Just calling it like it is, folks…
CU biologists get death threatsBy PAULA PANT Colorado Daily Staff WriterThursday, July 12, 2007 9:26 PM MDTLast weekend more than a dozen envelopes bearing the image of skull and crossbones and containing letters threatening the lives of CU-Boulder evolutionary biology professors were slipped under the doors of CU-Boulder buildings.According to a reprint of the letter posted online, the threat reads: ?every true Christian should be ready and willing to take up arms to kill the enemies of Christian society.??EBIO (evolutionary biology) professors are terrorists against America and ? intellectual and spiritual child abusers of their young and impressionable students ? the EBIO department not only blasphemes God, who is invisible, but it blasphemes His Only Begotten Son and our Messiah, Jesus Christ, which is more unforgivable ? for all these reason all God-fearing and Truth-loving persons must say, They must go!?CU officials won’t name a suspect, but numerous sources close to the case say the letters – as well as a barrage of threatening e-mails – were signed ?Michael Korn.? Menacher ?Michael? Korn is a 49-year-old Israeli national and former Messianic Jew who says he was baptized into Christianity in the Sea of Galilee seven years ago and is now on a mission to convert Jews and Muslims. His blog, JesusOverIsrael. blogspot.com, references CU-Boulder specifically and says he lives in Denver, although he has a North Carolina area code.
Where is that lightning strike when you need it??Thx Lee
We assume this using our limitations as the norm. About no life in a vacuum cleaner and that stuff.
Actually what do we know?
We know that George W. leads the USA, and our leaders are a reflection of us. Say no more, nudge, nudge, wink wink.
“About no life in a vacuum cleaner and that stuff.”
I wasn’t talking about a vacuum cleaner. Is that what you thought? Talk about limitations!
“our leaders are a reflection of us.”
Speak for yourself. I didn’t vote for shrub and he sure as hell isn’t a reflection of ME, or my husband, or my family, or my friends. ‘Nuff said?
Tony
Is that the George W. that 65% of “us” now disapprove of?
Tony
Bwhahahaha this is just beautiful. If a word looks vaguely similar to another then it must be related. LOLOLOL
Tony,
In other words, when one accepts the bible, they become blind to all the evidence to the contrary.
Do you even understand what the word ‘theory’ means? The BB theory and the theory of evolution are theories BECAUSE ALL THE EVIDENCE SUPPORTS THEM. If it didn’t, they would have to be reformulated, or thrown out completly as new knowledge becomes available.
Tony:
Oh, hey, someone calls you on a new ‘theory’, you play coy by pointing out a typo? I really don’t care THAT much about the spelling. I want to hear about this new theory that’s supposed to supplant the BB. Come on, you dropped a hint, now put up.
Wrong-o buckaroo – it’s YOUR side that says ’something from nothing’.
Let’s try it in Latin then – ex nihil nihilo fit.
‘Almighty’? Anyone here go to the Church of the Holy Hydrogen? No?
Onwards.
Your efforts to make it sound like a fairy tale are puerile at best…
‘Counter galaxies’? WTF are you talking about there? String theory?
2 words: compounded simplicity.
Let’s see if I’ve got YOUR version right:
There was just this 1 entity, all alone inside nothingness. He waves his hand, and POOF! Everything appears, just as it is, the way we see it today. He makes his kids break his rules, chains them to the earth & death, & forces ’sin’ on each & every innocent child born long after the original trespass occurred. He then sacrifices himself to himself for a mistake HE made, & presents billions upon billions of folks (some who were never even EXPOSED to this ‘watershed’ event) w/a choice: believe or burn.
All leading up to this, he has his ‘chosen people’ slaughter other nations, snuffs out folks for laughable transgressions (David taking a census he was COMMANDED to), breaks his own rules whenever he wants to, & generally does a piss poor job of designing his ‘children’ properly.
Have I missed anything?
Outta the 2 of us, I’d say your version is terribly fucked up.
& ‘god’ spelled backwards is ‘dog’.
Woof-woof.
I don’t care how good your English is, but your is logic is tres terrible.
Hey Kryssie, hold with the WTF’s.
Why are you getting so warm around the gills?
I do not, like you have to support anything I say, but if you want just type, fractal universe, into that little space in whatever search engine you use and there you go.
That was nice, I just had a lekker sandwhich and now I am going to enjoy my coffee.
This God-thing that seems to bring on this fit of frustration amongst the “athiestic” community is probably because you have a complete misconception of what this God stuff is all about. You accuse me of not knowing much about the stuff you so passionately defend. Aside, I know enough to understand what theory means, it is just that it is an educated argument supported by supposed “logical” steps joined together by one very misleading word “IF”! Now back to God. God is not human, understand this then the rest becomes a wee bit clearer. Lets for the sake of this argument leave Jesus out of this for the moment. Where and how God came to be is beyond our mental capabilities, God is omni-everything, God is not defined in the physical nor in spirit.
Unfortunately man in his inability to explain this to himself, gave God a nature or attempted to, man tried to give God a gender or a paternity to encompass God’s caring and love. I myself do not understand this, this is the mystery of it all.
Why the universe is as it is I do not know. I am sure those interested in the physical sciences will love to inform me how things operate and why. How we came to be, I have a vague idea, it has something to do with biology, and we are subject to a very finite life in a very finite world controlled by very observable things in nature, but this does not preclude the role of “other” influences. Whether it be called supernatural or alien or whatever. There is enough examples of some very strange happennings on this planet of ours, if it were left entirely up to me and I was never shown or taught anything I would have put it all down to “….thats the way it is….” and left it at that. But there is something larger than little old man out there and we have to somehow change our way of “thinking” about this. This is going to sound silly, but why do we go to so much trouble to hone our minds to a particular pattern of thinking such as done in schools under the auspices of education, which to my mind is nothing more than blanket mind control and here on this site you can see the results of that. I mean have you seen a dog catch a frisbee? the dog did not have to figure out the entire mathematical equation of the speed of the frisbee the arc of the throw the force generated and the deceleration of the speed and the effect of gravity etc etc the dog saw the frisbee chased, jumped and caught it. The dog’s wee little brain did all this on it’s own and released the dog to perform this act without any effort. We do the same without even being conciously aware of it. So why don’t we use our time to really explore an entirely different way of “seeing” this reality and not attempt to logically explain everything to the point of even being so bold as to foolishly claim there is no God, There is nothing.
What is the downfall of logic? Monty Python points it out quite amusingly,
“…if all mackeral are fish, then logically speaking, all fish are mackeral…” not so?
Tony,
Since you seem to have an afinity for Monty Python…You’re a looney!
Tony:
Say whaaat? Oh, that’s right: religious folks get free passes.
Sorry, cart blanche has been revoked. We BOTH need to back up our claims. I’m always up for it: you, obviously aren’t.
No Wiki pages, no answer pages, no links provided by said proponent. How many physicists/astrophysicists are enamored of it? Any? Are we talking fringe theories here, or what? I’m more than willing to listen. Do explain how your deity fits inside a Mandelbrot.
& yeah, we’ve pretty much heard all that ‘gawd ain’t human, gawd is so far outta our senses’ tripe before. It’s called ‘god of the gaps’. Outside of space & time (Psalms 90:4), yada, yada, yada.
There IS no god. But there’s definitely something. It’s just not supernatural, nor does it bear any resemblance to us. That’s pure ego talking.
I get it. Instead of using our amazing capacity for exploring and understanding how the world works, we should just be more like dogs.
Is that the official fundie line, Tony?
Tony,
I find it so deliciously ironic that you would post in a thread with this title.
sadly I feel a desire to deconstruct and lampoon your latest effort – but only because it is so deserving of derision.
Why the fuck should he? Who made you the language police?
I suspect it’s because it is hard to conceive in this environment, one who arguments could be more vapid than yours and yet still be in earnest.
And in doing so consign everything you say to the same worthless trash heap.
You might be wise to step away from the caffine.
And yet most of the god-botherers claim to know what the “god-thing” is all about. But then again these god-botherers don’t agree among themselves. Therefore you and your ilk have as much claim to knowing truth as everyone who sees it differently. I just look at each of you and realize that you are as devoid of knowledge as those you deem to be wrong, misguided, or ignorant.
This is plainly not the case. The sad thing is you probably actually think you do possess this knowledge.
And that is a self-proclaimation of abject ignorance. Please look up the concept of a scientic Theory in any reputable source
Take the word “human” out of the statement “God is not human” and you’ll be on the right track.
But according to your mythology they are two aspects of the same tripartate entity (mindfuck alert). Surely they are inseperable?
Beyond yours for sure, but there is a very simple answer to your question: God came from the imaginations of men and women long since dead.
Please tell me how it is possible to be both omnipotent and omniscient? One is a logical contradiction of the other.
Actually gods are seldom defined at all, that way god-botherers can bend the concept to fit the realities with which they are faced.
one needs to anthropormorphize a concept make it available to the masses man tried to give God a gender or a paternity to encompass God’s caring and love. Again, more likely anthropomorphism
It is no mystery that you do not understand, your lack of comprehension in directly related to your unwillingness to concede the most obvious resolution.
But you would tell others that it’s because your god makes it so
I’m sure they are happy for you to read and discover this for yourself.
ya think??
Neither does it preclude invisible pink unicorns flying around your house, but since there is as much evidence for that latter as for society’s gods it is unreasonable to assert the existence of either.
Where’s your sense of curiosity? Aren’t you interested in an explanation? Saying “that’s just the way it is” is practically indistinguishable from saying “that’s the way god made it”
I think you’ll find that it’s mostly theists that put man on a special high place. Atheists tend to see man as just another animal on an insignificant world, in an insignificant solar system, in a rather normal galaxy, etc, etc.
You’re right. and because it does the job so well I’m going to comment no further.
HeatheNZ,
I admire your tenacity. My head would have exploded half way through that exercise in futility, you just completed. That is why I resort to unbridled ridicule so quickly with people like Tony. It has the same effect as arguing with them, (none) but it’s much easier on my part.
Tony:
I did a google search on “Fractal Universe” and found a slide show full of pretty pictures, but not much in the way of math or science. I took a look at Colin Hill’s accompanying PDF-book, and after reading the first few pages, this thing is screaming out “pseudo-science”.
I skipped ahead to where he attempts a definition of fractal, and I can only assume that he got his idea of what a fractal is from a popular book on the subject. It’s a real problem when sexy ideas like fractals or quantum mechanics make their way into popular literature, because it gives some lay-people the idea that they really know what they’re all about, when in fact to really understand them you need to do some heavy lifting.
It’s also telling that no where does Mr. Hill give any sort of university affiliation, or describe what his education or profession is. The best he can offer is some anecdotes about an astronomy club he belongs to.
I suggest that you not put too much weight on Mr. Hill’s “findings”.
This was all that I saw regarding cosmology and fractals when I googled “fractal universe”, so if you have another source, and I’m just beating up straw men, then by all means let me know.
HeathNZ….huh?
You make such broad sweeping general observations, I would suggest you stick to what you Kiwis know best, and that is rugby!
Tony de Lucchi,
I take it that means that you either failed to comprehend my criticism, or were unable to form a defense. Either way it leaves you woefully short of making a case.
HeatheNZ….
Yes I failed miserably to comprehend it. And I was unable to form a defense.
So F…… what!
To take anything and fractionalise it then proceed to rip it apart is easy.
First of all you wish me to understand your mindset, which I actually do, without you even attempting to shift your paradigms, you just stubbornly wish to trash anything that has the vaguest hint of a diety. How singularly limited!
A rugby ball looks like this, see 0
A soccer ball looks like this, see o
The sides dress similarly, all have numbers on their backs, have another guy running around with a whistle, have two other gentlemen, running up and down the sidelines with flags.
Similarity ends there. A soccer player thinks differently to a rugby football player, the objects although similar are very different.
Now this is Atheism as opposed to Theism, both look similar. Arguments are similar in context not content. The aims are the same, to prove the one is right and the other is wrong, but their originating and pivotal point of their arguments are worlds apart. So when I decided to debate this I asked myself: “What if there is no God?” how would I approach this subject. Then I read the horse-shit written here by the supposed well versed athiests and I find these are not people who just do not believe in God or anything, these are just over opinionated arseholes who think they know even more than anybody else and are so self-absorbed that they will not even consider an alternate point of view or even stop to ask themselves why is it that some very, and I mean very intelligent people actually believe in God!
I am going to ask you a very simple question, I am not being rude, just THINK before you answer:
Just who or what do you actually think you are?
“But there is something larger than little old man out there and we have to somehow change our way of “thinking” about this.”
Hey! Why does it have to be a “little old man”? What about a little old woman? WTF is wrong with that?
“Now this is Atheism as opposed to Theism, both look similar.”
Wrong! Okay, here’s an analogy, atheism is to theism as white is to black, as up is to down, as in is to out, as hot is to cold.
Not similar, but opposite.
“Just who or what do you actually think you are?”
Keep in mind, oh wise one, we’re not the ones “searching”. You are. We know what and who we are. We evaluate, accept or reject evidence, you look up. We embrace the scientific methods that provide us with answers, you look up, we are facinated by evidence that allows us to understand our past, and to help us shape our future, you look up.
It is those who continously look up that will eventually fall into a hole.
….We embrace the scientific methods that provide us with answers, you look up, we are facinated by evidence that allows us to understand our past, and to help us shape our future, you look up…..
Sweet!
Science provides us with answers?
What has science done for us?
We still die …
We are still poor ….
We are still at war …
We still have disease ….
We still starve ….
We still get cold ….
We are still are no different than we were when we were running around in leather underwear stealing wives from neibouring villages…..
…science is the answer, we might know how far the closest star is, not because any of us here went out with a tape measure and ACTUALLY measured it, we rely on some geek with glasses to figure out the speed of light as opposed to the gas emmissions and other seemingly insignificant data to tel1 us how far it is and we sommer believe him…..big hairy deal, but what do we, you, me, actually know ourselves we only know what others tell us.
If I took you or any of us and dropped us either in the Amazon or the Kalhari would we survive with all our supposed intelligence and without our cell phones? Yes we know where the sun rises in the east, but let me take you to another place completely alien to your surroundings, even the sun would appear to rise on the opposite side of the sky. I was at a time in the army and they loved these kind of games with us city boys and I can say quite candidly I was clueless.
So we sit in front of moniters puffed up with importance and relishing our 15 minutes of fame that Andy Wharhole promised us, and only I seem to use my born name, and we spout other people’s wisdom and claim them as our own, for what? Our own vainglorious attempt at sounding intelligent what fools we are…..what utter little people we are….there are people out here in Africa dying over things we take for granted, like clean running water…..but we or rather you will bicker because I believe in God! Yes I believe in God, because believing in MAN has made me bitterly disappointed and God does not lie to me, and God has no hidden agenda, and God has no bogeyman hiding in any secret service, and here is one to blow your mind, God actually does answer prayers that is why I pray because we pray here in Africa because this is the only insurance we have, we do not have a glossy media telling us how good bad people really are, we have nothing but our faith in God and bullets from the sons of allah shooting at us….
Tony:
Yes, your invisible sky daddy supposedly arranged all that…
Yes, because he doesn’t exist.
I’ve heard this same sorta speech from cat ladies. “Cats don’t lie, cats don’t disappoint, they’re honest, no secret agendas, yaddayaddayadda.”
So let’s see – we’ve got nothing else but prayer, so it HAS to work?
Oh, sour gr_apes so ill becomes you.
Every piece of ‘evidence’ you’ve brought to the table is thoroughly shredded. So now you whine, “Why won’t you listen to me? Waahh.”
Best you can throw out is some fringe theory about fractalism, which you can’t even expound upon at length. Along w/some run-on sentences in something that barely resembles prose.
Your entire structure is built around a dim appeal to wonder.
Can’t take the heat? Stay outta the kitchen, then.
Tony de Lucchi,
Well that deserves bonus points for honesty. I mean surely you’re not trying to be sarcastic are you?
It’s easy when it’s as puerile as the stuff you have thus far presented. Why not try to improve your game and write something that doesn’t warrant as a waste of pixels?
You think a little too highly of yourself here. I do not wish anything from you, neither do I fell any obligation to comply to your designs on my psyche. I am mere a reader, assessor, and excoriator of your turgid arguments. I sincerely doubt that you know anything of substance about me.
They do not
True. Arguments germane to both atheism and theism do revolve around the same subject.
Interesting conjecture you state as fact. I’m going to dispute it however. I don’t think either side aims for proof. Theism advocates absolute faith as an end, and faith cannot by definition exist in conjunction with proof. Atheism advocates reason and evidence to support a positions. As with the scientific method every conclusion is provisional pending further evidence.
Are the really? We both start with the same evidence, and often the same indoctrination. Perhaps you could enlarge on what you think the differing originations and pivots are?
Well that sounds like a good starting position. Well done.
Au contraire. People here are from all walks and claim not pretensions to being “well-versed atheists”. Over-opinionated arseholes? Sure, I’ll cop to that, but make no apology for it to you or anyone else. If you have the intellectual nous to present a lucid argument to the contrary then I will welcome it. I’ll even concede points well made. But by the same token, if you regurgitate stale old arguments that have been demolished more times than Paris Hilton’s chastity I will gleefully treat them with the contempt they deserve.
It’s a damn good question they I struggle with constantly. The best answer i have is that they are so heavily invested and/or indoctrinated in the theistic position that they are too scared to look honestly and objectively at the question for fear of what they might find, and what they think they might lose.
Wow – you want me to think this early in the morning? Your question is a very open question, but I’ll try to give you an answer if you’ll do the same in response.
Okay. I think I am a human being, closely related to all terrestrial life, living in the 21 century on planet Earth.
I strongly suspect that I have one life to live and if I’m lucky and careful I will die in my sleep around 80 or so years of age.
I think I am a very tiny step in a huge evolutionary chain and as such my biological purpose is to pass on my genetic information to the next generation.
I think that the evolutionary quirk oft known as intelligence has given me the opportunity to override my biological imperative and seek other ambitions for fulfillment.
I hope that gives you a taste of what you are looking for.
Your turn.
Theists (they should really be referred to as “weak atheists” since they don’t believe in thousands of gods, and only believe in one or two) always seem to be very confused about where the burden of proof lies re: god(s).
Tony
Since prayer really works, how long have you been praying for clean running water there in Africa?
KA
Hey, Hey HEY!!!! Watch it with the cat lady remarks my dear friend. I resemble that remark!
Besides, it’s all true, about the cats, that is. At least they exist.
And as the honorable tk budpie would say, “That’s good enough for me!”
Meeeeoooowwww!
Tony:
Are you serious?? Would you really want to go back to a time before, say, the Enlightenment? If you can’t see how science and technology has made our lives vastly better, I can’t imagine how I could convince you.
Do you really believe that science has not greatly helped humanity?
Karen (aka tk budpie):
Sorry, darlin’, about the cat crack.
(sophomoric chuckling is heard in the background.)
Usually that’s the list of animal lovers all over – you know where you stand w/a pet. Not so w/people.
I’m a dog lover meself, but I’ve a fondness for the feline as well.
People are at the top of my pyramid.
True dat. (are the kids still saying that these days?)
Karen South Africa is not really Africa. Not yet at least.
….they are too scared to look honestly and objectively at the question for fear of what they might find, and what they think they might lose. ….
That is rather ambiguous, you even think for them….mmm I wonder if any further debate is really prudent here seeing as you turn everything to your own view.
As to who or what I am as I asked you well….I have been around awhile, I am exactly as you percieve me to be, a fundamentalistic pain-in-the-arse Christian, actually even worse I am a Catholic on top of it all. Yes I am familar with Augustine, Aquinas and others of their ilk and I have read quie a wide variety of the Gnostic Gospels. I have had a passing interest in taoism, buddahism, hinduism and even perused the koran. I have also searched, disbelieved and sought answers in science but science for all that is worth; if it does not fit on a bunsen burner anything goes for every theory there is an opposing one, like the song says there are more questions than answers.
The only bit that makes sense is God, not any God but that Jewish one. The others well I doubt if I have the time or you the interest for me to attempt to show you that ALL religion, besides Islam, have a common origin. In closing I would add belief in God is not as many atheists assume just a big stick to force people to act morally we would do that because it is just self serving anyway.
Now that is it. All I can ask of you athiests is to THINK….take another look at what is around us, really just another look and look with your mind not your eyes. Do not bother to answer me directly cos I will not return to this site in the future because talking to brick walls seems to only resound with my own voice and personally I really get tired of talking to myself. Bye for now!
Oh darn.