BS: The Pope in America

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 01:34 PM

Shimrod... as concerned as I obviously am with the issue, it is really irrelevant to ask anyone to show 'evidence' for religious beliefs. They just are beliefs, and Pete has acknowledged as much. I am more concerned with his trying to drag me/us to the same level by calling acceptance of various scientific theories 'faith'.
   That is a specific, logical error which 'might' be resolved someday, unlike the existence of a 'god'. Perhaps there was a god who kick-started everything *shrug*. What is important is careful study of **what is**, no matter how it originally came into existence.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 11:53 AM

Rather than you demanding that others respond to your posts, Pete, may I ask you to have a go at answering the following questions, please?

- What, exactly, is wrong with appealing to authority? What's the alternative?

- Are you ever going to move beyond 'Creation.com' and read something written by a real evolutionary biologist?

- Can you please show us the "observational, repeatable, testable" ... eerrr ... 'evidences' for the existence of God?

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Greg F.
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 11:29 AM

I don't know how to put it so that you will actually see the point

Uh, Bill, there IS no way to put so that pete will see the point ...

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 11:25 AM

he existence of faith schools, as with public schools, creates a lust in those parents who can wield influence that distorts the country's education system for the worse.

How so, Steve? As you said, parents are liable to use various ways of helping get their children into schools that are seen as better. The existence of faith schools doesn't create that "lust". Take them away and it would persist, so long as this discrepency exists, and there is any element of choice. All that would be different is that one possible way to try to cheat would be removed, one which is not restricted to wealthy people.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 09:29 AM

Pete... among the ideas on which I have debated you is this one:

" As far as I know however, there has never been any system demonstrated for the information for any organism to become a creature of a different sort. "

I don't know how to put it so that you will actually see the point, but you are twisting the entire concept of what 'change' means in evolutionary theory. NO ONE is claiming anything like "ostriches turn into tigers" or any other silly combination. That IS a "straw man" fallacy. You are taking the way small changes DO happen, sometimes over a fairly short time sequence...(those finches in the Galapagos, for example)... and asserting that this DISproves general evolution. You are either ignoring what is actually being claimed, or misunderstanding it because your religious beliefs demand an entirely different set of premises.
*IF* you believe that a god created all species in 6 days, and decreed that 'change' would occur only as minor adaptive variation within a species, then you logically cannot comprehend what science has worked out from huge amounts of research!

Evolution is a bush, not a set of straight steps. Once a species has its own branch of that bush, it does NOT jump over to another branch. You are correct that bandicoots do not become giraffes.... but 'something' similar to bandicoots did change over the eons to become the bandicoots of today. Unfortunately, they did not die conveniently in some place so as to provide us with examples of the many intermediate steps.

We DO have some very clear intermediate steps that we CAN show to be links... even in the most important case.... us! DNA proves that that this happens, and because our species was endowed with lucky attributes like bipedal motion and larger brains, some of our ancestors did get buried in places like caves where we can study a few of the intermediate steps of the last 2-3 million years. We are still working out the exact ways our part of the bush branched, and probably never will find all the pieces... but we do have enough to inductively draw a decent picture of the basic bush.

Denying that picture because of a story that 'sounds' more ^uplifting is denying what our eyes and our evidence shows!

And when you describe the logical inferences in science as 'faith', you are committing the fallacy of equivocation on the word 'faith'... you are simply defining concepts to fit several unsubstantiated premises.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: DMcG
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 09:11 AM

That's for a separate thread, Steve, if we can face it. Indeed what is acceptable politics and economics were two things that sprang to mind. And I am by no means convinced attitudes inculcated in those are less significant than religion.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 08:59 AM

Maybe not, but (a) religious indoctrination is by far the biggest culprit, (b) just because there are other culprits doesn't mean that religious indoctrination is any less egregious. It's easy to get away with being a priest, a nun or an RE teacher in a school, but you just try being a commie agitator.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: DMcG
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 07:00 AM

That's probably for a different thread

Indeed so. The whole education or indoctrination thing is a huge, but fortunately separate, discussion. It is by no means restricted to religious matters.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: DMcG
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 06:22 AM

That approach would not work, Pete

To begun with you could be asked to demonstrate all the beaks shapes existed beforehand and I have no idea how you propose to do that. Creationists often complain of gaps in the fossil records for evolutionary theory but I hadn't appreciated they require a gap that's many hundreds of thousands of times greater

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 05:48 AM

Evolution is not a scientific principle, any more than going for a pee is a scientific principle. Like going for a pee, evolution definitely takes place. What is not irrefutable is the theory of evolution, which is a very good explanation but not perfect, and it never will be. I'm getting slightly fed up of telling you this.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 05:42 AM

It would be nonsensical to "eliminate" faith schools. What needs to go is the indoctrination. Why, they'd probably be even better schools without it as they'd be spending more time on education. The issue of parental choice is separate once you take that out the equation. The inequities would certainly not go away simply by taking religion out of schools without an overhaul of the system, as you've pointed out. But that's probably for another thread. For me, getting rid of religion from schools is a matter of principle. Schools are not there to peddle mythology as truth to children.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 04:34 AM

Dmcg, sounds like I have a different, less technical , less precision idea of information. This is how I understand it. Every living thing is DNA coded, the system of which decodes and implements the information (and much else involved too ). If for example there is in an original pair of birds with information encoded for a range of beak sizes and shapes, but their later offspring find themselves in an environment where the food source is favourable to one type of beak the information encoded for that favoured type will be preserved and passed on. Another with a beak unable to do well in obtaining the available food source will perhaps die out, and the information for that beak shape may be lost . As far as I know however, there has never been any system demonstrated for the information for any organism to become a creature of a different sort. I realise that the theory goes that the steps are so slowly incremental that they are invisible, but then, so is the theory...it cannot be evidenced and neither can it be falsified.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 04:12 AM

On the contrary, Steve, I think there is very little possibility that Jesus never existed. And I doubt you are the ...neutral...observer you claim...or maybe think ...you are. Also when I said ...point that way....I was referring to the fact of his existence, not to those quotes as being absolute proof thereof. I am acknowledging that there will always be some lack in that, even though I am personally convinced of it.   It is you who are the one claiming evolution though is irrefutably true....but not demonstrating it to be so. Therefore IMO, a faith position.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 04:01 AM

Perhaps we need to find out if Steve agrees that faith schools are often better, as I imagine that being faith schools , they are a priori deficient in his estimation !....though I presume he agrees that many parents perceive them to be better and who want their kids to do well and/or be grounded in a possibly more disciplined environment.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: DMcG
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 03:10 AM

Notes to self:
A) never type in bed on your phone without glasses.

B) remember your cookie had gone yesterday and you still haven't reset it.

Sorry, folks, I was that guest again

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 02:37 AM

Seems a bit overstated that, Steve. It is very easy to demonstrate public schools (gee paying for Us readers) are over represented in Oxford and cambridge, big business, the media and boardrooms. I'm not aware of that being the case for people attending faith schools.

We.need to be careful. Parents who can will always try to get their children into.what they see as the best schools. That happens even in areas where there are no faith schools nearby. It is not caused by the existence of faith schools and it would not be cured.by eliminating them as long as some schools are.perceived as better than others. Which gets us back to why faith schools are.often, but by no means invariably, as better.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 09:49 PM

Hmm. As for diluting the school's religious ethos, I might respectfully remind you that it's the kids who attend the school, not the parents! As for faith schools churning out pew fodder, I'm fairly confident that faith schools generally fail abysmally in that regard. It's not really the point. It's that the existence of faith schools, as with public schools, creates a lust in those parents who can wield influence that distorts the country's education system for the worse.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 08:05 PM

Various dodgy ways are used when people want to get their kids into a school they believe is particularly good. Going to church, or for that matter mosque or synagogue in an effort to get your child into a school where that helps up the chance of getting in is one.

So of course, as you say, does the practice of buying a house in the catchment area. The difference being that you have to be pretty well off to go down that road. Is that really better?

I think it unlikely that children from a family cynically gaming the system in this way are that likely to be the kind of brainwashed pew fodder you seem to think religious schools turn out. In fact I would have thought that you might even welcome their being part of the school, as a way of diluting the religious ethos.

This kind of thing only happens because some schools have significantly better reputations than others. How far this can be a consequence of having a religious ethos is not clear. Undoubtedly are many very good schools which do not have such an ethos, and some "underperforming" schools which do. .

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 07:51 PM

"...as I previously mentioned I am not claiming them as absolute proof and irrefutable evidence of the existence of Jesus, though I certainly think they point that way."

They do not in any way point to absolute proof or irrefutable evidence. At best, they are a vague indication that he may have existed. But a neutral observer, taking the evidence you've presented, would probably put it at less than 50-50. I have no dog in this fight, as the historicity of a Jesus, or not, makes not a jot of difference to me. The lack of certainty on my part is irrelevant. The lack of certainty on your part is far more problematic, because everything you want to tell people about your faith is predicated on certainty. I have no desire to prove that Jesus never existed, but I have every desire to get you to admit that there is a distinct possibility that he didn't.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 07:47 PM

So which page of 'Creation.com' did you parrot all that gibberish from then, Pete? Why not just supply us with the link to the relevant page? When you quote/parrot from this single source, aren't you just appealing to authority - or what you mistakenly believe to be authority?

By the way, what, exactly, is wrong with appealing to authority? What's the alternative?

Are you ever going to move beyond 'Creation.com' and read something written by a real evolutionary biologist?

Oh yes, and weren't you going to show us the "observational, repeatable, testable" ... eerrr ... 'evidences' for the existence of God?

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: DMcG
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 06:44 PM

I'm a bit intrigued by this removal of information approach. You may know Pete that there are very precise definitions of the amount of information in a system. It's all to do with sizes of alphabets and possible combinations and has a relationship with entropy. So when you say 'removing information' do you mean it in an informatics theory sense, or do have some other definition?

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 06:27 PM

It is true, Steve, that you looked up the quotes I mentioned, and as I previously mentioned I am not claiming them as absolute proof and irrefutable evidence of the existence of Jesus, though I certainly think they point that way. But equally, to a committed unbeliever they will be unsatisfactory to that conclusion.   But that was not the issue with which I challenged you with. You do claim that evolution is true and verified by science. I notice you ignored the request to agree on what you mean by evolution which I suppose gives you some leeway . For example, appealing to natural selection as evidence of microbes to man evolution is just bait and switch, as there is no evidence .....less you can cite otherwise......., of anything evolving beyond the limits of its kind. Natural selection is part of the creation model , as a process that eliminates and removes information, rather than adding the masses of information that would be needed for changing one kind of organism into another. I would expect some kind of argument beyond appeal to authority and numbers , if it is not a philosophically held religious position you are committed to.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 04:21 PM

My personal anecdotes are just that. However, I saw the same thing going on when we lived in Loughton when D******* F********n was the school of repute. Getting your kid in reputedly meant doing some string pulling. We know about parents who move house to be in a certain desirable catchment. We know about parents who suddenly become rather Christian, cynically attending the local church in order to qualify their kids for the associated faith school. Donations to the church might be involved. My personal anecdotes count for very little except to confirm in my mind the corruption that goes on. They tend to blunt the temptation of denial. I thought I'd tell you about them anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: DMcG
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 02:32 PM

Who's to say that a school with a good collection of hairy-arse teachers, a few Tories in their midst and a few socialists and a few geeks in the mix, isn't better for kids growing up than a school with a fierce Mother Superior scowling at you at prayers and constant visits to the chapel and frequent halts for prayers and hymns?

And who is to say the opposite? It's been several decades since I've had to be involved at this level, but then talking to parents the words being given as reasons for choosing faith schools were not subject-related (eg standard of teaching of art, history, science, whatever) but attitude words (ethos, discipline, respect). And whether they actually achieve it or not, those are the areas religion should concern itself with.

McGrath has it, I am afraid. If you do want to propose a change from the status quo, personal anecdotes won't cut, especially against a large body of non-religious parents for whom the "pull of religion" can't be much of a factor. We clearly can't get to the standard of evidence the science requires, but we can still seek the best we can and try not to get too swayed by individual experience.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in Americaf
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 02:01 PM

Earlier I seem to remember you warning against anecdotal evidence, Steve...

That first school you described there sounds more like the Catholic Schools I've come across in recent years than the second. Which doesn't actually sound too much like the ones I remember from pre-Vatican II days. But of course there are all sorts of schools around.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 12:54 PM

I'm not denying that perception. I've seen a lot of it. Much of it is based on very shaky foundations, that's all. Sometimes a child's education may be better for its not being executed in a single-sex school or a faith school or a grammar school, but for being experienced in an environment with a good mix of kids from all walks of life. Who's to say that a school with a good collection of hairy-arse teachers, a few Tories in their midst and a few socialists and a few geeks in the mix, isn't better for kids growing up than a school with a fierce Mother Superior scowling at you at prayers and constant visits to the chapel and frequent halts for prayers and hymns? No matter how nice and orderly it looks from the outside?

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,DMcG
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 12:28 PM

I did try to cover off those distinctions. Which is why it all got a bit laboured on the distinctions between perception and actuality and even if it is the case in some situations that the faith school is actually a higher standard you can't immediately conclude that is why it's higher because there are so many other possible factors.

However it is still the case lots on non-religious parents choose to send their children to faith schools because they perceive that specific school as best.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 11:51 AM

Well you can question it but I saw it in action big-time. The pull of the faith factor for a certain type of person is very strong. I'm sure it does happen in other cases too, though, in the case of faith schools, the skulduggery looks even more sharply unchristian. Of course, these days we have grammar schools and free schools and a slackening of any idea of quotas based on ability, all in the name of "choice", one of the biggest of all the big Tory lies.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 11:42 AM

I'd question whether there's any significant difference between the extent of that kind of cheating between faith schools and others. To the extent that any school, or any type of school, has a reputation as a good school, parents are more likely to try to get their children to be admitted, and that can mean a sort of positive feedback.

One noticeable thing with our local Catholic comprehensive is that it has a noticeably higher proportiont of children from African and Asian families, many of them non-Catholic or non-Christian. I had a Muslim friend who sent her children there, and she was asked to supply a note from the Iman to confirm their religious status.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 11:29 AM

Sorry, should have looked at the post timings. I thought you were telling me off for calling his behaviour trolling.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 11:27 AM

I can take absurd or irrelevant any day, but the constant berating of "evolutionists" as people with faith-related belief systems, in spite of his having had it explained to him a hundred times, is trolling. He is pointlessly trying to goad us into responses that we've already given ad nauseam and it's about time he stopped doing it. I've done the best I can to address the matter of his evidence for the existence of Jesus in as respectful a manner as I could muster. I'm trying to avoid calling him names. By calling out blatant trolling, one could hope to stem the troll-feeding a little. Doesn't always work.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 10:25 AM

Even when someone with whom we are arguing in keeps on saying stuff we think is absurd or irrelevant, it is never the right thing to do to be offensive in response. That even applies when they are offensive, but in fact Pete never does that.

Best thing to do really when there is a evidently irreconcilable difference of opinion is to wind up the argument.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 10:24 AM

I was a teacher in a Catholic school in London for seven years. I can assure you from my experience in that part of London that parents' perceptions of schools bore little relation to what actually went on in them. The faith side of things tends to blind a certain kind of receptive mind to criticism. It made things very difficult for the schools that were perceived, usually unjustly, as not as good. Wholesale cheating went on with teachers and parents conniving in getting children's assessments adjusted, often downwards, to get them into the school of their choice, the intake quotas being thereby circumvented. So the faith schools got a better quality intake and would be able to claim, dishonestly of course, that the better results they got had something to do with the faith ethos. If that's the system you want to defend, I'm parting company with you.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 10:07 AM

"I know I keep giving the same challenges, but it don't hurt to let anybody fair minded see that the evolutionists here are not meeting them except by repeated recourse to numbers of authorities subscribing to their religiously held belief..."

No-one is playing your stupid game, Pete, whereby someone avails you of their understanding of evolutionary biology and you 'refute' that understanding by delving into 'Creation.com' and parroting something vaguely relevant that you find there! Let's get this straight once and for all:

- You are a fundamentalist religious maniac and that only qualifies you to discuss religious mania.

- It is blindingly obvious that you have no understanding of science, or the philosophy of science, whatsoever. Therefore, you are not qualified to even discuss science - let alone pontificate about it!

- Reading 'Creation.com', and being a religious maniac, does not make you any sort of authority on evolutionary biology and renders your pronouncements on the subject meaningless!

- You are not in a position to demand anything of anyone, or to challenge anyone, because you are an ignorant monomaniac.

- Each time you post on here you only tend to confirm the view of myself, and several other posters, that you are "batshit crazy".

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,DMcG
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 08:29 AM

And you also need to consider why a lot of non-religious people go to great lengths to get their children into schools they perceive as better. Why they are perceived like that and whether the fact they are faith schools contributes to the ethos in a way seen as positive are important questions because if it is a factor rather than any of the many other possible reasons for it getting rid of faith schools could cause bigger problems than the one so many non-religious parents are willing to cope with.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 08:06 AM

I don't want to see ANY children opting in. The only way a child can opt in is by being persuaded. No-one should be persuading anyone else, especially children, that it's a great idea to live your life by fairytale.

I don't how to bring about these changes except by making the argument and the changing of mindsets. What I do know is that most people are not that bothered about religion, creating a sort of vacuum of complacency that religion cheerfully fills in order to bag the default position. It's dishonest in the extreme, just like most other aspects of religious faith.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 07:30 AM

I am reminded of an Oldham Tinkers song one verse of which reads

Well then entered big lord mayor
o'er his shoulder he'd a club
he first pushed into a long white shirt
an' then he took topmost tub
he preached 'bout good folk goin' to 'eaven
an' bad folks goin' to 'ell
I said sit thee down thee silly owd bugger
tha's ne'er bin there thee self.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 07:21 AM

I understand what you'd like to see, Steve. You'd like to see some parents change their ways, and you'd like to see an end to faith schools, and you'd like to see opting in by children at all ages rather than opting in.

But that wasn't my question. Would you wish society, and the state, to set out to bring about those changes? And if so, how should it be done?

It's interesting to note that in the USA where official efforts to exclude religion from schools are the policy, religious practice is far more prevalent than in the UK, and its impact on politics far greater, often in ways that I suspect neither of us see as healthy.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 06:27 AM

You are trolling.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 06:13 AM

I know I keep giving the same challenges, but it don't hurt to let anybody fair minded see that the evolutionists here are not meeting them except by repeated recourse to numbers of authorities subscribing to their religiously held belief........not religious ?, fine demonstrate it is verifiable ?!    Now I don't mind kids being taught this myth in school. Just don't tell them it is fact when you cannot demonstrate it.   But you are entitled to your secularist religious ideas !

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 04:25 AM

Amos says: Most religions strive to be perpetually absolute

That may be true for fundamentalists, Amos, but certainly not for all.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Amos
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 12:33 AM

Religion should be perpetually relative and never absolute., Most religions strive to be perpetually absolute. And therein hangs a tale...

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 10:13 PM

I don't think that children should be formally exposed to religious practice at all. I think that all children should be taught about religions. There's no need for health warnings if that's done honestly. What parents do is different. I have opinions on that but I know I can't enforce what I think to be right, nor would I wish to. By making my points about that on a Mudcat thread I'm venting my spleen, no more than that really. I think there should be no faith schools and I would do away with the silly and illiberal requirement for a daily act of worship in schools, on the grounds that schools are places of education, not indoctrination. I hate the concept of parents opting their kids out of religious instruction and worship. We had that choice as parents and we didn't exercise it, as we had no desire to have our children singled out. It's wrong that we should have been in that invidious position. The default position in a fair society should be no religion unless you opt in. Not BE opted in by parents or anyone else, but you yourself freely opting in. I'm not quite sure what else I can say on this, but feel free to ask!

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 08:30 PM

What I was referring to was your strongly and repeatedly expressed view amounting to the principle that children should not be exposed to religious practice or teaching without a firm health warning attached at all times. Which you reiterate in that post.

Fair enough. My question was whether you think society should seek to require that those parents who disagree with it should conform to it. Not in any sense intended as a red rag - it's a genuine question.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 06:32 PM

"I taught my kids the bible stories - without trying to belabor what what myth and what was factual."

Why do you think that it's belabouring to tell the simple truth? I'd have thought that telling them myth that they then have to pick the bones out of, a problem compounded for them by the uncontrolled nonsense that they might be told at school without your knowledge, is far more belabouring.

"I also taught them about evolution, and made sure their Catholic school science teacher (who lived across the street) did the same."

Well it depends what you told them. What you've posted here on that topic before doesn't fill me with confidence. Perhaps I should have taught my children some theology. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 06:16 PM

Again, for pete. The phenomenon of evolution is incontrovertible. It happens. It is true. The theory of evolution by natural selection is the explanation of evolution. It's a very good explanation because it uses a lot of evidence from many branches of science. The theory itself cannot be said to be true. Scientists simply don't talk that way. But theories are not someone's hobby horse. A theory is not a theory unless it contains a good deal of evidence. Not your kind of evidence. Evidence that science sets a very high bar for. Evidence that has to pass tough tests. Not hearsay, witness, edicts, ceremony, tradition, biblical writings of dubious authorship or something the Pope or St Bernadette said. One fine day you'll get it. It'll still be a fine day even if you don't.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 05:37 PM

The quotes are insufficient in the extreme. Any assertion that Jesus was real requires you to give historical references and some corroboration, if you are to have any credibility. I've been honest enough to research whatever there is and to address the rather poor examples that you added to the mix. There is not a single convincing non-Christian reference to Jesus. That is quite amazing. Take any other significant historical figure and show me a similar paucity of references. Quite simply, you can't. A fairly kind conclusion could be that the tendentious-minded and proselytising early Christians, with their gospels and epistles, wanted to flood the world with Jesus references, and who's to blame them? Pity that the other prevailing forces of the time seem to, er, have overlooked the poor fellow! Please don't take this as a denial of his existence. It isn't. It's a sort of null hypothesis that you really need to address. Is it important? Why, yes it is, because, after all, you tell your kids that that there was a Jesus, born in a stable to a virgin, who raised the dead, turned water to wine and came back from the dead. You also tell them that there's a Santa. By the age of seven or eight, they are allowed to ditch Santa and laugh. But you really do not want them to ditch Jesus, and it's no laughing matter.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 04:57 PM

"Thirdly , as I have presented a few evidences that evolutionism is contrary to observational, repeatable, testable science, you need to deal with them ."

You have parroted stuff ("evidences"!!??), that you don't really understand, from a website run by batshit crazy people! You constantly demand (who the f**k are you to demand anything?!) that we supply you with the evidence for evolution. There is a vast mountain of evidence out there - it's just that you refuse to engage with it.

How about you show us the "observational, repeatable, testable" ... eerrr ... 'evidences' for the existence of God.

What's that, Pete? Did you say something? No, there's a deafening silence ... and a faint odour of bat droppings ...

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 02:53 PM

evolutionism is contrary to observational, repeatable, testable science

Yup - batshit crazy.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 02:41 PM

Well Steve , you conceded more than I expected , and of course I expected you to say these quotes were insufficient. But I am satisfied at least that there are more contested sources granted by you than the two insufficient and contested, originally claimed as the only ones.   So , according to you , evolution is true , but you claim less certainty for the theory of...   Firstly, can we agree on what we mean by evolution, which is why I have been trying to get an agreed definition, and I suggested kerkuts.   And secondly what is your evidence that evolution is true....and that has gotta be a whole lot more than appeal to numbers of academics subscribing to it.   Thirdly , as I have presented a few evidences that evolutionism is contrary to observational, repeatable, testable science, you need to deal with them . An admission that you don't have an answer will be a good start !.    As to what I believe , I have never claimed exhaustive proof or evidence that can only be viewed one way, though I am confident that my faith is reasonable. You, however are claiming intellectually , scientifically validated standing for your belief, and therefore the greater onus is on you to demonstrate it.......or else admit that it is rather philosophically held belief.