OK, no joke about this. Rep. Paul Broun [R-GA] has introduced a resolution to encourage Obama to declare that 2010 is The Year Of The Bible. Now, excuse me if I’m wrong about this, but I thought 2010 was going to be the Year of the Tiger.
Is anyone else sick of living in the United States of Jesustan? And, um, why are these 14 Congresscritters wasting their time with silly stuff like this when we’ve occupied 2 foreign countries and our economy is in the tank? Is it because they think the only possible way out of the mess the Republicans created is to pray? I mean, that’s SLIGHTLY less obnoxious than being merely the “party of no” but it still doesn’t get us anywhere.
Cosponsors:
Rep. Lynn Westmoreland [R-GA]
Rep. John Carter [R-TX]
Rep. James Forbes [R-VA]
Rep. John Gingrey [R-GA]
Rep. Zach Wamp [R-TN]
Rep. Todd Akin [R-MO]
Rep. Thaddeus McCotter [R-MI]
Rep. Mike Pence [R-IN]
Rep. Louis Gohmert [R-TX]
Rep. Trent Franks [R-AZ]
Rep. Jim Jordan [R-OH]
Rep. Doug Lamborn [R-CO]
Rep. Kenny Marchant [R-TX]
The only decision now is which version to use? Let the debate begin!
Thanks to Mr. Justin
#119, ‘tempt,
… none of that existed when this magical star exploded which they say lead to the beginning of all life.
Someone hasn’t been paying attention. No one said a magical star exploded. A SUPER NOVA (#108, Bubba Ray)exploded creating all the visible, and invisible, matter we can see. The exploding gases coalesced into clumps which became stars and planets. As with all matter, this produces “gravity” which tend to clump things together.
Because the planets orbit the sun, there are two conflicting forces. One, gravity, pulls the planets closer to the sun. The second, centrifugal force, wants to send the planets off into space. The slower the orbit, the greater the distance. Hence, Mercury has a much faster orbit in order to remain in equilibrium than Neptune which is much further away.
On earth, after it was created, life started. We don’t know exactly how, only that it did. Evolution progressed to the point that plants and animals evolved. Although some drugs are obtained from animals, most are derived from plants.
All this can be demonstrated by science. If you have some evidence that science is wrong, then I am more than sure the scientists involved would love to hear from you. Anecdotal or bible based evidence doesn’t count.
Please read some of the links provided by Misanthropic Scott.
#114 – Nimby,
In #109, you said, “researchers test on mice, rats, pigs, rhesus monkeys, and (despicably) chimps.” Why is it despicable to test on chimps but not monkeys?
It’s probably despicable to test on either. Chimps are merely so smart that it’s incredibly obvious how much they are suffering. So, I can find no argument that would possibly make me think it is ever OK to test on them.
Perhaps the same is true of monkeys. It’s often a harder argument to make though.
In all cases of animal testing, we must weigh the benefit of the test with the suffering caused. And, we must do everything in our power to minimize the suffering, especially since it also has the side effect of making the test better with emotionally and physically healthy animals.
Since chimp testing is normally done when the drug is damn near ready for production, I would argue that human volunteers can be found at that time.
There’s also the very special aspect that some of the chimps have been home raised. Jane Goodall told a story at a lecture at the American Museum of Natural History, here in NYC.
She was walking through a laboratory. She saw a chimp sitting in a small cage speaking in American Sign Language … signing over and over again … two words … “Help me!”
Truly heart-wrenching.
Overall though, I agree wholeheartedly, all animal testing must be very thoroughly examined for human treatment and for benefits that outweigh the suffering of the animals involved. And, yes, even rats and mice suffer … visibly.
BTW, I also do think that humane slaughter of animals for meat, emphasis on humane, rather than beginning to hack off limbs with a chainsaw while the animal is still kicking, is not necessarily cruel. Most medical testing is worse.
#115 – worthy of my contempt,
Gravity is your answer to the question how did these atoms get together after exploding and decide what life to form?
No. “Gravity” was my answer to how they got together. “They didn’t decide” was my answer to your incredibly stupid second part that assumed a decision had to be made.
Since when is there gravity in space? Judging from all those spacewalks the lack of gravity was a problem to overcome.
I can’t answer this without being insulting. You really just are that stupid. I’m sorry you’re so stupid. But, you are.
Yes. There is gravity in space you moran. That’s why the Hubble Space Telescope orbits the earth rather than careening off into space. Ditto for the moon. Ditto for the Earth around the Sun. Ditto for all of the other planets and their moons and rings. Gravity in space is also why we occasionally get hit by meteors, comets, and human made space debris.
How do you think that stuff falls towards us? Intelligent Falling?
Oh, and I answered every single one of your questions. Which answers did you miss?
#119 – worthy of my contempt,
You walked in a bit late. According to Bubba Ray, Misanthropic Scott and Floyd, none of that existed when this magical star exploded which they say lead to the beginning of all life.
Gravity existed. Who said it didn’t? Not me. Certainly not a professional astronomer like BubbaRay.
#121 – Mr. Fusion,
Nearly entirely correct, of course. I have a couple of minor corrections just because I am that anal-retentive.
1) The supernova of a much larger star barfed out that which later became our solar system, not the entire observable universe. We are indeed star barf (or star stuff or star dust, if you prefer).
2) I think you mean centripetal force. Centrifugal force does not technically exist. The appearance of it is actually just a result of objects continuing in a straight line in the absence of any other force. So, without gravity to supply the centripetal force, the Earth and other planets would simply fly off in whatever direction they were heading at the time.
BubbaRay, did I get that right?
from what i gather here, being a true conservative means that you can take the religious teachings written in a single book as absolute fact, without context, without interpretation, without judgment.
is that correct?
#125, Scott,
I’ll accept the corrections as is. With a tip of the hat.
But do you really think ‘temp will accept that we are just a star’s fart?
The science behind all of this sounds very cool, even intriguing. But the one thing I have noticed from everyone is that it is all conjecture. Many condemn religion for the same practice but there doesn’t seem to be much difference here.
For the sake of argument lets say your way of random chance is correct. The question still remains who created all these objects and forces that set off this evolution of life in the first place?
Perhaps you are right, but you just refuse to admit that there is intelligence behind the structure. Something to think about.
#127 – Mr. Fusion,
I’m having a hard time imagining him acknowledging that he ever read our replies.
Star fart!! I love it. A big gas cloud indeed! The gas giant planets are where the methane and other gases coalesced. The solid rockier planets are where the skid marks coalesced. What a great image!!
Better late than never.
#2 dogday – “Mock the Republican bill as you should but don’t mock the holy name of God.”
On the contrary, we should absolutely mock the holy name of God. Your God can’t get his glorious message of love and peace across to his minions, so instead they beat each other up and torture and massacre each other. Maybe that’s what God wants. I’m not sure whether or not you may actually believe that to be so, or if it is true whether or not you find that reasonable, but if so all the more reason to mock his unholy holy name. He’s either an incompetent boob who lacks the social skills to communicate with his creation, or he’s a vicious beast who wants people to slaughter each other because it amuses him.
Or, a third option: he doesn’t exist! Those are your only available logical options. Pick the one that confuses you the least.
#6 freethinker – “The only thing sillier than a republican is a republican with a bible in it’s hand.”
Freethinker, stop being redundant. Every Republican has a Bible in their hand. The few that aren’t holding the *Christian* Bible are holding Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”, Goldwater’s “Conscience of a Conservative”, or Ann Coulter’s “I’m a Flaming Idiot and If I Keep Shouting the Same Lies Over and Over Again Someone is Bound to Believe Me”, each book stupider than the next. Conservatism IS, after all, a faith-based political orientation, not based on logical analysis or reasoning, just on believing the same wrong things they’ve believed for a hundred years are “still” right.
#128 – contempt,
You’re getting better now. I’ll tone it down a bit.
This is not conjecture. There is hard scientific evidence for the vast majority of it. Second generation stars are where there are heavy elements. There are none around first generation stars.
The problem with assuming intelligence is behind it is that you end up in endless recursion. If you are incapable of believing in the randomness of the universe, how do you explain the creation of an intelligent being who can go around creating such universes at the rate of one a week?
Further, the big bang is completely consistent with another of the most tried and proven scientific theories we have, quantum mechanics.
Quantum mechanics completely and utterly denies cause and effect at the quantum level. Particles pop in and out of existence at random all the time. Those who do not allow for them in their calculations get incorrect results that do not match observations.
The universe at the time of the big bang was in a quantum state. That it could have simply popped into existence is well within the realm of possibility of quantum mechanics.
God, on the other hand, being an allegedly intelligent and complex creature (for thought requires complexity) would not be in a quantum state, so must be explained.
Was there a god creator? How about a god creator creator? And a god creator creator creator? The problem of this is normally stated with the expression “turtles all the way down.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down
#131 Irrelevant, immaterial and incompetent…in reference to the God who judges us.
For example, if another God made the God who made us…and you appear before the God who made us and say:
“God, I didn’t heed Your warning You would judge me for my sins…because I knew there must be a God made you…and then a God who made the God who made You…and then another God who made that God…ad infinitum…therefore I didn’t know who to listen to…”
God can rightly reply, just as any court in our country does, and say “While I am not the Supreme Court, I have authority to judge you…I made you…therefore you should listen to me just as I would have listened to the God who made me…if such a One actually existed.”
Therefore, as the supposed paradox is irrelevant to the Judgment of God…the endless Turtle analogy is incompetent.
#130 You are irrational:
Your God can’t get his glorious message of love and peace across to his minions…
Jesus spoke only 3 1/2 years in a backwater country of the Roman Empire…
Yet our calendar makes the years since his birth (approximately), everyone in the world knows who He is and have a darn good idea it was a glorious message of love and peace…and everyone has known this every century since He spoke…
And you say God never got His message across therefore you can mock him…
Consistent with your argument…you should now be curled up in fetal position, in absolute terror lest anything you say about His name be taken as “mocking”…
#133 Alfred1, your God’s incredibly poor communication skills are well enough illustrated by the simple fact that sincere, intelligent students of the Bible often come to remarkably different conclusions regarding meaningful matters dealing with how the deity orders them to live.
However, if that isn’t a clear enough demonstration, then consider the case of Abraham and Sarah. The Biblical myth says that Abraham was promised a child at a time when Sarah was thought to be past her childbearing years. The precise nature of this promise was so completely ambiguous that Abraham thought he was supposed to have sex with Sarah’s servant Hagar in order to fulfill God’s promise of a son. According to your legend, no man at the time was closer to God than Abraham, yet God communicated so incompetently with his single best human friend that the miscommunication caused Abraham to commit the despicable act of adultery, thinking that adultery was what God had intended for him.
Next to your deity, George W. Bush was a master communicator of incomparable skill. The Biblical myth continually falls apart under even nominal scrutiny.
If religion had ANY AFFECT on people..
wouldnt ALL these representatives and congress, be filled with VERY GOOD/NICE/CONSIDERATE/KNOWLEDGEABLE people?
#134 You are also irrational…as documented by your unsound argument, blaming the wrong party…
As humans arrive at vastly different conclusions whenever complex matters ON ANY SUBJECT are interpreted…you are special pleading.
Contrary to your non sequitur, the data proves humans often come to remarkably different conclusions regarding meaningful matters dealing with how the deity orders them to live, because they are humans– not machines and not perfect.
So, in in the tiny little mind of Alfred1, God’s best friend and servant on the entire planet (Abraham) misunderstood God so completely that he committed one of the most immoral of sins in pursuit of what he thought God wanted, and poor little Alfred1 cannot bring himself to admit that the incompetent communicator shares a portion of the blame for the disastrous misunderstanding that resulted in a child born out-of-wedlock. It was all Abraham’s fault, not God’s.
Fortunately the asylum has room for one more patient, although the straightjacket may not fit you perfectly without alterations
The idea of “The Separation of Church and State” is so the government can’t discriminate again any of its citizens, based on whatever flavor of the month (or year) religion these politician decide to “get behind”. The King of England used Catholicism as a means to persecute the Protestants (in England and America). And the framers of the US Constitution had this abuse of belief systems, in mind, when they added that clause forbidding government from taking sides, in religious matters.
And having seen just how immoral and corrupt both Republican and Democrat leaders, and representatives, have been, over the years. I can’t say I’d ever want (or trust) them to be a judge or advocate of my, or anyone else’s, belief system. Most likely they’d twist it to serve their own greedy and corrupt needs. Just as they’ve done with matters of commerce and finance. After the damage the DMCA has caused. Do you really want Congress to start “interpreting” the Bible (any or every version) to fit their current flavor of ethics.
#132 Alfred1 said, on May 12th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
#131 Irrelevant, immaterial and incompetent…in reference to the God who judges us.
[snip]
Therefore, as the supposed paradox is irrelevant to the Judgment of God…the endless Turtle analogy is incompetent.
You misunderstand the point of the turtles all the way down argument. It points out the fallacy of the idea that a god must have been required to create the universe.
For, if one is to believe that there must be a prime mover or a creator or whatever one chooses to call it, then there must be an infinite number of such beings.
The logic that there must be a creator flies up its own asshole in endless recursion.
I do not intend to ask god not to judge me because there is a god god and a god god god. I intend not to ask god to judge me because there are no gods at all. Note, I intend not to ask god for anything, not I intend to ask god not to judge.
The difference is I cannot ask god for anything when there is no god.
The hypothetical god creator et al are all intended to show the fallacy of the first hypothetical god.
#133 – Alfred1,
Jesus spoke only 3 1/2 years in a backwater country of the Roman Empire…
As if there is even good reason to believe that Jesus as a flesh and blood human ever even existed …
http://tinyurl.com/34amgh
I’m personally not going to take one incredibly well written and well documented web page as authoritative. It just makes me agnostic about even the most basic question of Jesus’ supposed life. And, of course, even if he existed, it doesn’t change whether god does. At most, he was an interesting and persuasive philosopher. It’s just as likely though that he was simply a character in an allegorical work of fiction in a style that was popular at the time.