Warcraft3

I disagree, since I dont use it that way myself.

*An observation*I must say I find the attitude of many of the atheists on this forum to be fascinating. Many of them remind me of fundies. Of course not all atheists and Christians have such attitudes and for that I am thankful.



Russ

Warcraft3

Sarcasm not your strong suit?


Russ

Warcraft3

No, it was an attempt to make a post which was sarcastic and insulting(in a subtle way). While it was just a tad bit insulting, the sarcasm wasnt even funny.


Russ

pz

It doesn't seem to be yours.

Please look again at the phrases you highlighted. What's being insulted? The bible and the concept of god. A book of dreck and a mythical speck of vapor.

I'll apologize to god when he sends me a pm and asks for one.

pz

Hmmm. You've just made several posts which you admit were attempts to be sarcastic, and which were definitely attempts to be insulting. They weren't subtle, though -- is the subtlety the part you find offensive?

For the record, I thought Loren's post was amusing and enlightening. And definitely hermeneutical. I don't see how you can possibly argue that it was not hermeneutical.

Doubting Didymus

You mean shared DNA between modern humans and fossil homonids? It's possible that the reason we haven't found that record is because fossils don't have DNA. We do, however, share almost all of our DNA with chimps.

Warcraft3

Okay folks here is an observation from one of the few Christians who posts on this board............

I have read many of your threads (and have been doing so long before I registered) here in the E/C section. There are not too many Christians who post here, so usually the threads end up just being back slapping sessions mocking some YEC.

Now thats all fine and dandy, but in addition to that I see a somewhat arrogant attitude displayed and often it goes beyond arrogant to just plain rude.

I have tried to have discussions with people here, and on a few occasions my views have been met with a ridiculous attitude for no good reason.

I dont care if you are an atheist or a Christian, and I dont care if you dont like the other viewpoint........just dont put your emotional hangups on me----thats all I ask.

I think Denis probably reacted (he did go overboard though) to the feeling of being "attacked" by people in this forum. Whether he was justified or not can be debated, but I think the attitude of some people here is what upset him.

I see good arguments for both atheism and theism, and more specifically for Christianity. So I think both sides deserve some respect.

Mocking someones view rarely gets a positive response.


Russ

excreationist

steadele:
"I see good arguments for both atheism and theism, and more specifically for Christianity. So I think both sides deserve some respect."
Maybe a lot of people are worried that if creationism (or ID?) is treated with too much respect, others will think it has scientific credibility and therefore should be taught in schools. But anyway, I agree that it is good to show people and maybe even viewpoints respect but the moderators here aren't very strict about enforcing that.

Denis Lamoureux:
You still haven't responded to the points I made earlier. In fact, the only thing you've done related to me was to requote what you said to me about Terror Management Theory.
You've asserted that my view of the Bible (that its writers intended it to be taken literally) is a simplistic strawman hermeneutic but you haven't properly justified why.
Well it is good that you attempted to use some everyday English in your recent post to replace the unnecessary jargon. Surely you can demonstrate why you think the way we do in a language we can understand, rather than try to use arguments from authority. And it would be good if you concentrated on my relevant arguments rather than ignoring most of them and talking about irrelevant things.
Well if you want to convince people of your point of view, you need to respond to our questions properly (not dismissing or ignoring them) and not making personal attacks and proclaiming your superior credentials and asserting that your view of the authors of Genesis's intentions are correct. Just because you teach your view at university it doesn't prove to me that your views about the Genesis authors are correct. There would be others who teach opposing views at universities - such as ones who don't believe in God. (They'd see Genesis as a collection of man-made stories) So you need to make your case using rational arguments, not arguments from authority, etc. BTW, even steadele thinks you went "overboard" - and his beliefs would be a bit like yours - he's a liberal Christian.

Denis Lamoureux

PZ,
Another in need of a remedial reading course! Did I accuse you of being a "christian (sic) fundie"? Because a Christian you're not. I have indicated that the epistemology & hermeneutic (OPPS!!! CAN'T USE WORDS LIKE THIS!!!) evident in this forum is typical of fundamentalism. You are oblivious to subtlety and hopelessly mired in crude undergrad dichotomies.

In addition, you have a typical fundie attitude & behaviour as expressed by your: "You may dress it up in five-dollar words and college classes, but you're still studying crap...and that is definitely not a "fundie" attitude." Fundies talk like that--both Christian fundies & atheist fundies (like you).

Look it, you want to believe in pathetic dysteleological myths--fill your boots. Just don't try to cover it with your pseudo-intellectual facist bullshit.

Denis

excreationist

Denis Lamoureux:
Why don't you teach us yourself? But remember that we mightn't take your word as being the final authority on the matter, even though you teach at a university. You need to justify your assertions like we are supposed to.
But that might be too much hard work for you.

Just because a view about the Bible is fundamentalist or simplistic, it doesn't prove that it is therefore false.
I'm talking about what message the ancient Hebrew authors intended to convey and what their contemporaries (ancient Hebrew scholars) thought. The traditional Jewish calender was based on calculations by ancient Hebrew scholars who in turn assumed that the genealogies were literal. Also, most early Christians believed in literal genealogies. You conveniently ignored my mentioning of the ancient Hebrew scholars, but criticized me for mentioning Luther.
The only reason you gave that somehow proves that the genealogies in Genesis aren't true is that they contain a "statistically significant pattern". When questioned about this you replied to scombrid: (you ignored me)
Instead of just answering the question you say pointless stuff like that. Why? (Well I guess it doesn't matter why)

In Genesis 11:10-26, the statistically significant patterns would probably be that the generations are about every 30 years, and the lifespans gradually decrease (with some exceptions). And in Genesis 5:3-32, the average age is about 900-950... it goes up and down - not mostly down, like in Genesis 11.
You talk about "the pattern" and "a statistically significant pattern" as if there is only one pattern. But the patterns from the genealogies in Genesis 5 are different from the patterns in Genesis 11. There doesn't seem to be an overall pattern that they both fit.
They agree with the genealogies with Luke 3 - that is kind of a pattern.
Your reply was:
When asked, you didn't explain how that is supposed to prove that the authors of Genesis and Luke didn't think the genealogies were literal. After all, in the Luke genealogy, it says that people believed that Jesus's father was Joseph - if the genealogy is fictional, why not just make up a fake father's name for Jesus?

There are also a lot of other discussions which you dropped in order to pursue the new theme of your posts.