on demand" lobby to claim that a baby is not a baby until the moment of birth.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 02:28 AM

I would also point out that in the UK, modern society has determined that the production of children by women without recognised partners is a means of attaining a much higher standard of living.

I think our sense of personal responsibility is being rapidly eroded?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 02:54 AM

It is sad but typical in the way this thread quickly deteriorated with really both sides to blame but there was no need for it. I am not talking about individuals' posting history on other threads etc just this thread! It is clear that Richard's initial few posts do not suggest that a judge's ability to sit in judgement of other people should be questioned just because he has personal religious beliefs! The question was whether you could have faith in someone's ability to tell truth from fiction or fantasy if those beliefs were of a fundamentalist creationist tendency! It may be a cultural thing but I think here in the UK most people, many religious as well as non religious people, would worry about fundamentalist extremists being in such positions! If someone can dismiss the entire modern science of archaeology (and that is just one the sciences being dismissed by creationists) then how could you trust their judgement in other matters. That seems to be Richard's point. You may not agree with his point but it is a perfectly valid point to make! What we get though is heated debate with eventually personal insults thrown about by both sides of the debate. Come on guys surely we can discuss things in a better way than this?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 03:45 AM

Allan makes a perfectly reasonable point and in doing so, takes all the fun out of the thread.

Sorry, I was under the impression this was a "walk round and view the exhibits" thread. It totally fascinates me that both countries can have a decent education system but superstition still lingers as an alternative to discovering reality.

The real world is far more exciting and "wondrous" than the parochial narrow take on existence as printed in the bible, Q'ran, Talmud or Lord of the Rings.

Mind you, it doesn't just need superstition in order to confuse yourself. Interesting post above, pointing out a moral question but then saying it isn't anything to do with morals. I suppose if he had enough typewriters he could eventually post Hamlet.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 03:48 AM

Bill has not missed any points. His post on abortion is right on the money. I'd add that we could try much harder to reduce the numbers of abortions by means of free availability of contraception, along with contraceptive advice of a practical and strictly non-moralising nature, and of much better education for relationships in schools (to which priests and imams and the like are not invited to contribute).

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 04:07 AM

Just as a point to that. The Dept of Health and Public Health England (speaking purely UK here, and this also applies to the rest of The UK) does have a policy in line with what Steve says.

However, unlike people in spheres of influence such as those setting the policies of faith schools, NHS people cannot be judgmental. As I type, the sexual health services of the CCG for Buckinghamshire is facing a judicial review of its freely available contraception service by a consortium of religious interests. To date, as you cannot ignore the action, that's over £300K in legal fees. Money that has to be taken from front line services. The real costs haven't even started yet. If it goes to court, the actual consortium rather cleverly does not have any assets (it's costs to date are paid for by voluntary donations and is constituted to not make those controlling it liable) so once this nonsense is halted in court, the CCG (patients, tax payer, call it what you will) will not be able to recover the costs.


Nice.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 04:51 AM

Musket, I hope that an application for security for costs has been made. If it was refused, what were the grounds?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 09:36 AM

ake: "... modern society is moving towards the use of abortion as a convenience."

Modern society? It has been thought of that way ..by some... for centuries. The major difference is technique. (Trained doctors vs. coat hangers...etc) In the 1960s, I KNEW a guy who did occasional back-room abortions in the days before the Pill.
There is a smaller % of pregnancies being terminated now because, as I said, of modern contraception.

Even so, I question your basic assumption. You are projecting your feelings about it and suggesting you 'know' how the subjective attitudes of others are changing....unless you have some serious study to back you up.

...and    "in the UK, modern society has determined that the production of children by women without recognised partners is a means of attaining a much higher standard of living."

Well gee-gosh... exactly what parts of 'modern society' might you be referring to? Your remark sure sounds like a veiled reference to certain parts of 'modern society'.... and I don't care for the implication.

Now you have the interesting juxtaposition of claiming some parts of society are having more abortions, while others are intentionally having more children out of marriage. Makes me wonder how you arrive at these hard-to-verify conclusions.

(I am reminded of the story of the man who asserted "All Indians walk in single-file. I know because I saw an Indian once once, and HE was walking in single-file!")

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 10:59 AM

The best way to avoid termination of unwanted pregnancies is to use birth control, and promote its use. Some of the more extreme views expressed on the right seem to be dedicated to making pregnancy happen at any cost to any person, which is, I think, insane.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 11:01 AM

That's because most fundagelicals are, indeed, insane.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 03:26 PM

No Greg, they are not insane. They are misguided.

I am not sure what to make of those who carelessly throw around words like 'insane'.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 03:48 PM

Here you are Bill, from the Office of National Statistics.

The main benefit is social housing Bill, a young single mother with a child or children goes straight into social housing and receives free rent, council tax and other benefits.
A young married couple must find work mainly low paid work and struggle with rent family expenses etc.

Many couples now live separately with the mother claiming state benefits.

" Your remark sure sounds like a veiled reference to certain parts of 'modern society'.... and I don't care for the implication."

Would you like to explain that remark?......I don't do "veiled references"! and of course its a comment on one sector of society, we are presently discussing "single parent families"???

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 04:13 PM

Well, Bill, take it up with Amos 16 Jun 15 - 10:59 AM

Also, you apparently haven't met the same ones I have.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete frown seven stars link
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 04:13 PM

First bill, though I disagree with you, you did explain your position clearly, and without the negative jibes as exhibited by some.   I do not see it as a matter of if and when a soul is imparted , rather that the child is clearly human ( and in bible teaching, known by God and made in his image ) from within the womb. Though I take the view that this is from conception , I am not dogmatic on this , and don't know if the morning after pill is an issue as such. However, it is not far after that the development of a child is evident, and many a woman seeing a child in the womb, changes their mind about destroying that dependant life. I would be interested if you would support a limit on abortion on demand, at any stage of a pregnancy?.   I don't think that whether survival has high stakes or not is a good argument. A lot of people in life have very low stakes when for instance, a terminal illness afflicts, yet still efforts are made to somehow beat the odds. Why should an unborn child be expendable just because at a certain stage he might not be capable of life without the womb.    Neither is it legitimate to leave every parent to decide if they should destroy their unborn . It is of course the law, but one day it might be the law for kids to decide if they can terminate their aged/disabled parents. Of course, those that don't want to euthanise their parents...in their case..!.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 04:15 PM

Atta boy, Pharoah - play the Ron Reagan welfare queen card. That's a new one for you, tho - its usually the filthy disease-ridden homosexual card. Good to know you're branching out.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 04:25 PM

And of course , Richard, you get to decide what is a ....serious....study.   Meanwhile, you continue with the bluff and bluster rather than present a case for your beliefs. Seems I have to remind you all again, that though I don't claim to be able to prove biblical creation, I have presented much evidence that demonstrates it is more in accord with observable, testable, repeatable science, than evolutionism that rather starts with non negotiable commitment to naturalistic causes no matter what the evidence.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 04:29 PM

Come on Greg, you know I have nothing against welfare and people do what they have to do under the present system.
But it works against the traditional family structure and is terminal for society.
Society is breaking down...big time and it's costing a fortune.

You see, it's this system which is insane, everyone from the top to the very bottom are scamming every penny or million they can.
We need to stop the insanity and start to get organised.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 04:32 PM

Yet another logical well thought out post from Greg ........NOT.         I do wonder, though Ake, whether girls get pregnant intentionally, to get housing and benefits , though from experience with girls we know, they do seem to get an ...entitlement...mindset, almost as if they had earn it !.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 04:43 PM

Pete - try to think. The vast, vast, preponderance of scientific views are that evolution is the most probable explanation. Creationism flies in the face of that vast preponderance of scientific, factual, study. A judge who forms a view in the face of the vast preponderance of the evidence is not fit for office.

Your attempts to nitpick at explanations given to you by many vastly more knowledgeable in the relevant field than you have clearly demonstrated that trying to give you a detailed rational explanation is a waste of time. You are not equipped to deal with it. Your objections are irrational.

Akenhateon, your condemnation of single parents is a new low, even for you. The suggestion that there are many young girls who choose single parenthood as a means to improve their lifestyles is another fantasy, and a vile one too. There may be a few idiots who make bad choices, and there will be a number who try to justify their position, but this sort of thing is uncommon and it is a foolish propaganda attempt to try to pretend that it is any sort of norm. Shame on you.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 04:55 PM

The point I am trying(perhaps clumsily) to make, is that our children now appear to be dispensable commodities, to be used or dispensed with, rather than nurtured and loved.

Governments should be encouraging young people to construct family units, rather than see children turned into bargaining chips or used in weird social experiments.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 05:00 PM

Good to know that you're a misogynist as well as a creationist, pete.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 05:00 PM

The morning-after pill and intra-uterine devices abort embryos. An embryo is the result of the fusion of the nuclei of an egg and a sperm. The presence of an embryo that is potentially capable of implantation means that conception has already taken place. There is some lack of clarity of thinking here from anti-abortionists (as ever). You can't have it both ways. In essence, what we refer to abortion is no different from what the morning-after pill or the coil does. Make your minds up about exactly what it is you're for or against.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 05:01 PM

Richard, just read the link I provided.

A member of my family works in social services(housing) in this area, I know what I am talking about.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 05:15 PM

"A member of my family works in social services(housing) in this area, I know what I am talking about."

Don't you just love it when a true master of the non-sequitur posts.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 06:05 PM

Richard, what you are appealing to, is a preponderance of opinion, not of scientific fact.   The one thing we can say about consensus science, is that it ain't science. If it were, science would have halted centuries past, and we would never know what is now known.   Evolutionism changes the findings of experimental science to accomadate it's own dogma, rather than say....maybe we got it wrong, as it clashes with observational science.    Brighter minds disagree with me, yes, but there are a fair number who don't wholesale buy the Darwin dogma.    And since when did being a lawyer, make you a science authority. Methinks you don't present your case, because you can't. Fortunately, I don't need great learning, to point out the more basic damage in the evolutionist foundations.    And that is damage, many honest evolutionist actually own up to.....I can quote them, if that is required.........

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 06:11 PM

Barking mad. Say goodnight to the folks, Gracie...

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 06:14 PM

Allan conn, please elucidate what you mean by creationists dismissing archaeology and other sciences. If anything, the archaeologist often confirms the bible after skeptics have dismissed its data.   And what other science is dismissed by creationists. Even evolutionism is dealt with, but by demonstrating how it fails science.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 06:18 PM

Ye gods, does this man's comedy know no bounds? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 06:36 PM

ake: "Well, Bill, take it up with Amos 16 Jun 15 - 10:59 AM

Also, you apparently haven't met the same ones I have."

As I read it, Amos referred to 'insane reasoning', not insane persons. I would encourage him to use better words, though his meaning is al least clear. Insanity ought to be reserved for technical definitions of psychological status.

---------------------------------------------

Pete: ". I would be interested if you would support a limit on abortion on demand, at any stage of a pregnancy?."

Interesting question... yes, I would probably like to see certain restrictions followed after about 24 weeks... involving the viability of the fetus and the specifics of the mother's health and 'situation'. After that, giving up a healthy baby for adoption when she cannot reasonably care for it seems more sensible. (very young mothers...etc.)

" Why should an unborn child be expendable just because at a certain stage he might not be capable of life without the womb. "
I can answer that personally from 25 years ago. Because the psychological trauma of watching the 'growth' of a baby who cannot possibly survive outweighs some generalized idea that ANY termination of a pregnancy is somehow immoral. (Look up "triploidism". The doctor who explained it said that he knew of very few cases of full-term pregnancies, none of which survived more than a day or two.)



"...one day it might be the law for kids to decide if they can terminate their aged/disabled parents. "

Now, now... the 'slippery slope' argument here is going a bit far. And being an 'aged parent', I will certainly be watchful.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 06:49 PM

The arguments put in favour of time limits are mischievous in the extreme. If you are opposed to abortion, as pete claims to be, then time limits are irrelevant, except in the sense that they are posited as a tactic: I should love to know why any anti-abortionist would wish to resort to a tactic that suggests abortion for some but not for others. Very dishonest. Second, very few very late abortions are carried out, and, in many cases, they are done because of unconscionable delays caused by medical bureaucrats who don't like abortion, by restrictive laws which create obstacles for women for whom time is of the essence or by the fact that the woman didn't know she was pregnant. There are remedies for all these circumstances that do not require a time-limit law.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 07:11 PM

..."yes, I would probably like to see certain restrictions followed after about 24 weeks... involving the viability of the fetus and the specifics of the mother's health and 'situation'. After that, giving up a healthy baby for adoption when she cannot reasonably care for it seems more sensible..."

Sad to say, this is at odds with your previous post that I found myself agreeing with. You're even suggesting that women should not have abortions so that they can then produce babies for adoption. All a little too Catholic for my taste. It's not your body. Write that out a hundred times, Bill.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 08:31 PM

In my last but one post I accidentally left out the word "often" from the sentence "The arguments put in favour of time limits are OFTEN mischievous in the extreme". I know there are sincerely-put arguments for limits, though I don't agree with them. I was trying to highlight the mischief of those anti-abortionists who, instead of sticking to their guns and arguing consistently against all abortion (misguided though honest), try to whittle away at the time limits in the hope of getting them so impossibly low as to make abortion next to impossible for most women (despicable).

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Jun 15 - 11:11 PM

I said "certain restrictions" without specifying.... and this does not mean 'denial' of abortion, but merely extra discussions, warnings & counseling... along with, as I said, considerations of the woman's health and situation.. meaning married or not, the status of the father, if known...etc. One of the concerns is that many younger women are barely able to cope with all the implications, and ought to have available some advice/counseling/information.
It happens all too often that a young, unmarried girl panics and does something hurried, and often dangerous.... so even 'restrictions' would apply mostly to certified doctors who are involved.

In the last analysis, it IS her body, but even she should consider the wishes of her husband, partner,,,etc., as it may affect her future in various ways.

I too would hope that rabid anti-abortionists, as much as possible, be kept from interfering with a woman's decision.... but her decision should be an informed one. ... and yes, I do see the problem of deciding who is to 'inform' her.
None of this is easy. Education and contraception is the path to make it as close to easier as possible.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 02:24 AM

bill, your quote was from Greg, not me.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 03:10 AM

Bridge -I don't know the details. Picked it up during a speech someone made at the NHS Confederation conference. I do know that the Musket you call Mither was chair of a PCT that was subjected to a judicial review. In that case, I think he said those who brought it did it in the name of a person who successfully applied for legal aid. That was over a different matter and it was a score draw. (PCT won but lost on appeal. Conclusion - their decision that was challenged interpreted a poor wording of law.)

Hopefully Musket is reading and might know more? He tends to follow such things. I'm just a jobbing doc.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 03:20 AM

I see that Akenaton appears to have added The Daily M*il to his reading list. Just when you thought it couldn't sink any lower.

Nice bit of supporting misogyny pete, whilst we are on the subject of your friend. Stick to creationist nonsense eh? You can't and don't actually insult anyone with your delusional fantasy and society gladly accommodates people of challenging intellect. But the bit above about women?

Nasty.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 03:40 AM

Yes, legal aid can be abused - although there is not much of it about these days, and mostly it is not abused.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 08:26 AM

It's because it is rare and necessary that my blood boils when I see it abused...

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,#
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 08:44 AM

Legal Aid in Canada is being so underfunded that the people who really need it have great difficulty accessing it. It has become especially pronounced under the Conservative government in Canada. True, provinces provide the financial aid, but eventually the money is filtered from the national capital. It has begun to ensure that economically poor people have less and less access to fair representation in legal matters. There are many reasons that poor people are over-represented in prison populations. That is one of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Greg F.
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 09:02 AM

All part of the neo-conservative "War On Poor Folks", Bruce - both N & S of the 49th Parallel. But you knew that. All Hail Ron Reagan.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 09:08 AM

Agree with you there #......wonder if the "equality warriors" on Mudcat will expend one hundredth of the energy on jusice, that they do on promoting their "myth de jeur"?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 10:22 AM

.....wonder if the "equality warriors" on Mudcat will expend one hundredth of the energy on jusice, that they do on promoting their "myth de jeur"?

Testicles-gonads-balls-nuts-two veg-knackers-cojones-family jewels-sac-bollocks-nads-rocks....

Oops sorry, thought anyone could join in...

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 11:44 AM

bill, l have looked up trioplody. sorry to hear that you had to make a decision on this very rare condition. from my faith position, I expect I would have chosen otherwise but I can see the difficulty you faced.
slippery slope argument....well maybe, but if you view human life as sacred either end of the spectrum, it may well be a comparison argument. at least one leading evolutionist has spoken in favour of euthanizing the aged, I hear, and I suppose that if we are just on the animal spectrum as evolutionism teaches, that would be a consistent position.
and thanks for answering my query. this of course, ties in with steves posting. he accuses anti abortionists of dishonesty in campaigning for a lower limit, rather than an outright ban. but I question where it is that the dishonesty lies. when abortion was legalized in the uk, I seem to remember promises of checks, but now it is virtually on demand.    by contrast, I doubt if the anti abortionist would deny that a greater restriction was desired.
steve suggests I am inconsistent. rather, I don't want to argue from a position of which I am not sure. there does come a time , and I think fairly early on when it is obviously a child that is being aborted.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 11:49 AM

if we are just on the animal spectrum as evolutionism teaches, that would be a consistent position.

Flawed logic. By the same argument in would be 'consistent' to deal with disease carrying people in the same way as disease carrying mosquitos.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 12:01 PM

And if you don't regard us as "just on the animal spectrum" what respect do you give to other forms of life ? Less than sacred ?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 12:02 PM

Different rates of evolution in homo sapien can be seen when examining the intellectual stand point of pete, the Pope and others impressed by superstition.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 12:07 PM

at least one leading evolutionist has spoken in favour of euthanizing the aged, I hear...

Never have so many weasel words been included in such a short sentence.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 12:10 PM

I seem to remember promises of checks, but now it is virtually on demand.

What "checks" were promised, and to what extent have those checks been abandoned? Evidence, please.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 12:13 PM

not sure what your problem is " guest ". are you equating mosquitoes to people ?. but I have heard of an evolutionist who, if given the choice of saving a child, or a rare tiger, was unclear which he would save, but I freely admit I may be missing something in your argument. my argument was, that human life is sacred from a Christian perpective, but from an evolutionist perpective a human is just an evolved animal, and therefore it may be consistent with that view to eliminate a sickly adult , an unwanted baby.......or maybe even a diseased human...

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 12:22 PM

I have heard of an evolutionist who, if given the choice of saving a child, or a rare tiger, was unclear which he would save

What was his name? Can you provide the context for this alleged remark and a direct quote? As the question he was allegedly asked has nothing to do with evolution, can you explain to us why you thought it necessary to say that he was an "evolutionist"? Is he a qualified evolutionary biologist or is he just someone who you disagree with?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 12:42 PM

You didn't put "it may be consistent" you had "that would be a consistent position". If no 'divider' is put anywhere in this 'animal spectrum' (your term) then drawing on it for one comparison (euthenasia) has the same logic as drawing it for another (insecticide coated bed-nets maybe).

Having us as distinct from the animals allows an easy (for you - it drives most other people nuts) point of view. A lot of the human race (including many people of religion) seem to able to cope wih a more complex situation and make their own decisions (or maybe accept that of their culture). For example, we have vegans, vegetarians, vegetarians who eat fish, non-vegatarian who only eat animals that have had natural life. And so on.

Some of them squash moquitos, some don't. Some euthanase sick animals, some give painkillers to sacred (see - that word) cows until they finally drop dead (and wreck their eco-system in the process).

Moral decisions are complicated - unless you buy into an off-the-peg set.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 12:44 PM

Which is why having this guy as a judge amazes people.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 01:24 PM

This gets better. "Evolutionists" prefer tigers to humans. An ex girlfriend reckoned I was a bit of a tiger if that's any good? OK, too much information but warmed the cockles of my heart anyway.

And this bit about a leading evolutionist wanting to euthanise the elderly. Brilliant! Almost as good as the bit about God putting humans on the planet a few thousand years ago. If he did, they would have gone the way of dodos and neanderthals a long time ago. How did you hide from Darwin pete?

Oh, and the bit about human life being sacred to christians. A lie. A total lie. Crusades, inquisition, priests killing unwanted babies of "fallen" women and allowing their bible to be used when pronouncing the death sentence in savage uneducated countries, and attending the executions to get the poor bastard to "repent."

This is a serious thread is it not? Are we discussing the suitability of this judge? The side show of weird people who want to bring their delusion to reality does not help.

Mind you, at least pete has the excuse of brain washing. What's Akenaton's excuse?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 01:58 PM

Pete... to fully answer you as to why it is NOT consistent to consider humans as no better than mosquitoes... etc, it would be necessary to send you to the very learned writing of various Philosophers... such as Immanuel Kant in "The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals".... but that gets way too thick & technical.
The closest I can come is to note analyses such as this, where explanations that resemble religious ones are noted, but without specifically positing a 'god'. You get formulations like the Golden Rule which make sense because we ARE an unusual species, no matter what you attribute our character to.

It simply is NOT the case that accepting evolution can justify euthanasia for the aged...and if one (you gotta do better that "I heard that") makes such a silly claim, it is no different than one Christian theologian asserting some astounding nonsense.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 02:21 PM

That the likes of Bill reckon reasoned argument is going to give pete a barbecued donkey on the road to Damascus is beyond me.

Still, nice try.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 02:28 PM

I note with some amusement that the defenders of the faith have moved from the simple case of a judge giving credence to those who reject the overwhelming balance of the evidence to the case of abortion.

My view there is simple. A zygote is not a human being, but a woman is. It's her body. Her choice. Simples.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 03:59 PM

I think , Richard, that the defenders of the faith who moved the discussion to abortion, might not be those of the Christian faith. at least I don't think I introduced it.   and I am quite happy to bring this back on topic. a judge that does not accept a story that is not properly evidenced, and flies in the face of observable, testable, experimental science is more suitable than a judge that believes the unsubstantiated and changeable evolution myth. you are of course entitled to believe stuff that you cannot defend, but you got no business insisting others, and those in public office, believe it too.
of course , if you got a case that the overwhelming balance of the evidence favours your belief, than lets have it......ok, just a couple , then, that can only be interpreted as according to the general theory of evolution.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,simple
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 04:02 PM

unique in all creation is man
with different feet and hands

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 04:34 PM

Pete - you KNOW that the overwhelming balance of scientific authority favours evolution. Stop being silly. a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 04:59 PM

no doubt, there will be the usual objections to my describing your beliefs as faith so.......
"the belief that life on earth arose spontaneously from non-living matter, is simply a matter of faith in strict reductionalism and is based entirely on ideology "
yockey,    information theory and molecular biology p284    1992

"evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion......"
m, ruse.    national press   may 13   2000.

I could find more quotes from other honest non creationists, but these are pretty representative......to which I only add, amen !

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 05:08 PM

Neither of those quotes support your position

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 05:09 PM

"...the unsubstantiated and changeable evolution myth..."

awww... c'mon Pete. It is overwhelmingly substantiated. Changeable simply means willing to integrate new data about the details! Myth? You play very freely with the term when the fuzzy details of Genesis are considered fact, while DNA & paleontology are called myth.
Your system cannot document even which humans recopied religious texts, much less anything about how they were 'inspired'. It seems that many were 'inspired' in different ways... but most view the basics as UNchangeable. Sorry, but I'll stick with the views of folks who have not already decided what the answers are before looking at the evidence.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 05:23 PM

nice one simples
Richard, I KNOW no such thing, and as the above quotes infer, neither do a lot of those who subscribe to it. it is only because you are ideologically driven that you claim superiority of evidence. if you think I am going to tap all those figures in....wrong. like I say, YOU just give me a couple of things that can only be interpreted in accordance with the general theory of evolution.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 05:25 PM

Once again, with bells and whistles if only I had any: there is no such thing as "the general theory of evolution". There is such a thing as wilful pig-ignorance, of course.

I get very animated about out-and-out anti-abortionists. To my mind, they are among the most intolerant and wicked people on earth. That is not to say I don't acknowledge sincerely-held, measured views that I personally and quite vehemently disagree with. I can see the arguments for time-limits, etc., though I think they are misguided. I can't argue with need for vulnerable young people to be surrounded by good advice and support (of the practical, non-moralising and non-tendentious sort). But rampant anti-abortionists, with few exceptions that I know of, support their moralising prejudices with the promotion of ignorance or religious fervour or both. It's just horrible, and I won't even mention the name of that wicked Catholic woman who taught her flock that poverty, ignorance and sexual abstinence were virtues and that birth control and abortion were the greatest evils on the planet. She's probably going to be sainted soon. Just remember that when you next hear that the Catholic church is "making progress".

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 07:53 PM

Well, Pete, if you don't know that the vast preponderance of scientific opinion accepts evolution - and indeed that the vast preponderance of religious opinion regards your creation myth as allegory - and that virtually nobody or at least an insignificant minority swallows the absurd fantasy that an omnipotent god created all humans in substantially their modern form at some point in the last 5 to 10 thousand years, then you really, really, must get out more and meet more normal people.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Olddude
Date: 17 Jun 15 - 08:35 PM

Hey pete,
Give up cause ya can't fix bridge over the river stupid

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jun 15 - 01:07 AM

"The civil government functions with complete success by the total separation of the Church from the State."
~Founding Father James Madison, 1819, Writings, 8:432, quoted from Gene Garman, "Essays In Addition to America's Real Religion"

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 18 Jun 15 - 03:30 AM

Aw well pete. Look at it like this.

The observable and deduceable happens regardless of belief.

Two thousand years from now, the superstitious, if evolution hasn't kicked in and the need for it no longer applies, will possibly be getting their moral compass from the good book.

The church of the glory of Gandalf will be shunning the reformed poor Congregational church of Samwise. Meanwhile, there will be those practicing the dark arts of Mordor... Those who kick the bucket will be queuing at the Grey Havens quayside and the best way to lead an enchanted life will be if you are lucky to be short in height with hairy feet.

Yet strangely, f will still equal ma.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 18 Jun 15 - 05:52 AM

Bloody hell, where is Steven Shaw when you need him!
Gibberish.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 18 Jun 15 - 11:53 AM

Oh sorry Richard . You were actually appealing to consensus science. We will never make progress with that you know.....it ain't science.       Btw, I had to grin when you mentioned praying for fair festival weather !

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars
Date: 18 Jun 15 - 11:59 AM

Steve who says there is no such thing as the general theory of evolution. Try looking up kerkut, and I expect you will find the definition of the man who framed the expression.   Seems to me pretty much what you believe, and encompasses the whole thing, as opposed to the bait and switch so often employed by evolutionists.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 18 Jun 15 - 12:04 PM

Yeh dan, but maybe help someone else cross !

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Riah Sahiltaahk
Date: 18 Jun 15 - 12:25 PM

Tonight on BBC4, UK, 22.50:

Your Inner Fish : An Evolution Story

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jun 15 - 12:33 PM

Thanks for the link.

It is going to the second episode though (Your Inner Reptile)

Episode 1 of 3 Your Inner Fish

Oo, I am going to be comming back here !!

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 18 Jun 15 - 12:37 PM

I,m sure some posts have gone missing. one replying to guest, who commented that my position wasn't supported by the quotes I posted, to which I replied "well, it sure don't support yours !"
the other replying to bill, but I think that went missing too.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Riah Sahiltaahk
Date: 18 Jun 15 - 02:20 PM

Next week : Your Inner Monkey.

One wonders why BBC4's science programming doesn't feature anything on Intelligent Design or Creationism as it seems to be such a foregone conclusion. Trouble with creationism is, it demands a creator, in the payable absense of which (or whom) the whole thing is a bit of a non-starter really.

This is still worth watching 35 years on: Carl Sagan on Evolution (from Cosmos)

Here there is wisdom, erudition, humility and elegance. You won't find much of that amongst creationists, who are driven by self-righteousness and an all consuming faith in a non-existent God humanity created in its very worst image. An image perpetuated by Christians the world over.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 18 Jun 15 - 03:14 PM

Your opinion of God would take a bit of a downer if you think we were created in his image but then saw me earlier trying to put a sticking plaster on my arse with the aid of two mirrors.

And on that subject. Does he have a belly button, if we are in his image?

Not to mention a pair of knackers and a dual purpose willy.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Jun 15 - 05:55 PM

In the beginning..somewhere near the beginning, Man created god in his image.

There's a famous quote like that lurking somewhere in the back of my mind, but Satan seems to be blocking me from remembering it correctly.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 15 - 06:51 PM

Thanks for the mention of the sublime Carl Sagan. As for akenaton and his accusation of my resort to gibberish, well of course I shall have to bow down before this mighty man's superb erudition, elegance of expression and mastery of English grammar. However, I would respectfully point out that my name is spelled Stephen, not Steven. Steve will always do fine, unless you happen to be my mother.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 15 - 06:59 PM

Talking of the mighty Carl Sagan, one can still get the DVD set of Cosmos for a low price, and his book "The Demon-haunted World" is a beautiful read, as tightly-argued as On The Origin Of Species.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 15 - 07:36 PM

Steve who says there is no such thing as the general theory of evolution.

It is the theory of evolution by natural selection. The word "general" does not appear in the title nor in any characterisation of the theory that I have ever read. Accuracy in characterisation is very important to us scientific types. Less so, it seems, to those of more romanticated predilections, but hey.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Riah Sahiltaahk
Date: 19 Jun 15 - 03:21 AM

I savoured The Demon-Haunted World for months, not wanting it to end. Billions and Billions is similary awesome. Currently on with The Pale Blue Dot. The Cosmos DVD should be in every home and school.

I think '...in the beginning man created God in his own image...' is from the cover of Aqualung by Jethro Tull, which contains a lesser rendering of My God than the classic Bunker / Cornick line-up gave at the Isle of White a year or so earlier (on the Nothing is Easy DVD, but you can watch it on YouTube HERE).

*

The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look Death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. - Carl Sagan (Billion and Billions)

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 19 Jun 15 - 03:27 AM

I saw it as Akenaton calling my post gibberish. Which figures of course. The idea of a fantasy story becoming holy text over two thousand years is over his head.

Although I didn't post it for his benefit. I was aiming at those on Mudcat blessed with education and intelligence, not to mention a healthy outlook on life.

I put Sagan's Cosmos up there with Clark's Civilisation. Both dated, both lending their generation's thoughts and understanding to vexed questions and both orators of the highest standard.

Although of course, Clark's son was a character... I do note though that the good members of Mudcat agree his "Donkeys" ruffled appropriate feathers and has been seen to be bang on the money. 😎

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jun 15 - 06:25 AM

Musket, repeatedly making comparisons with fantasy stories that are complete works of fiction detracts from your argument.

Lord of the Rings was written by an observant Christian who was an expert on iron-age (not bronze-age) writings that were a mixture of myth and sensationalised (and corrupted) accounts of history. He drew on that story telling tradition but the story is fiction so it is irrelevant here.

Sloppiness gives succor to your opponents in the debate.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 19 Jun 15 - 07:46 AM

"A mixture of myth and sensationalised (and corrupted) accounts of history."

You make my point perfectly.

Tell me, were you referring to Lord of the Rings or The Bible?
😂

I am an observant Sheffield Wednesday fan, but I still have books and papers published on mechanical vibration and board governance assurance..

zzzzz

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jun 15 - 09:37 AM

Read the post carefully Musket (sheesh, it's as bad as talking to some others here). "A mixture of myth and sensationalised (and corrupted) accounts of history" coming down through history is what Tolkien studied as an academic. That's the analogy with the bible. I thought I was making it obvious enough.

Lord of the Rings is just a made up story, like most of those ballads discussed above the line. It's irrelevant - other than that the guy who wrote it knew the difference.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 19 Jun 15 - 01:45 PM

You appear to be taking a cat apart to see how it works.

In two thousand years time, there may well be as many people seeing LOTR as the word of some god or other unless, ironically, the Temple of The Foundation and its revelations from the prophet Asimov (peace be upon him) don't get more members first.

Yer bible stuff was exactly that. It's just that now things are stored in Kindles rather than scrolls next to inland seas so probably won't get so many self serving translations designed to keep the petes in their place.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jun 15 - 04:06 PM

Look above at the links to those programs on the BBC just now which are just like taking a cat (fish, human, reptile, monkey) apart to see how it works. Like Tolkien taking apart a body of literature which is a mixed bag of history, invention, superstition and propoganda. Folks analyse the bible in the same way. It's a mixed bag of stuff.

I remember a bishop once saying on the radio that the early books were someone (can't remember who, was it Moses ?) trying to make sense of a load of stuff that had been handed down and that there is more than one creation myth in the bible because there was more than one doing the rounds.

On the otherhand, LOTR as a work of fiction was created as a complete work.

Created by the hand of Tolkien...

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jun 15 - 06:23 PM

To some, the bible is the complete work of one imaginary friend.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Jun 15 - 08:31 PM

Surely the point he was making was that everyone agrees we've been around for a long time, using the 5000 as a minimum figure that is even accepted by the strange sect if American "creationists".   It doesn't imply that the actual time people have been around isn't a great deal more, or that he thinks the 5000 year figure isn't daft.

I can even imagine circumstances in which Richard Dawkins might say the same thing. After all, it's a perfectly true statement.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 02:46 AM

I think you are looking too deeply into what Musket was saying.

If I read him correctly, he was pointing out that stories doing the rounds 2,000 years ago eventually got condensed into something to worship. I agree with the idea that there is nothing to prevent other fantasy stories of good v evil to suffer a similar fate, if superstition remains advantageous to man in a manner that fits survival.

What is the difference between a myth of wizards with magical powers and the myth of Jesus with similar tricks up his sleeve? Both he and Gandalf rose from the dead, both used conjuring tricks to make the party flow, both got pissed off with their peers and both wanted others to follow them.

Jedi Knight and Pastafarians both pass the test for recognised religions in The EU. How many generations before we forget they are taking the piss out of group delusion? How long before theologians explore divine reasons for their fundamental flaws?

Here, not only in C21, but actually on Mudcat, we have people who genuinely believe mythical nonsense and strive to shoehorn it into science, for crying out loud. Education? The loonies are trying to set the bloody syllabus!

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Riah Sahiltaahk
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 04:46 AM

The loonies are trying to set the bloody syllabus!

Despite the government ban on such idiocy, some schools still persist with this Child abuse*.

Creationism still taught in faith schools despite Government funding threat

* Too emotive a term? I think not. Fair enough adults choosing to believe such nonsense by way of religious freedom (the ultimate oxymoron) - but inflicting it on their kids is akin to Jehovah's Witnesses willing to let their children die for want of a blood transfusion - something they are mercifully not allowed to do under British law.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Peter from seven stars link
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 05:52 AM

Thanks for that link, riiah.    It is encouraging to see that there are still schools that don,t push the evolutionist religion wholesale. Though of course it is upsetting for a fanatical true believer like yourself.    Btw, I have only had time for half of pt one of inner fish phantasy on the beeb, and so far the argument from homology is useless, since the same data translate as well, if not better , for common design, as common ancestry.   I must concede though, that aesthetically , they done an impressive job of promoting evolutionist storytelling on fish.   Pity they are using my license fee to do it !.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 05:55 AM

I think you are looking too deeply into what Musket was saying.

I was basically agreeing with Musket but saying that I thought his way of arguing the point was counterproductive. Unless his point was just to annoy pete rather than offer him another way of thinking about things.

There are many followers of the 'Abrahamic faiths' who believe in evolution. There are religious scholars of at least two of them who are happy to pull the old texts apart the way that is happening with Barbara Allen above the line here, to seek out other writings that did not get included in (or were edited out of) their 'holy texts' and to discuss the motives of the 'editors'.

Creationists don't seem to be able to understand this so sarcasm or irony that we understand but they don't isn't going to convince them.

Neither, unfortunatly, are those programs being put out by the BBC just now because the creationists see evolution as the 'holy text' (or maybe a 'magical text') of those of another faith, rather than hearing or understanding the evidence and reasoning that is behind it.

Pete is probably a lost cause. I hope the US justice system is not.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 05:59 AM

Sorry pete, I crossed so was not able to comment on you last post in my last (about Musket's LOTR reference).

(very nearly lost the whole thing so gald I copy before trying to Submit.)

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Riah Sahiltaahk
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 07:56 AM

It is encouraging to see that there are still schools that don,t push the evolutionist religion wholesale. Though of course it is upsetting for a fanatical true believer like yourself.

Evolution is not a religious doctrine - it is a demonstrable scientific model based on an empirical understanding of natural law. Unlike creationism, no one has made this stuff up - it is there, in observable nature, and fits in with other cosmological models in which life comes into being as a random process amongst other random processes, rather than the whim of some despotic deity such as that portrayed in the scriptures of Abrahamic tradition.

The only thing I am a fanatical believer in is the opportunity that every human being should be empowered to see themselves as part of the objective reality of the cosmos. Every child is born innocent with a biologically programmed curiosity to know and understand the reality in which they've found themselves by the accident of birth. Free access to objective scientific truth and the means of understanding that truth through education and inspiration is their inalienable right and privilege. To teach any child that the Bible is anything more than a collection of fables, myths, metaphors and folklore is the violation of an innocence which must be, at all costs, considered sacrosanct.

Creationism is such a violation; it enforces a grave injustice on basic human rights by propagating ignorance as learning and lies as truth. It takes a self-contradictory allegorical creation myth (but one several thousand self-contradictory allegorical creation myths humanity has made up over the millennia) and insists, in the face of all available objective evidence to the contrary, that it actually happened. The propagation of creationism is nothing more than noxious misanthropy. Believers in it are small minded noxious misanthropists informed by an evil fundamentalism that reacts fervently, and negatively, in the light of objective reality.

Even Carl Sagan was circumspect about absolute Atheism (in 1985 he even took a year out from his scientific work to write a novel about it , Contact, later a film...) but one thing he was very clear about was the idiocies and dangers of religion and religious absolutism. Unquestioning faith is the essence of religion. No one has unquestioning faith in evolution, because evolution is born from asking questions. Evolutionary theory keeps on asking questions, as all science does, and must, and as new discoveries are revealed, so old postulations must die.

In this way, there is no scientific BELIEF, only scientific KNOWING and - unlike religion - that knowing is ALL INCLUSIVE. It is REAL for EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US - even for those who, for reasons best to themselves, have elected to delude themselves they are somehow exempt from natural law and are not the product of some 4.6 billion years of natural selection on Planet Earth, much less 100,000 years of cultural development giving rise to unfathomable cultural diversity. Creationist reject that unfathomable diversity and boil it down to but one simple and odious and inhumane lie.

Reality is a wonderful thing - it deals in freedom, wonder, truth, diversity and near infinite potential. Religious fundamentalism is its diametric opposite - it deals in none of these things, but nurtures the dark retardation of ignorance.

To be fanatical in its opposition, is, I think, an essential part of celebrating the reality of natural cosmic law in which religion can have no part.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 09:08 AM

Unquestioning faith is the essence of religion. It is when religion is analysed from a philosphical viewpoint, but many followers of religion are content to take a "you believe in your god(s) and I will believe in mine" approach when interactting with people from other religions. Faith is often not a big deal until challenged.

Religions are something that happen in human groups and some of the things they take account may well be inherited - a tendency for humans to like ritual, to see agency in inaminate objects, to feel 'spooked' in the dark or at other times of restricted sensory input about potential threats, to think about the future (e.g. what happens when I am dead ?), to feel more comfortable with 'people like me' than strangers.

Every child is born innocent with a biologically programmed curiosity to know and understand the reality in which they've found themselves by the accident of birth.. Yes, and repeatedly this has resulted in religion.

Religion happens. It may happen for evolutionary reasons. Saying it is idiocy won't make everyone stop doing it. Some will becomes followers of the Jedi code or whatever. Or not be able to cope with anything more complicated than a creation story from a book.

The discussion started over the issue of those people becoming judges in powerful nations with armed forces tasked with defending them like savage beasts.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Riah Sahiltaahk
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 09:59 AM

Religion happens. It may happen for evolutionary reasons.

There's been a lot of discussion recently on that very subject in scientific journals, which seems pretty obvious : religion is real, it exists; its nature is, therefore, self evident in its multiplicity and ubiquity. It is an observable phenomenon. But we do not need it to survive; it remains an optional extra, an entertainment. To some, sadly, it is a means to mass hysteria & psychosis.

I don't think any of this is in question, on the contrary. Religion is, objectively, part of the cultural diversity of humanity. We may consider it even as an enrichment in terms of ethnology and human uniqueness the world over, but no single religion is consistent with any other, other than in matters which are common to us all anyway. All religions derive from basic every day secular concerns and moralities. All religions seek to offer succour in the face of the inevitability of the unsayable. In this all religions are as valid as any other; but they are all - each and every one of them - made up. They embody truth (for example in the bon mots of Christ and The Buddha) but those truths are pretty much self-evident, arising quite naturally as part of human nurture.

We note that Fundamentalist Christian largely ignore the humanist teachings of Christ, obsessing themselves with issues of sin and salvation, thus fabricating a church that stands in diametric opposition to the man they claim as their Messiah. The same is true of Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism. WWJD? I think that much is self-evident too.   

Religion is, ultimately, a) optional and b) subjective. Religion is the repository of a culture's folklore and mythology, and, as such, they are objectively fascinating. Country churches, cathedrals, pyramids, mosques, stone circles, the Llibre Vermell de Monsterrat, the Vivaldi Gloria, Bach's B Minor Mass, the ritual music of Tibetan Buddhism and Vedic Scripture all stand testimony to its humanity. Creationism and Anti-Science stand testimony to its very inhumanity, stemming no doubt from some other evolutionary essential in which those who differ from regimented compliance are to be routed and stamped out.

Happily, they will pass, as can be seen with the dwindling congregations as people, happily, find better things to do with their Sunday mornings. We know better now; science has lit the candle in the dark and it shines upon us all. The true Light of the World.   Secularism can thus celebrate human religious diversity as part and parcel of the very stuff that makes us human, but taken objectively, all together, the truth to which they point to has nothing to do with any God, or any other non-existent supernatural power, but the sheer inventiveness of the collective mind that leads, ultimately, to the scientific enlightenment that will pave the way into the future.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 10:17 AM

Followers of Abrahamic religions often do make valiant efforts to "believe in evolution", but they are at best espousing a distorted version of the science. The obstinate fact is that evolution is a completely blind process with no aims, no goals, nothing kicking it off, no end points, no striving for ultimate perfection and no underlying driving force. If you don't understand that, you don't understand evolution at all. There is no place for God in that scheme of things. He is completely redundant, a useless, helpless bystander. If you think you "believe in" both God and evolution, then your God needs a serious and radical redefinition. The judge is only marginally more deluded than the average believer; the latter's version of a creator is just a bit further back in time, that's all.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 01:16 PM

I think, Steve, that they understand evolution perfectly well. They have an understanding of 'God' that differs from yours and is less well-defined than their books and some of their high-priests would indicate. It is the religion side of things that does not need to be consistent. As in the "you believe in your god(s) and I will believe in mine" approach.

Eloquent posts Riah Sahiltaahk, thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 03:24 PM

yes, certainly eloquent, like a preacher delivering a sermon praising the true god of "science" the "true light of the world".
you say it is not religious doctrine but
a,    the extreme devotion displayed by your posts to it, and the irrational paranoia about belief in God belies that statement.
b,    I have quoted above the statements of evolutionists that admit their faith position
c,      evolutionists believe things that they cannot prove, as TRuE science can mostly demonstrate by observation and testing repeatedly.
c2,    even the story that evolutionists string together from the data has chunks missing.
c3,      they also believe things that "natural law"/ observational, repeatable, testable indicates are impossible.
c4,      like organized religion, the more informal religion of evo/atheism has a fair number of denominations ..gradualism,.....by jerks ...panspermia, ....bird from dino or not.....
".....it is a demonstrable scientific model...".   ok, riah, how about demonstrating it. maybe just a couple of things that can only have Darwinian interpretation of the data. not too much to ask to balance all the science that demonstrates it is impossible, or at least highly improbable.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 03:30 PM

McGrath from harlow, I made that point early on. it is the nature of their ultra evangelical atheism that they latched onto, what at the time, was the slimmest of hints that the judge might be a creationist.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 04:50 PM

Still.

If you prefer pre conceived bullshit to reality, your intelligence is lower than that of rational people.

Live with it.

Just stop trying to make others lower themselves to your shallow concepts eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 05:00 PM

well, I just finished watching the rather fishy excuse for evolutionism. tiktaalek [ probably wrong spelling ! } appears to be shubins supposed clincher. he was a bit selective about the data , and omitting qualifiers he himself has admitted elsewhere. I suppose I could elucidate at this point, but I will let you show me what you reckon tikis discovery demonstrates to substantiate the evolutionary story ?!   
what you cannot do, is charge me with evading evolutionary "science".
however, I will put pt 2 on hold till you engage with the supposed evidence of pt 1.
go on, show me some evolution.....credit snail.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 05:03 PM

whats up, unnamed guest.....abuse your only answer.....speaks volumes !

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 05:29 PM

It is a popular science programme, not made for creationists. That market is not big enough. Most of the world has moved on.

I though it was a bit too much 'first person', but that's TV.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 06:42 PM

I wonder if there is one "guest" or more. Gets a bit confusing.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 07:17 PM

"Creationists" who believe human beings, or the world itself, is only a few thousand years old are a fringe set among Christians, highly untypical and unrepresentative. That may not be the case among some Americans, but that's an untypical country in a lot of ways, not all good.

Setting them up as if they represented Christians in general, or religious believers in general, is a bit like doing the same with Isis.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,The cookie crumbled
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 03:48 AM

Good point Kevin. You cannot lump real Christians in with real Christians.

The problem is, pete reckons his delusion is because he is a Christian whilst on these pages, pick n mix Christians such as Joe Offer and Keith A of Hertford are quick to say Christian this and Christian that but don't recognise pete's stance.

I've said before that there is a huge difference between traditional and literal belief. One reason why I personally feel systemic superstition to be a hangover from another age and not given the credibility it demands is that many poor buggers can't tell the difference and get their minds fucked up.

I love the idea of old ladies doing the altar flowers each week, (if they did such things at, say, a local nursing home as well it would be a better contribution to society but hey ho) and I have been in the position of defending chaplaincy budgets in The NHS as the comfort they offer those who wish it aids recovery or makes the palliative journey more comfortable.

But the petes and ISIS types spoil it for normal people who don't mind a backdrop of faith to help them face the day.

We all have comfort blankets. Mine are Sheffield Wednesday and spoiling my grand daughter. Some of Mrs Musket's relations find theirs in Jesus. Many of our friends find it in Islam. Others I know find it in a pint glass.

It's a beautiful garden if you tend to it, but trust me, there are no fairies at the bottom of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 03:58 AM

There are at least two GUESTs and this one will tag his posts if they need linking to make sense. He thinks this is less confusing than, say, the Muskets yet aids focus on the content rather than the speaker.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Riah Sahiltaahk
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 04:24 AM

ok, riah, how about demonstrating it. maybe just a couple of things that can only have Darwinian interpretation of the data. not too much to ask to balance all the science that demonstrates it is impossible, or at least highly improbable.

No point, pete. You have elected to believe in a supernatural origin of life and the cosmos. In such a model anything is possible because of your faith in the existence of an omnipotent deity who brought all things into being one weary October back in 4004BC. There is, therefore, nothing I can share with you of the material wonders of cosmic Godless reality as revealed to us by the various disciplines of science that can possibly convince you otherwise.

In short, you've opted out.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 05:32 AM

I think you've opted out Riah, I'm not a creationist, but it would be good for the discussion if you could accede to pete's quite proper request?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 05:40 AM

Personally, I don't think humanity will ever discover the origins of the universe....and I am certain that such comprehension, should it ever come, would be destructive.

In the meantime I am coming to the conclusion that belief in a benevolent provider like the sun is the best and happiest way forward on the road to ultimate and inevitable self destruction.

Belief in a life force is not unlike creationism in many respects?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Riah Sahiltaahk
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 07:10 AM

I think you've opted out Riah, I'm not a creationist, but it would be good for the discussion if you could accede to pete's quite proper request?

There can only be discussion with common ground, and common ground needs common language born from a common understand of a common reality. Thus the request is, I fear, far from a proper one; on the contrary, it is improper in the extreme. Can we ask the creationist, I wonder, to provide evidence of God? I think, perhaps, not. In their blind faith they don't require evidence; indeed, even the very lack of evidence is considered to be evidence in itself, and thus any logic is rejected in favour for the baseless absolutism that is the cornerstone of any fundamentalist delusion.         

We are, each of us, privileged to live in this material cosmos of wonder, elegance, marvel and beauty, and the more we discover, so the more wonderful it gets. The more we acknowledge and consider it, so the more our very lives are enriched by it. Everything from Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation to Darwin's Theory of Evolution to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity are enrichments to our understanding of the universe and our place therein. All this has taken aeons of great ingenuity, vision, wit, cunning, insight, genius and intuition to bring into being, with minds as sharp as that of Stephen Hawking taking their place in a tradition of inspirational enquiry that in the very best of all that is human. Thus we may imagine the very limits of our Solar System defined by the vast Oort Cloud which no one has ever seen, nor yet will ever see - indeed, the Voyager 1 spacecraft (currently travelling at around 11 miles per second) won't emerge from therefrom for a conservative estimate of another 20,000 years. And what of that missing 85% without which none of it would work anyway? Questions, questions! And questions are the very meat of it.

And yet, to the creationist, it is all accounted for by a myth made up around 1,400BC, which, by my calculation, is round about the time the photons now reaching us from NGC 2353 (AKA Avery's Island) set out from that distant cluster to inspire further the dreaming wonder without which our very humanity would be meaningless. Which, of course, to the creationist mired in the rank superstition of their noxious theology, it is anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 07:28 AM

The "believer" is not obliged to provide evidence Riah, whereas you and other evolutionists are.
As you say lack of evidence is to the "believer" a sign of the strength of his stance, to you lack of evidence is weakness and vulnerability.

In this sort of discussion, strength, weakness, evidence, become meaningless as there will never be ultimate proof.

It's whatever makes you happy free from fear, and a contributor to the greater good which really matters.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Riah Sahiltaahk
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 08:27 AM

The "believer" is not obliged to provide evidence Riah, whereas you and other evolutionists are.

On the contrary, the onus is entirely on the believer to provide evidence contrary to that provided by observable, empirical common Godless reality. Of course they can't, other than their entrenched delusion that reality, and everything in it, is the work of their God that news no proof and can be accounted for by the events in an allegorical misanthropic & misognistic folk tale.

In this sort of discussion, strength, weakness, evidence, become meaningless as there will never be ultimate proof.

On the contrary, the proof is in the reality our very existence. It is everywhere and in everything. It is the cause of multidiscipline scientific thought the whole word over and is the reality in which we all share whether we choose to believe it or not. It's name is Nature; and Nature, unlike God, is self-evident and needs no creator. Indeed, we do both it and ourselves great disservice by giving it one, however picturesque the creation myths that have come down to us might be.   

It's whatever makes you happy free from fear, and a contributor to the greater good which really matters.

On the contrary, because the fundamentalist believes in a very different reality to the actual one and persists in the absolute conviction that their delusion is correct, however so contrary to, and in denial of, all objective empirical commonality. Fundamentalism engenders fear - it is rooted in a cause that will forever run contrary to the common good by a denial of that which is common to us all. The root of fundamentalist faith is fear of the greater good from which they elect to exempt themselves in the promotion of lies as truth, anti-science as science, and folkloric allegory as absolute literal law.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 08:30 AM

"The "believer" is not obliged to provide evidence Riah, whereas you and other evolutionists are."
Who authorized you to set the rules for this discussion?

I understand Riah's reluctance to try to enlighten a close-minded individual like Pete as I have several fundamentalist christians in my immediate and extended families and they are so wrapped up in their dogma that not only will they not even consider the veracity of evidence that contradicts their beliefs they vehemently reject it, oftimes without examination. At any rate here you go, Pete. Pearls before swine, I suppose.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 08:52 AM

Riah, I would estimate that "science and technology" has done little for the common good of humanity, on the contrary, "science and technology" will have, in the long term, contributed greatly to our demise as a species.

Primitive peoples survived for many thousands of years without any help from technology or recognised "science", although they always had some sort of belief system.
Our society has had the benefit of technology and science for only a few hundred years and the environmental damage is already un-repairable, our dependency on drugs, terminal.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 09:21 AM

Jim, the Office of National Statistics says that the UK has a population of app 64 million and that 1.5 of that population are homosexuals.......what do you not understand?
Where do you get your figures from?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Riah Sahiltaahk
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 09:22 AM

You say that as if we have any sort of choice in the matter. There has always been science and technology - they are amongst the signifiers of our very humanity, and necessity is, indeed, the mother of invention. The very EVOLUTION of technology, as beautifully depicted in the classic jump-cut from bone tool to space-craft in the film 2001, is part / parcel of the evolutionary process that governs everything anyway.

Without it we wouldn't be having this discussion. To be sure, given the amount of medicaments my life is currently dependent upon, I wouldn't be here to have it at all, at all.

I might similarly despair at the disrepair we've wrought on poor old mother earth, but we parted company from Nature's Rule many thousands of years ago. Science, is actually bringing us home, whilst preparing us for a greater destiny, supposing we don't fuck it up once and for all. But my folklore is that of the Cold War; the Bomb is part of nature too and it isn't about to go away any time soon.

We are the alchemists of nature, able to transfigure the mineral deposits of a billion years into a mighty ocean going liner, or a spacecraft bound for the outer reaches of interstellar space. As someone might have said: 'They say God created Mankind; but Mankind, sir, Mankind invented the Steam Engine!

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 09:30 AM

You may be correct in saying that some homosexuals will not admit to their sexual preference, but there are also many unregistered guns in circulation which do not come into the 3.45 in 100 which I already posted.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 09:36 AM

"Science, is actually bringing us home, whilst preparing us for a greater destiny, supposing we don't fuck it up once and for all. "

You have great faith my friend, :0) nice to talk with you.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Riah Sahiltaahk
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 09:46 AM

PS - What I wrote up there about nature & invention applies to sexuality too; nothing we do is natural, and yet all is nature. How does that work, I wonder? I don't know, but it does. The last thing sex is about is procreation - fucking comes first and foremost; the perfect lust of the joyful occasion - everything else is, essentially, occult. Science and Technology gives us contraception & safe abortions so that heterosexuals might better enjoy what homosexuals have been enjoying for thousands if not millions of years.

And since when was it a game of numbers? As individuals, we exist in uniquely exquisite editions of one.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Me again
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 10:04 AM

"What has science done for us?"

Clearly fuck all in your hopeless case.

Mind you, the science of the Internet has given your hateful bilge water the oxygen of publicity that you wouldn't get otherwise in the teeming metropolis of your Lochside hovel.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Believer in Evolution
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 10:11 AM

Concise Oxford English Dictionary

BELIEF noun
1        an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof. A firmly held opinion or conviction. A religious conviction.
2        (belief in) trust or confidence in.

Phrases
        beyond belief astonishing; incredible.

BELIEVE verb
1        feel sure that (something) is true. Accept the statement of (someone) as true. Have religious faith.
2        (believe in) have faith in the truth or existence of.
3        (believe in) have confidence in.
4        think or suppose: I believe we've already met. (believe in) think that (something) is right or acceptable.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 10:12 AM

Sorry Riah....that was a crossed post to Jim, who actually brought up the subject.

I'll just take your word for the "free love" aspect, I've been married and monogamous for a VERY long time :0)
Without procreation there is only death.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Believer in Evolution
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 10:16 AM

I think that creationism is 'beyond belief'.

And I object to having the meaning of a word hijacked. 'Faith' is the unambiguous word for belief without evidence.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 10:28 AM

"And I object to having the meaning of a word hijacked."

There's a lot of it about! :0(

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Riah Sahiltaahk
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 10:40 AM

Given that there are 15,000 births every hour (8684 more births than deaths) I don't think procreation is going to go out of fashion any time soon.

How many instances of sexual intercourse I wonder?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 12:41 PM

'Faith' is the unambiguous word for belief without evidence.

A point I have made at various times here for 15 years.

In science, one eventually MUST change an opinion if it turns out to be less than accurate.... in 'faith', actual evidence is often ignored, and the lack of evidence is often treated as irrelevant when certain beliefs are repeated often enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 01:20 PM

"Everything exists because God creates it".    Or "everything exists because it exists".

I can't see that the latter way of putting it actually is any more of an explanation.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Riah Sahiltaahk
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 01:34 PM

I can't see that the latter way of putting it actually is any more of an explanation.

Simples! Because whilst everything, evidently, exists, God, most evidently, does not.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 01:51 PM

Reight, got me cookie back. My co musketeers have been enjoying a good laugh, apart from where Akenaton is yet again calling people sub human. The most disappointing part being that nobody is sub human, ironically not even him.

Despite evidence to the contrary.

Riah Sahiltaahk is welcome to take on the somewhat frustrating IQ of both pete and Akenaton. Here's a tip. Logic, reason, fact and common sense are not tools you can deploy in these debates. Any attempt to discuss love, sex and human nature will be met by homophobic nonsense, one through its religious delusion, the other through fear of what it cannot comprehend. Either way, bigotry is what you will be trying to reason with.

Takes lots of your err magma...

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 02:41 PM

Bigotry
noun, plural bigotries. 1. stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own. 2. the actions, beliefs, prejudices, etc., of a bigot.

YThere's a lot of it about...

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 03:08 PM

Rejection of creationism is the application of reason, not stubbornness.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Riah Sahiltaahk
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 03:13 PM

Fictional

adjective

    relating to or occurring in fiction; invented for the purposes of fiction.
    "fictional texts"
    synonyms:        fictitious, invented, imaginary, imagined, made up, make-believe, unreal, fabricated, concocted, devised, mythical, storybook, the product of someone's imagination
    "a fictional character"
    antonyms:        real, actual

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Musket
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 03:25 PM

Too true in the literal sense, but don't fall into the trap of using a subjective dictionary as an arbiter of a word used in context. You might end up looking as daft as Keith when he tries that shallow stunt.

Intolerance is intolerance. I have no time whatsoever for Sheffield Utd fans.   

Bigotry is to spread your intolerance to affect others, such as this judge using his delusion to judge people who don't go for all that nonsense. Or as in the case of Akenaton, post lies, distortions and hurtful comments about a whole section of society due to his bigotry towards them.

Thinking pete is a fry short of a happy meal or even questioning teaching creationism as anything more than a medieval attempt at understanding science prior to us really beginning to understand the universe..... is not the same as when pete says I shouldn't be allowed to be married because his group leader / vicar / whatever must have had an unfortunate experience when exploring his own sexuality.

Intolerance of any belief or creed can also mean frustration with it wishing to be measured alongside reality. Refusal isn't bigotry any more than refusing dictatorship in a democratic society. If it is incompatible with the subject, it isn't bigotry to say so.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 03:34 PM

Gillymoor, nothing I ain't seen before of your supposed five proofs of evolution. In short these are arrived at by a refusal to consider common design for homologous structures, and the bait and switch of equating natural selection to the totally unproven microbes to mudcatters.   If you want to engage in discussion, other than opting for the easy option of posting link, so be it, otherwise I have nothing more to add re the link. At least there was not so much to plough through.    Riah, on the other hand waxes long and eloquent without saying very much except excusing himself from engaging in the debate, supposedly because I am closed minded. Thanks ake, for noticing the evasion. Riah places the onus of evidence on the creationist to prove that God exists. However we admit the faith factor wheas you claim that your position does not require faith. Therefore, the greater onus is on you. As I indicated above there are good reasons why I say your position is a belief, a faith position. You and bill, can go argue it with the evolutionists who admit it, as well as the creationist who points it out.    But though we don't claim proof, we do claim that the creation position accords better with observable, testable, repeatable science.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 03:56 PM

I notice that riah tries to claim that it is the creationists who oppose observable science. However, creationists believe life only comes from life. Evolutionists that it arose somehow from matter. Creationists believe organisms produce within the limits of their kind, evolutionists that there is a trans organism progression contrary to observation. Creationists point out that there are calculated limits to how long soft tissue can survive, but evolutionists think those measurements mistaken because it would nullify their time frame to accept them....though I,m sure they did till the paradigm was threatened!.         In short, evolutionists believe in a secular miracle .

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 04:02 PM

On the subject of time frames - what about radiometric dating ? Decay rates are measurable.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST, ^*^
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 04:05 PM

these are arrived at by a refusal to consider common design for homologous structures, and the bait and switch of equating natural selection to the totally unproven microbes . . . . In short, evolutionists believe in a secular miracle

Your religious training appears to have included a course in rhetorical doublespeak. Perhaps a couple of sessions spent on restating what others think in order to make it sound equally as illogical as the leap-of-faith materials covered in your main lectures? You can believe anything you want, but don't expect the world to march to your drummer when he is headed off a cliff. You're entitled to your own beliefs, but not to your own facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Riah Sahiltaahk
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 04:36 PM

However, creationists believe life only comes from life.

Not so. They believe that all observable corporeality (including, one presumes, the galaxies of the Hubble Telescope's famous Ultra Deep Field Image revealing the universe of 8–10 billion years ago) derives from the actions of a supernatural deity some 4,000 years BCE.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 04:47 PM

Well, though I don't know all the details of these dating methods, I do know they take measurements but don't give dates, but assumptions are involved that facilitate the dating. None the less, diverse dating, sometimes spectacularly, occurs with different methods. Even modern formed samples have read millions of yrs.          guest -symbol, care to explain what was awry with my post.....other than your disagreement. Want some real doublespeak. How about evolutionary stasis! And being as you are espousing the general theory of evolution, and only have interpretations of the data, to form a story that contradicts observational science, it seems to me you have further to leap in the faith steaks !.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 04:50 PM

What assumptions Pete ?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 04:56 PM

Pete...for about the 7th time here, I must once again note that this usage:

"there are good reasons why I say your position is a belief, a faith position. "

is an error... a faulty use of the words 'faith' and 'belief'. You cannot simply redefine concepts such as 'have confidence in the basic process when properly done' as **faith or belief**.

That is not what acceptance of the conclusions of science means, and stating that you have "good reasons" for comparing them to the beliefs of religion does not make them good reasons.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 05:23 PM

I suppose I might as well try to remind people that my problem with a judge in the US's most senior court giving comfort to irrationality is that judge is supposed to follow the evidence.

The weasel wording that you, Magrath, point out is plainly designed to accommodate the beliefs of creationists. They fly in the face of the evidence. Judges should not do the same.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Olddude
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 07:56 PM

You are not a citizen, you have not right to any opinion. Worry about your own country you wanna be yank

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 08:17 PM

It can make sense to accommodate even irrational beliefs in some circumstances. Searching out and identifying even a very limited area of agreement can be useful. For example when it comes to being engaged in campaigning on a specific issue you can find yourself working with people with whom you disagree profoundly on just about everything else.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,olddude
Date: 22 Jun 15 - 01:46 AM

No American would want you here. I find it interesting that every thread you start is about American politics, did England boot you out and now you have no country of your own? That leads me to believe you are a wannabe yank. I see no reason why anyone who doesn't live here and has no voting power to be so obsessed as you Richard. Since you desire to control our political system then become a citizen and pay taxes like we all do. It boils down to a wannabe yank.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 22 Jun 15 - 02:23 AM

Surely everyone has an opinion about what goes on in countries other than their own? It is absurd to suggest someone can't have an opinion! Not having an opinion and not having an actual vote are of course two different things.

It is all the more likely that someone from the UK will have an opinion on events in your country if that country is the US. Basically because the US is such a big and influential country your news events regularly make our national news broadcasts. Normally there is a story about the US at some point. Obviously at the moment there is the church shooting but over the past week or so we've had a lot of coverage re Jeb Bush and Hilary Clinton in a way that the US would never get coverage of the Labour Party leadership etc. It is a fact of life so it is basically not credible to expect people not to have an opinion or express it.

I suppose it is a bit like the elephant in the bed thing with Scotland and England. For instance Nicola Sturgeon first became a member of the Shadow Cabinet in Scotland a whole 16 years ago and she'd been deputy leader of the SNP for a whole decade prior to taking the leadership and she'd been Deputy First Minister of Scotland for 7 years during that time. Yet during the recent election the UK wide news treated her as if she was a bolt out of the blue new politician on the scene. Basically Scots are fed what goes on in England much more than the other way round - as is what happens re the UK and the US.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Olddude
Date: 22 Jun 15 - 02:29 AM

I was talking to a nurse working here who was from England. According to her yes you have a fine health care and social system but the three people working are paying for ten who don't. Taxed to death. She said. I don't know if that's true or not because I don't live there so I don't comment unlike you dick

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,My cookie won't take!!
Date: 22 Jun 15 - 02:53 AM

Yeah Dan. It's horrible here. Just like Fox says it is. If any of your neighbours visit here, I'd wear tin foil on my head when they come back, just in case.

It really is surreal to keep agreeing with Bridge but he is right. A judge as a judge has to be objective and concentrate purely on comparing evidence with points of law and how it stands. Judgemental shit such as his superstition cannot be seen to influence him. His comments on loony bollocks such as biblical "truth" denote his ability to judge by a medieval code.

By the way. It is not just important to The USA but to more advanced civilisations too. The USA may be a backward country but we do have an extradition treaty so it is important that we monitor how much we can rely on objectivity of their courts when consisting requests for extradition. We already have clauses to prevent them killing people they ask for, just as we do with other third world countries we encourage to evolve.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 22 Jun 15 - 05:47 AM

What economic stats are like in each separate country is different from the more general point made at the start of this thread which was about individual beliefs so not a good comparison! However saying that I would have no qualms about people from other countries asking how things were in the UK! What does it matter? Especially when you can clear things up and put it right. As a point of fact the nurse is talking rubbish. If we are going to count children under 16 as not being benefit scroungers and retired people no longer in the work force who have already contributed all their lives as not being benefit scroungers then for England the figures are 73.4% of the population between the ages of 16 and 64 are in employment. That is 3 out of 4 people in that age group. Among those from that age group not in employment you can count school kids studying at higher level (ie 16, 17 and 18 year olds) plus university and college students as well as mothers who have decided not to return to work. Again tax payers don't pay for everyone who doesn't work. The unemployment rate is just 5.5%!

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/june-2015/index.html

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Jun 15 - 06:10 AM

I'm sure that most US citizens are very nice people, but I'm not sure I'd like to live in a country in which almost half the population think that the world was created in 4004BC, in which several of the people behind me in the supermarket queue are likely to have lethal weapons in their pockets and which can elect George Bush twice. Oh, and Dan, I nearly forgot to mention, a country in which over a tenth of the population have no automatic access to health care, since you mention our NHS. And there's no need to invite me to stay here. I am doing.

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,Riah Sahiltaahk
Date: 22 Jun 15 - 07:50 AM

You are not a citizen, you have not right to any opinion. Worry about your own country you wanna be yank

Given the foreign policies of the USA and free cultural exchanges with our former colonies over there on The Dark Side of the Earth, we Brits are all Yanks whether we like it or not. As such I think it's only right and proper to be - er - concerned, don't you?

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Jun 15 - 08:00 AM

I have no right to VOTE in the USA. I have every right to an opinion (bearing in mind that not all opinions are created equal and mine are more logical and world-normal than yours). Even a nutcase like you can surely tell the difference between the right to vote and the right to have an opinion.

And I've told you before why I don't start threads about UK politics. The US based mods delete them all. Perhaps at your age your brain is failing, like other bits of your anatomy, you limpdick jadrool (remember that quote from teh mudcat of old? - oh no, silly me, you're senile so you don't).

Subject: RE: BS: Unfit for SCOTUS
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 22 Jun 15 - 01:40 PM

like, yer entitled to an opinion.....unless of course that opinion is that the bible is true !

like I said , bill, if you don't think evolutionism is a belief and a faith, take it up with the evolutionists I quoted above. I already outlined why I say it is, so tackle those points. mere assertion that I misuse the words, is falling on deaf ears !.