Re: Follow up Re: Alright, All You Dashing, Swaggering Bush Pilots [Archive]

pac plyer

August 20th 03, 11:45 PM

Barnyard BOb -- > wrote in message >...
> One more Time > wrote:
>
> >> Corrie > wrote:
>
> >
> >Let me repeat myself Mr. Zealot
> >
> >> just how prey tell was YOUR GOD refining HIS people
> >> when those other teenage boys and girls were shot dead.
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> May I predict....
>
> No way will you ever receive an acceptable explanation.
>
>
> Barnyard BOb --

Pac sez:

Well Bob, let me try to give them both an acceptable explanation.
O.K. Rah here it is: Loosing a few people from things like this just
isn't very important in the big scheme of things.

Corrie, your missionary supporters started it so I'll finish it. Your
ancient faith and the science worlds' methodical faith remind me of
the tale of "four blind men and an elephant." Each constantly argues
about the discoveries he's made over at "his tree" or "his snake"
without considering the possibility that the two are connected.

Just what makes a God anyway? A God, IMHO, is nothing more than a
relative comparison between greatly disparate phenomenon. You are a
God relative to the ants you smash everyday on the sidewalk. Relative
to the local tribal natives they frequently encountered, the great
Conquistadors were, by relative terms Gods. In fact, they were often
mistaken for such; ie Cortez at the Aztec shores in the 1500's.
Walking on water with their magnificent ships and then striding into
the village, unafraid of anything, mounted on their previously unseen
horses, and sitting in their marvelous suits of armor (some of those
things resembled the craftsmanship of finely fitted Mercedes Benz
autos; like the suits on display at the Tower of London.)

....Why they couldn't possibly be anything else but Gods. In the
1500's this effect was used to convert peoples all over the Spanish
empire under the sanction of the Pope (your missionary friends do the
same thing in the third world. They wow the locals with their beads
and trinkets, while taking credit for the short-field feats of the
Cessna 206.)

The Hubble telescope combined with other ground instruments and
spacecraft has made it apparent that "outer space" is anything but
empty. We keep on discovering more and more structure. It's clear to
me that relative to you dweebs this structure is part of a greater
grand design (although we'll never know in our lifetimes what it is.)
But tunneling-electron microscope images can give us a clue.

You zealots continue to try to convert the whole world into your
recent religion not realizing that evolution and science are the other
side of the God coin that you myopically stare at. Blank and White,
Who's right, who's wrong translations from more than 2000 years ago
don't cut it. As usual the truth lies in middle.

This bit of wisdom will cost you a mandatory/voluntary contribution to
the "Church in the Air." which I'm founding in about five minutes.

pacplyer
Reverand and High Captain of the holy Airwaves

Corrie

August 21st 03, 04:40 AM

(pac plyer) wrote in message >...
Pac,

You might be interested in Don Stoner's book, "A New Look at an Old
Earth." It speaks to the elephant analogy. If he hadn't written it,
I would have had to eventually. Recommended.

You're partly right, in terms of us being pretty small in the grand
scheme of things. Also right in that science only gives us part of
the picture. (Funny how some folks put their faith in science to
deliver all the answers, when the track record of science is that for
every question it answers, it raises three more. The more we learn,
the more we realize how little we know. At the very limits of our
perception, we also run smack-dab into the limits of our capability to
wrap our minds around what we observe. Quantum mechanics and
astrophysics both serve up large does of brain-bending paradox. The
hypothesis that are some things that humans simply *cannot* comprehend
has not been disproved.)

Your examples of ants and conquistadores was summed up by Arthur C.
Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic." But that's where your argument goes wrong. Faith isn't
magic, and it certainly isn't high tech. The God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob isn't the "Q" of Star Trek. Jesus isn't The Borg. Prayer
isn't a flick of Harry Potter's wand and a muttered, "Lumos!"

Your concept of God as a "relative comparison between greatly
disparate phenomenon" is also known as "God-of-the-gaps." That's a
straw man often trotted out by skeptics, but it doesn't really
describe the Judeo-Christian concept of a trancendent Creator.

Yes, people often attribute not-understood phenomena to supernatural
workings. But just because a phenomenon previously attributed to the
supernatural (say, the Bermuda Triangle) turns out to have a plausible
naturalistic explanation (the decomposition of sea-floor carbonate
formations) does NOT therefore mean that NO supernatural phenomena can
exist.

I've read that the plagues and miracles described in Exodus (and also
the legends of Atlantis, if you're so inclined) can be
naturalistically attributed to a massive volcanic eruption in the
Mediterranean. Fine by me. But would't you agree that the timing of
events - especially the sea-floor receding and then rushing back - was
just a little too convenient to be accidental? Coincidence is God's
way of maintaining anonymity, you know. :-D

Corrie

> Pac sez:
>
> Well Bob, let me try to give them both an acceptable explanation.
> O.K. Rah here it is: Loosing a few people from things like this just
> isn't very important in the big scheme of things.
>
> Corrie, your missionary supporters started it so I'll finish it. Your
> ancient faith and the science worlds' methodical faith remind me of
> the tale of "four blind men and an elephant." Each constantly argues
> about the discoveries he's made over at "his tree" or "his snake"
> without considering the possibility that the two are connected.
>
> Just what makes a God anyway? A God, IMHO, is nothing more than a
> relative comparison between greatly disparate phenomenon. You are a
> God relative to the ants you smash everyday on the sidewalk. Relative
> to the local tribal natives they frequently encountered, the great
> Conquistadors were, by relative terms Gods. In fact, they were often
> mistaken for such; ie Cortez at the Aztec shores in the 1500's.
> Walking on water with their magnificent ships and then striding into
> the village, unafraid of anything, mounted on their previously unseen
> horses, and sitting in their marvelous suits of armor (some of those
> things resembled the craftsmanship of finely fitted Mercedes Benz
> autos; like the suits on display at the Tower of London.)
>
> ...Why they couldn't possibly be anything else but Gods. In the
> 1500's this effect was used to convert peoples all over the Spanish
> empire under the sanction of the Pope (your missionary friends do the
> same thing in the third world. They wow the locals with their beads
> and trinkets, while taking credit for the short-field feats of the
> Cessna 206.)
>
> The Hubble telescope combined with other ground instruments and
> spacecraft has made it apparent that "outer space" is anything but
> empty. We keep on discovering more and more structure. It's clear to
> me that relative to you dweebs this structure is part of a greater
> grand design (although we'll never know in our lifetimes what it is.)
> But tunneling-electron microscope images can give us a clue.
>
> You zealots continue to try to convert the whole world into your
> recent religion not realizing that evolution and science are the other
> side of the God coin that you myopically stare at. Blank and White,
> Who's right, who's wrong translations from more than 2000 years ago
> don't cut it. As usual the truth lies in middle.
>
> This bit of wisdom will cost you a mandatory/voluntary contribution to
> the "Church in the Air." which I'm founding in about five minutes.
>
> pacplyer
> Reverand and High Captain of the holy Airwaves

Corrie

August 21st 03, 06:12 AM

Not surprisingly, Cap'n Rich S. came up with a jpeg of a '50's era
magazine describing the technique in detail. In brief, fly turns
around a point while the passenger winches down a bag on a looong
clothesline. Keep flying in circles until the ground crew
empties/fills it, then crank it back up.

Then go fly straight and level for a while with the windows
open.....urk.

Big John > wrote in message >...
> Have heard about the rope trick also.
>
> Seached the Internet and didn't find anything. Have passed the problem
> to some friends. Will see what they can come up with.
>
> If I had to guess, I'd say it happened many many years ago with some
> of those olden birds.
>
> Big John
> >
> >> Question, though. I had always thought it was missionary pilots, but
> >> perhaps not -- who perfected the art of flying around in circles trailing a
> >> rope in order to drop off and pick up things from the ground? I can't find
> >> any references to the technique. What the heck would I enter in a google
> >> search?

David O

August 21st 03, 12:04 PM

(Corrie) wrote:

>You're quite right, Bob. If a person is determined to disbelieve,
>then no evidence can possibly change their mind. Their worldview
>forces them to either discount or reinterpret every piece of evidence
>shown to them. Likewise, it's not possible to convince the informed,
>thoughtful believer that they are wrong, because they can answer the
>skeptics from within their worldview. (The skeptics may not be
>satisfied with the answers, but that's not the point.)

It is quite telling that your disbeliever "discounts or reinterprets
evidence" while your believer is "informed and thoughtful". In
reality, of course, a great many "informed and thoughtful"
disbelievers believe that believers "discount or reinterpret
evidence".

>My studies convinced me that Christianity is
>coherent, explanative, predicitve, internally consistent, externally
>verifiable, and even - like any good scientific hypothesis -
>falsifiable.

The faith-based beliefs of any religion, including Christianity, are
not verifiable by definition. Belief in the existence of God, gods,
heaven, or hell is faith-based.

David O -- http:.//www.AirplaneZone.com

Barnyard BOb --

August 21st 03, 02:18 PM

>The faith-based beliefs of any religion, including Christianity, are
>not verifiable by definition. Belief in the existence of God, gods,
>heaven, or hell is faith-based.
>
>David O -- http:.//www.AirplaneZone.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The odds of winning an argument against a
theistic zealot... or an atheist are about equal.

How about a controversial binary file instead to fill
the bandwidth wasted on such unwinnable matters?

Barnyard BOb --

Bernie the Bunion

August 21st 03, 07:13 PM

> Corrie > wrote:

> Check out Proverbs 14:1.

I think looking in a mirror and checking out Zealot 101
would be more appropriate.

From the Miriam Webster dictionary

Zealot - a zealous person; especially : a fanatical partisan

Corrie

August 21st 03, 07:17 PM

Barnyard BOb -- > wrote in message >...

> The odds of winning an argument against a theistic zealot... or an atheist are about equal.

I've never thought of myself as a zealot. The flycorvair guy, now
HE'S a zealot. (Have to try to keep homebuilding involved in the
thread somehow, right?) Someone has said, arguing on the Internet is
like running in the Special Olympics. Even if you win....you're still
retarded. That's as may be. I've never claimed to be the smartest
guy on this spinning rock. But as a Christian, it's my duty to "be
prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks the reason for the hope"
that I have. (1 Peter 3:15) And somewhere up this thread, someone DID
ask.

> How about a controversial binary file instead to fill
> the bandwidth wasted on such unwinnable matters?

Because then we'd be booted to a different server, silly! You can
talk all kinds of OT trash, but don't post pics!

Corrie
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those that understand
binary, and those who don't.

Bernie the Bunion

August 21st 03, 07:23 PM

> Corrie > wrote:

> Someone has said, arguing on the Internet is
> like running in the Special Olympics.
> Even if you win....you're still retarded.

Your living proof of that.

> But as a Christian, it's my duty to "be prepared to give an answer
> to anyone who asks the reason for the hope" that I have.
> (1 Peter 3:15) And somewhere up this thread, someone DID
> ask.

And you have been ramming YOUR VERSION OF GODLINESS
down our collective throats ever since.

Rich S.

August 21st 03, 08:18 PM

"Corrie" > wrote in message
om...
> snip <
> Quite true. My point is that DIS-belief is also faith-based. You
> cannot prove or disprove either the existence or non-existence of God.
> Either way, it's a matter of faith. That's all I'm saying.

Who was that who said, "Son, don't be an agnostic - be *something*!"

Rich "MY head is wet" S.

pac plyer

August 21st 03, 09:15 PM

(Corky Scott) wrote

<lots of true stuff snipped here>

Corky Scott

Great post Corky. I think you're 100% on the money. As I travelled
around the world, it became obvious that there's no escaping what
seems like mindless religion; in fact you see it all through recorded
history on every island, every out-of-the-way isolated space. It's
gotta be genetic. Mabey that's why Neandrathal (sp of my relative?)
didn't make it. He had no religion. No matter how hard you work at
digging caves to hide from religious morans, there's just no escaping
the Crusades when they sweep through your homeland. Convert or get
burned at the stake. Great choice aye? Only way out is to have an
even more ruthless religion that spends all their time developing
bigger mind-controling weapons.

Not sure were going to make it off this planet are we?

Oh well, maybe were just a religious virus in the galactic body
anyway.

pacplyer
Rah resident Cosmologist and Yogi

[email protected]

August 21st 03, 09:31 PM

On Wed, 20 Aug 2003, pac plyer wrote:

> You zealots continue to try to convert the whole world into your recent
> religion not realizing that evolution and science are the other side of
> the God coin that you myopically stare at. Blank and White, Who's
> right, who's wrong translations from more than 2000 years ago don't cut
> it. As usual the truth lies in middle.

Apparently there's a good sized chunk of the scientific picture with which
you're unfamiliar. Read this book, then come back and we can discuss it
from a more educated perspective.

Title: The Fingerprint of God
Author: Hugh Ross
ISBN: 0883686279

Should be available at any bookstore.

-Dan
(My apologies for the off topic post.)

Russell Kent

August 21st 03, 10:52 PM

"Rich S." wrote:

> Who was that who said, "Son, don't be an agnostic - be *something*!"

Robert Frost is alleged to have said that.

When asked what my religion is, I say I'm a "lapsed agnostic: I used to
wonder if there is a God, now I don't care if there is or isn't." That
usually shuts up the questioner (or would-be proselytizer)...

Russell Kent

pac plyer

August 22nd 03, 03:35 AM

gringomasloco thundered from the pulpit:

Read this book, then come back and we can discuss it
> from a more educated perspective.
>
> Title: The Fingerprint of God
> Author: Hugh Ross
> ISBN: 0883686279

I've already read all that "Late great planet earth, biblethumping
drivel by psedo-scientists and I haven't got time to waste on that.
I've got objective books by Steven Hawkins, A brief moment in time,
Robert Jastrow etc to read.

But why don't you educate yourself on this one:

Title: On the Origin of Species
Author: Charles Darwin

It's available at *all* bookstores everywhere.

Evolutionarily, Your distant relative,

pacplyer

David O

August 22nd 03, 04:16 AM

Barnyard BOb -- > wrote:

>How about a controversial binary file instead to fill
>the bandwidth wasted on such unwinnable matters?
>
>
>Barnyard BOb --

Advice from you about bandwidth wasted on unwinnable matters? Now
that is funny. ;)

David O -- http://www.AirplaneZone.com

Corrie

August 22nd 03, 08:16 AM

(pac plyer) wrote in message >...
> gringomasloco thundered from the pulpit:
>
> Read this book, then come back and we can discuss it
> > from a more educated perspective.
> >
> > Title: The Fingerprint of God
> > Author: Hugh Ross
> > ISBN: 0883686279
>
> I've already read all that "Late great planet earth, biblethumping
> drivel by psedo-scientists and I haven't got time to waste on that.
> I've got objective books by Steven Hawkins, A brief moment in time,
> Robert Jastrow etc to read.

IOW, don't confuse you with facts; your mind is made up.
Whassamatter, are you scared of a scientific worldview that allows for
the possibility that the universe didn't just happen by accident? Or
is your entire self-worth bound up in believing that you are merely
the product of random molecular collisons? But that's ok, go ahead
and keep your Foggles on. Just keep a watch out for a vacuum failure.

> But why don't you educate yourself on this one:
> Title: On the Origin of Species
> Author: Charles Darwin

You're a little behind the times. Most evolutionary scientists have
moved beyond Darwin's simplistic "survival of the fittest" model,
seeing as it fails to adequately explain the evidence. Stephen Jay
Gould had to invent the concept of "punctuated equilibria," but
recently that's come under fire, too.

But evolution is beside the point. Whether or not species
spontaneously transform into other species (and there's precious
little hard evidence to support the notion) has nothing whatsoever to
do with the existence or non-existence of a trancendent Supreme Being.
A lot of folks - believers and non-believers alike - don't get that.
But it's true.

And before someone starts ragging on me that this isn't
alt.talk.origins, please note that *I didn't bring up the subject!*

Russell Kent

August 22nd 03, 04:44 PM

> On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 16:52:30 -0500, Russell Kent >
> wrote:
>
> >When asked what my religion is, I say I'm a "lapsed agnostic: I used to
> >wonder if there is a God, now I don't care if there is or isn't." That
> >usually shuts up the questioner (or would-be proselytizer)...

Corky Scott wrote:

> Is that original Russell? That's really good!

Yep. 100% all my own, although when spoken "care if there is or isn't" is
usually pronounced "give a damn." :-)

> I heard someone say the other day: "I feel like I'm a citizen of the world
> and my religion is to do good."

I used to tell my brother, father of some delightful neices and nephew to
me, that my purpose on this Earth was "to serve as a bad example," usually
shortly after I'd taught them something of which he would have preferred
they had remained ignorant. :-)

Russell Kent

Corrie

August 22nd 03, 04:47 PM

Bernie the Bunion > wrote in message >...
> > Corrie > wrote:
>
>
> > And before someone starts ragging on me that this isn't
> > alt.talk.origins, please note that *I didn't bring up the subject!*
>
> Then stop talking about it.....

I had...... :-P

Corrie

August 22nd 03, 06:21 PM

> When asked what my religion is, I say I'm a "lapsed agnostic: I used to
> wonder if there is a God, now I don't care if there is or isn't."

How sad. Apathy and willful ignorance - what a combination. I hope
for your sake that you don't apply the same attitude toward flight
planning.

Bernie the Bunion

August 22nd 03, 07:00 PM

> Corrie > wrote:

> How sad. Apathy and willful ignorance - what a combination. I hope
> for your sake that you don't apply the same attitude toward flight
> planning.

Personally I would think that some people in this group would hope
that you don't ram god down the throats of your children, family,
neighbours, etc., with the same ad naseum zeal that you are
continuing to do in this newsgroup.

Corky Scott

August 22nd 03, 07:10 PM

On 22 Aug 2003 10:21:03 -0700, (Corrie) wrote:

>> When asked what my religion is, I say I'm a "lapsed agnostic: I used to
>> wonder if there is a God, now I don't care if there is or isn't."
>
>How sad. Apathy and willful ignorance - what a combination. I hope
>for your sake that you don't apply the same attitude toward flight
>planning.

Ah shoot, I was going to let this subject go, had created and deleted
several articles and was just backing away.

But this is just too assinine to leave alone. Corrie, he was talking
about GOD, not FLYING. Being a christian makes you a better flight
planner than agnostics?

Did this get typed a bit too quickly? Perhaps before it was thought
through all the way? Part of the way?

Is god doing your typing for you?

Corky Scott

pac plyer

August 22nd 03, 09:00 PM

(Corrie) wrote:
>
> > around the world, it became obvious that there's no escaping what
> > seems like mindless religion; in fact you see it all through recorded
> > history on every island, every out-of-the-way isolated space. It's
> > gotta be genetic.
>
> PRECISELY my point. Humans are hard-coded to worship a Power greater
> than themselves. That worship may be dreadfully misguided, but it is
> ALWAYS there.
>
> >Maybe that's why Neanderthal (sp of my relative?) didn't make it. He
> had no religion.

This was tongue-in-cheek, Cor. (I spell just like a Neanderthal, I
know) Guess I should've added a smiley here. But really, maybe his
religion didn't galvanize his buddies together as effectively as
Sapiens' did.

>
> Neadertal. Most paleoanthropologists today think that they were
> contemporaneous with early Homo Sapiens. May possibly have interbred
> with them. IIRC there are genetic studies underway to see whether
> that may have happened. (Of course, if they can interbreed, they're
> not really separate species. At least that's one definition of
> species. There are over a dozen others, several mutually exclusive.)
> It's possible that that was the source of the "Nephilim" stories in
> Genesis, as well as the "Titan" stories of Greco-Roman mythology. But
> Neadertal were not ancestors of modern humans.
>
> And I hate to correct you, but there is strong evidence that
> Neandertal was aware of and interacted with the spiritual world. Grog
> had religion.

By all means, correct me. Good one: Grog. :-) Guess his fertility
rock was no match for spear-chucking Zealots from afar.

> No matter how hard you work at digging caves to hide from religious
morans, there's just no escaping the Crusades when they sweep through
your homeland.
>
> Wow, you really ARE ignorant about history, aren't you? The Crusades
> were, oh, a few TEN THOUSAND years after the last Neandertal died.
> And the word is spelled, "moron" not "moran".

Pac sezs:

No, you're mistaken Corrie. I was not referring to the actual
Crusades of the Middle Ages. If you were a true student of history,
you would know that "religious crusades" are in the thousands, and
spread all through recorded time. We find evidence of smashed-in
skulls and religious burials all through Eurasia, the middle East,
Asia, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Africa etc. My tongue-in-cheek hypo,
about what really happened to Grog was supposed to make you laugh.
But my hypothesis that Homo Sapiens won out over the stronger
Neanderthal through the evolutionary technique of religious fervor is
entertaining, wouldn't you say? I think Corky is right that religion
is a mechanism of natural selection. (and yes, I agree with those who
say some inbreeding occurred in the same Phylum between "Grog" and
Sapiens.)

Now about "Moran." It's unfortunate you have deteriorated into a
spelling troll so quickly. But actually I'm glad you have attacked my
poor spelling. Here, Corrie, you illustrate exactly my point about
the fallacy of taking written text like the King James version of the
Bible so literally. If you where really knowledgeable about history,
you would know that the colloquial term "Moron" came from Al Capone's
1920's. And if you bother to read text from the period, you would find
the term used to be "Moran" with an "a-n" after the infamous mobster
John Moran, who, just couldn't put the dots together on a regular
basis.

>
> > Only way out is to have an even more ruthless religion that spends all their time developing bigger mind-controlling weapons.
>
> What, pray tell, are the ruthless and mind-controlling aspects of the
> Sermon on the Mount? On the other hand, you are *quite* right with
> respect to secular humanism, with its weapon of the mind-controlling
> prayer-free public school and the ruthlessly anti-religious liberal
> university.

Most of us were brain-washed in Sunday School as adolescents Corrie.
Keeping religious displays out of schools is in keeping with the
governments' job of separating Church and State. Kids can still pray,
they just aren't allowed to disrupt others with religious displays
designed to pressure those of other faiths. If it's still too
upsetting to a Zealot parent, then you can put your kid in a private
monk school or something. It's about free choice. I don't want a
teacher to countermand the religious beliefs of our immigrants. It
used to be o.k. when a region was: all Puritan for example. It's
different now. Things had to change.

Thank God though as Adults we have an un-coerced choice. This
country was founded on the principles of Free Masons who believed in
religious tolerance above any traditional religion, which is IMHO one
of the biggest reasons why we have been so successful as a truly free
people.

For "Pollsters" who may be lurking, I do not desire to discuss this
with earthbound morANs over at alt.religion. So Corrie, Corky,
Oldcop, Bernie, others, feel free to comment here, or change my mind
about anything.

Enjoyed the banter,

pacplyer

Corrie

August 22nd 03, 09:01 PM

"OldCop" > wrote in message news:<DDo1b.172489$Oz4.45263@rwcrnsc54>...
> Sometimes I fell like I'm back in the 7th grade.
>
> You all should know that the only way to solve the problems of the world is
> over alcohol. That way you can't remember what the answers were and have to
> do it again.

7th grade? Gosh, I was a sophomore in college before I got into the
boozy "if I ran the world" 2 AM hallway sessions.

Corrie

August 22nd 03, 10:08 PM

(Corky Scott) wrote in message >...
> On 22 Aug 2003 10:21:03 -0700, (Corrie) wrote:
>
> >> When asked what my religion is, I say I'm a "lapsed agnostic: I used to
> >> wonder if there is a God, now I don't care if there is or isn't."
> >
> >How sad. Apathy and willful ignorance - what a combination. I hope
> >for your sake that you don't apply the same attitude toward flight
> >planning.
>
> Ah shoot, I was going to let this subject go, had created and deleted
> several articles and was just backing away.
> But this is just too assinine to leave alone. Corrie, he was talking
> about GOD, not FLYING. Being a christian makes you a better flight
> planner than agnostics?

C'mon, Corky. This is an aviation board, so I'm trying to use
aviation analogies. [pounds head on wall] You're missing the point.
Sheesh. Why do people have to be so bloody literal? sigh. ok, I'll
try to spell it out.

If you don't bother to check enroute winds and weather, TFRs, and
runway conditions at your destination, you run the risk of some nasty
surprises, right? But if you don't know and don't care where you're
going to spend *eternity*, why would you bother to check SIGMETS?
That's my point. The danger of an attitude of "I don't know and I
don't care."

Now, I already can guess how you're going to respond: "I don't
believe in an afterlife - this is all we get. So of course I
preflight carefully." And that makes perfect sense, from your point
of view. From my point of view, though, you're launching a Cub into a
squall line. You don't see the clouds, that's all.

Corrie

August 22nd 03, 10:11 PM

> >Advice from you about bandwidth wasted on unwinnable matters? Now
> >that is funny. ;)
> >
> >David O -- http://www.AirplaneZone.com
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> You want a binary now or later?
> Barnayrd BOb --

Somehow I imagined you offering a single digit.

[email protected]

August 22nd 03, 11:56 PM

On Thu, 21 Aug 2003, pac plyer wrote:

> > Title: The Fingerprint of God
> > Author: Hugh Ross
> > ISBN: 0883686279
>
> I've already read all that "Late great planet earth, biblethumping
> drivel by psedo-scientists and I haven't got time to waste on that.

Wow. So much for your concerned-about-scientific-truth facade. I've seen
some real misguided religious zeal in my time, but you're right up there
with the best of them. Betcha don't think of yourself as a religious
zealot, do you? Well, I don't know any other term for hanging
dogmatically to a viewpoint while knee-jerk ridiculing anything you think
might be opposed to it, without even bothering to make sure you understand
what it is you're ridiculing.

I haven't got time to waste on the things you mention either, they have
absolutely nothing to do with me or Hugh Ross, and I have no interest in
discussing them. Sorry.

> I've got objective books by Steven Hawkins, A brief moment in time,

(I assume you mean Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time?) Isn't he an
atheist? As such, how is he going to write anything objective about God's
existence or lack thereof? Or do you think he's objective _because_ he's
an atheist? What an objective, scientific paradigm _that_ would be.

-Dan

P.S. I am now out of this discussion. I only got into it in the first
place because I thought I saw some interest in the scientific aspect of
the question at hand. Clearly I was mistaken.

pac plyer

August 23rd 03, 12:35 AM

(Corrie) wrote in message >...
> (pac plyer) wrote in message >...
> > gringomasloco thundered from the pulpit:
> >
> > Read this book, then come back and we can discuss it
> > > from a more educated perspective.
> > >
> > > Title: The Fingerprint of God
> > > Author: Hugh Ross
> > > ISBN: 0883686279
> >
> > I've already read all that "Late great planet earth, biblethumping
> > drivel by psedo-scientists and I haven't got time to waste on that.
> > I've got objective books by Steven Hawkins, A brief moment in time,
> > Robert Jastrow etc to read.
>
>
> IOW, don't confuse you with facts; your mind is made up.
> Whassamatter, are you scared of a scientific worldview that allows for
> the possibility that the universe didn't just happen by accident? Or
> is your entire self-worth bound up in believing that you are merely
> the product of random molecular collisons? But that's ok, go ahead
> and keep your Foggles on. Just keep a watch out for a vacuum failure.

Corrie, Corrie, Corrie,
Nope, in fact, if you'll re-read I said quite the opposite. I said it
appears to me the universe is part of a greater grand design. See?
You're so sucked into this bianary view of an argument you can't
comprehend what's being said. Pac's not a biblethumper huh? O.K.
that means he's one of them then! Get out the holy water and exercize
his ass!

Now it's true I can't spell "pseudo." But my comprehension of history
is concentrated on accepted science, not mythology which you keep
using for reference.

>
> > But why don't you educate yourself on this one:
> > Title: On the Origin of Species
> > Author: Charles Darwin
>
> You're a little behind the times. Most evolutionary scientists have
> moved beyond Darwin's simplistic "survival of the fittest" model,
> seeing as it fails to adequately explain the evidence. Stephen Jay
> Gould had to invent the concept of "punctuated equilibria," but
> recently that's come under fire, too.

You simply don't know what your talking about Corrie. Darwin was and
is considered a giant today not because of the details of the new the
embryonic science which he gave birth to, but because: in the face of
Christian intolerance, he dared to print his observations about
finches in particular and his conclusions about natural selection to
the rest of the fanatical and ignorant world. I can tell you have not
read this great work.

>
> But evolution is beside the point. Whether or not species
> spontaneously transform into other species (and there's precious
> little hard evidence to support the notion)

Let's just say God transforms species then, O.K? Oh Ye of little
faith! Do you own a cat or a dog? Those weren't around till man
started selectively breeding coyotes and wildcats. Send me one of
their puppies and I will cross-breed it with my little Dahshound (sp?)
You will witness a micro example of natural selection in action.
Pigeon breeders in England invent new forms of life all the time.
Birds with feathers on their feet etc. Evolution, my good Christian
is all around you, but you are bound and determined to convince us
that it is a simple tree you are embracing and not the first leg of a
much much more complex giant elephant. ;-)

pac "rather be related to a monkey" plyer

pac plyer

August 23rd 03, 01:41 AM

(Corky Scott) wrote in message >...
> On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 16:52:30 -0500, Russell Kent >
> wrote:
>
> >"Rich S." wrote:
> >
> >> Who was that who said, "Son, don't be an agnostic - be *something*!"
> >
> >Robert Frost is alleged to have said that.
> >
> >When asked what my religion is, I say I'm a "lapsed agnostic: I used to
> >wonder if there is a God, now I don't care if there is or isn't." That
> >usually shuts up the questioner (or would-be proselytizer)...
> >
> >Russell Kent
> >
> Is that original Russell? That's really good!
>
> I heard someone say the other day: "I feel like I'm a citizen of the
> world and my religion is to do good."
>
> Corky Scott

LOL! You guys are funny. :-D When I moved to the P.I. the gov there
required we fill out entry/visa forms that had a blank for religion;
so I just left it blank. They gave them back to me and said "you have
to be something, you must put down your religion." So I put down
"Aviation." ;-) They knew I was a pilot and that got a pretty good
laugh out of all of them. I wished I'd put down Russell's "lapsed
agnostic."

pac

pac plyer

August 23rd 03, 02:48 AM

> No matter how hard you work at digging caves to hide from religious
morans, there's just no escaping the Crusades when they sweep through
your homeland.
> corrie says:
> Wow, you really ARE ignorant about history, aren't you? The Crusades
> were, oh, a few TEN THOUSAND years after the last Neandertal died.
> And the word is spelled, "moron" not "moran".

Pac sezs:

No, you're mistaken Corrie. I was not referring to the actual
Crusades of the Middle Ages. If you were a true student of history,
you would know that "religious crusades" are in the thousands, and
spread all through recorded time. We find evidence of smashed-in
skulls and religious burials all through Eurasia, the middle East,
Asia, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Africa etc. My tongue-in-cheek hypo,
about what really happened to Grog was supposed to make you laugh.
But my hypothesis that Homo Sapiens won out over the stronger
Neanderthal through the evolutionary technique of religious fervor is
entertaining, wouldn't you say? I think Corky is right that religion
is a mechanism of natural selection. (and yes, I agree with those who
say some inbreeding occurred in the same Phylum between "Grog" and
Sapiens.)

Now about "Moran." It's unfortunate you have deteriorated into a
spelling troll so quickly. But actually I'm glad you have attacked my
poor spelling. Here, Corrie, you illustrate exactly my point about
the fallacy of taking written text like the King James version of the
Bible so literally. If you where really knowledgeable about history,
you would know that the colloquial term "Moron" came from Al Capone's
1920's. And if you bother to read text from the period, you would find
the term used to be "Moran" with an "a-n" after the infamous mobster
John Moran, who, just couldn't put the dots together on a regular
basis.

>
> > Only way out is to have an even more ruthless religion that spends all their time developing bigger mind-controlling weapons.
>
> What, pray tell, are the ruthless and mind-controlling aspects of the
> Sermon on the Mount? On the other hand, you are *quite* right with
> respect to secular humanism, with its weapon of the mind-controlling
> prayer-free public school and the ruthlessly anti-religious liberal
> university.

Most of us were brain-washed in Sunday School as adolescents Corrie.
Keeping religious displays out of schools is in keeping with the
governments' job of separating Church and State. Kids can still pray,
they just aren't allowed to disrupt others with religious displays
designed to pressure those of other faiths. If it's still too
upsetting to a Zealot parent, then you can put your kid in a private
monk school or something. It's about free choice. I don't want a
teacher to countermand the religious beliefs of our immigrants. It
used to be o.k. when a region was: all Puritan for example. It's
different now. Things had to change.

Thank God though as Adults we have an un-coerced choice. This
country was founded on the principles of Free Masons who believed in
religious tolerance above any traditional religion, which is IMHO one
of the biggest reasons why we have been so successful as a truly free
people.

For "Pollsters" who may be lurking, I do not desire to discuss this
with earthbound morANs over at alt.religion. So Corrie, Corky,
Oldcop, Bernie, others, feel free to comment here, or change my mind
about anything.

Enjoyed the banter,

pacplyer

Mark Hickey

August 23rd 03, 05:03 AM

(pac plyer) wrote:

>Let's just say God transforms species then, O.K? Oh Ye of little
>faith! Do you own a cat or a dog? Those weren't around till man
>started selectively breeding coyotes and wildcats. Send me one of
>their puppies and I will cross-breed it with my little Dahshound (sp?)
> You will witness a micro example of natural selection in action.
>Pigeon breeders in England invent new forms of life all the time.
>Birds with feathers on their feet etc. Evolution, my good Christian
>is all around you, but you are bound and determined to convince us
>that it is a simple tree you are embracing and not the first leg of a
>much much more complex giant elephant. ;-)

Two things...

One - you're saying that intelligent control and manipulation of
species can beget new species. I think you agree with the bible then.
The only thing you have wrong about evolution is you think it's
random.

Two - the examples you give are clearly NOT evolution. They're
adaptation and selective breeding.

What's unclear (and Darwin hisownself even admitted he didn't have a
clue why) is why there aren't fossils or other records of all the
transitional life forms between the species we DO know about. And do
you ever wonder why there is SO much proof of species coming and going
at a frantic pace even as recently as the last ice ages, but that
nowhere in the history of mankind has there ever been any observed
evidence of evolution?

Kind of a conundrum - if it happens really fast, we'd see it. If it
happens really slow, we'd see the fossil evidence.

Think about a bat. Evolutionists claim it all started when a rat got
into homebuilding (rah content). Thing is, you'd end up with
thousands of generations that couldn't walk very well and couldn't fly
very well in between (kind of like some of the rah regulars).

Heh.

Mark Hickey

Rich Ahrens

August 24th 03, 08:08 PM

pac plyer wrote:
> If you where really knowledgeable about history, you would know that the
> colloquial term "Moron" came from Al Capone's 1920's. And if you bother
> to read text from the period, you would find the term used to be "Moran"
> with an "a-n" after the infamous mobster John Moran, who, just couldn't
> put the dots together on a regular basis.

What a crock. The English word is derived from the Greek word moron, neuter
of moros, meaning stupid or foolish. I don't have an OED at hand to see how
far back it does in English usage, but it appeared in a Mirriam-Webster
dictionary in 1910.

Eric Miller

August 24th 03, 10:03 PM

"Jerry Springer" > wrote in message
nk.net...
>
>
> Eric Miller wrote:
> > "Mark Hickey" > wrote in message
> > ...
> >
> > Folk that think evolution and religion are diametrical opposites, should
> > take note that the Catholic church accepts the theory of evolution.
> >
> > Eric
> >
> >
> Now that is funny, I should believe just because the Catholic church
> says so? I could go on about the Catholic church but well leave it at
> that.

Read what I said again...

I did *not* say:
---------------
The theory of evolution is correct because the Catholic church said so (and
the Catholic church is infallible...whether or not your Catholic... or even
Christian).

I *did* say:
------------
There's nothing incompatible or mutually exclusive about the theory of
evolution and religion.

Corrie

August 24th 03, 10:09 PM

Russell Kent > wrote in message >...
> Corrie wrote:
>
> > If you don't bother to check enroute winds and weather, TFRs, and
> > runway conditions at your destination, you run the risk of some nasty
> > surprises, right? But if you don't know and don't care where you're
> > going to spend *eternity*, why would you bother to check SIGMETS?
> > That's my point. The danger of an attitude of "I don't know and I
> > don't care."
>
> Ah but you presume that because I care not to ponder the imponderable ever after, that I'm therefore willing to give up
> the here & now without a struggle. To skewer you with your own barb, I hope that you put more logic in your flight
> planning than you do into your postings.
>
> Russell Kent

Russell, reread my original message. I presume nothing of the sort.
I said that I HOPE you don't apply the same attitude to flight
planning. If you're going to take issue with my arguments, do me the
courtesy of quoting me accurately.

Corrie

Corrie

August 24th 03, 11:12 PM

> No, you're mistaken Corrie. I was not referring to the actual
> Crusades of the Middle Ages.

I always thought that the rule was if it's capitalized, it refers to
the medieval editions. But you are correct - historically, religion
is probably the most popular excuse for war. Personally, I think
religion was invented by Satan to keep us fueding over
inconsequentials rathe than persuing a relationship with the Creator.

>My tongue-in-cheek hypo, about what really happened to Grog was
supposed to make you laugh.

Remember the smileys next time! :-D

> But my hypothesis that Homo Sapiens won out over the stronger
> Neanderthal through the evolutionary technique of religious fervor is
> entertaining, wouldn't you say? I think Corky is right that religion
> is a mechanism of natural selection. (and yes, I agree with those who
> say some inbreeding occurred in the same Phylum between "Grog" and
> Sapiens.)

It bears some consideration. Have you read "The Origin of
Conciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" or "Ishmael?"
Natural selection (and artificial selection) certainly work within
fairly homogenous populations. But if the quest for a relationship
with the supernatural had survival value 20,000 years ago or even
2,000 years ago, why would it not have that same survival value now?
Mazlow's ladder applies to Neandertal as well as to us today. People
haven't really changed very much, at least as far as we can tell.
(I'm reminded of the Egyptian inscription in the collection of the
British museum. An official's second wife scratched out the
references to his first wife...)

> Now about "Moran." It's unfortunate you have deteriorated into a
> spelling troll so quickly.

Sorry, I'm a teacher and a parent. It's automatic. :-)

>If you where really knowledgeable about history,
> you would know that the colloquial term "Moron" came from Al Capone's
> 1920's. And if you bother to read text from the period, you would find
> the term used to be "Moran" with an "a-n" after the infamous mobster
> John Moran, who, just couldn't put the dots together on a regular
> basis.

I was never that interested in gangster history, sorry. Aviation
history (of course), ancient civilizations, medieval Europe, a bit of
Asian history, but not much on early-20th-century America. Blame my
junior-high history teacher, I guess. We read "The Jungle," watched
"The Grapes of Wrath," and read about labor disputes. It all sort of
ran together. :-/

Thanks for the history lesson - I've long been fascinated by
etymologies.

[taken out of sequence]
> you illustrate exactly my point about
> the fallacy of taking written text like the King James version of the
> Bible so literally.

ahh-ah-ah-ah! Gotcha. I *don't* advocate taking the KJV literally.
Never have. I advocate *good scholarship* - looking at the oldest and
most complete texts, comparing them to find and consider alternate
renderings, looking at the literary and historical context, the
grammar and word usage, etc. It's a lot more work than simply quoting
KJV. Fortunately, a good deal of that effort has been collected in
*modern* translations such as the NIV and RSV.

I'd be more than happy to discuss the accuracy and authenticity of the
Biblical texts. Bottom line is that if you throw out the Bible as
"unreliable" - using the scholarly critera applied to any ancient
document, such as a Roman paymaster's records - then you also have to
throw out everything written by Socrates, Plato, Euclydies,
Aristophanes, Aristotle, Julius Ceasar, Pliny, the Venerable Bede,
etc.

PLEEEESE don' throw me in dat briar patch, Brer Fox! :-D

> > > Only way out is to have an even more ruthless religion that spends all their time developing bigger mind-controlling weapons.
> >
> > What, pray tell, are the ruthless and mind-controlling aspects of the
> > Sermon on the Mount? On the other hand, you are *quite* right with
> > respect to secular humanism, with its weapon of the mind-controlling
> > prayer-free public school and the ruthlessly anti-religious liberal
> > university.
>
> Most of us were brain-washed in Sunday School as adolescents Corrie.

Actually, that was when I began to abandon the religion I was raised
in.

> Keeping religious displays out of schools is in keeping with the
> governments' job of separating Church and State. Kids can still pray,
> they just aren't allowed to disrupt others with religious displays
> designed to pressure those of other faiths. >

Depends on your definition of "pressure." Learning how to put a
rubber on a cucumber or give a BJ in the back seat is "comprehensive
health education" according to some. But saying grace before meals is
"pressure." Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?

> It's about free choice.

You support educational choice for parents, then? (no, I'm not really
trying to drag this that far OT, but I can't pass up a striaght line.)

> I don't want a teacher to countermand the religious beliefs of our immigrants.

So now they countermand the religious beliefs of our citizens, and
that's ok?

> Thank God though as Adults we have an un-coerced choice.

Agreed. I just read that the Red Chinese have arrested a few more
Christians for the crime of praying in their homes.

Likewise enjoying intelligent discussion of things that matter,

Corrie

Jerry Springer

August 24th 03, 11:42 PM

Ok enough of this bs here in RAH, take it back to your bible NG Corrie,
You don't know when to stop do you?

Corrie wrote:
>>No, you're mistaken Corrie. I was not referring to the actual
>>Crusades of the Middle Ages.
>
>
> I always thought that the rule was if it's capitalized, it refers to
> the medieval editions. But you are correct - historically, religion
> is probably the most popular excuse for war. Personally, I think
> religion was invented by Satan to keep us fueding over
> inconsequentials rathe than persuing a relationship with the Creator.
>
>
>>My tongue-in-cheek hypo, about what really happened to Grog was
>
> supposed to make you laugh.
>
> Remember the smileys next time! :-D
>
>
>>But my hypothesis that Homo Sapiens won out over the stronger
>>Neanderthal through the evolutionary technique of religious fervor is
>>entertaining, wouldn't you say? I think Corky is right that religion
>>is a mechanism of natural selection. (and yes, I agree with those who
>>say some inbreeding occurred in the same Phylum between "Grog" and
>>Sapiens.)
>
>
> It bears some consideration. Have you read "The Origin of
> Conciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" or "Ishmael?"
> Natural selection (and artificial selection) certainly work within
> fairly homogenous populations. But if the quest for a relationship
> with the supernatural had survival value 20,000 years ago or even
> 2,000 years ago, why would it not have that same survival value now?
> Mazlow's ladder applies to Neandertal as well as to us today. People
> haven't really changed very much, at least as far as we can tell.
> (I'm reminded of the Egyptian inscription in the collection of the
> British museum. An official's second wife scratched out the
> references to his first wife...)
>
>
>>Now about "Moran." It's unfortunate you have deteriorated into a
>>spelling troll so quickly.
>
>
> Sorry, I'm a teacher and a parent. It's automatic. :-)
>
>
>>If you where really knowledgeable about history,
>>you would know that the colloquial term "Moron" came from Al Capone's
>>1920's. And if you bother to read text from the period, you would find
>>the term used to be "Moran" with an "a-n" after the infamous mobster
>>John Moran, who, just couldn't put the dots together on a regular
>>basis.
>
>
> I was never that interested in gangster history, sorry. Aviation
> history (of course), ancient civilizations, medieval Europe, a bit of
> Asian history, but not much on early-20th-century America. Blame my
> junior-high history teacher, I guess. We read "The Jungle," watched
> "The Grapes of Wrath," and read about labor disputes. It all sort of
> ran together. :-/
>
> Thanks for the history lesson - I've long been fascinated by
> etymologies.
>
> [taken out of sequence]
>
>>you illustrate exactly my point about
>>the fallacy of taking written text like the King James version of the
>>Bible so literally.
>
>
> ahh-ah-ah-ah! Gotcha. I *don't* advocate taking the KJV literally.
> Never have. I advocate *good scholarship* - looking at the oldest and
> most complete texts, comparing them to find and consider alternate
> renderings, looking at the literary and historical context, the
> grammar and word usage, etc. It's a lot more work than simply quoting
> KJV. Fortunately, a good deal of that effort has been collected in
> *modern* translations such as the NIV and RSV.
>
> I'd be more than happy to discuss the accuracy and authenticity of the
> Biblical texts. Bottom line is that if you throw out the Bible as
> "unreliable" - using the scholarly critera applied to any ancient
> document, such as a Roman paymaster's records - then you also have to
> throw out everything written by Socrates, Plato, Euclydies,
> Aristophanes, Aristotle, Julius Ceasar, Pliny, the Venerable Bede,
> etc.
>
> PLEEEESE don' throw me in dat briar patch, Brer Fox! :-D
>
>
>
>>>>Only way out is to have an even more ruthless religion that spends all their time developing bigger mind-controlling weapons.
>>>
>>>What, pray tell, are the ruthless and mind-controlling aspects of the
>>>Sermon on the Mount? On the other hand, you are *quite* right with
>>>respect to secular humanism, with its weapon of the mind-controlling
>>>prayer-free public school and the ruthlessly anti-religious liberal
>>>university.
>>
>>Most of us were brain-washed in Sunday School as adolescents Corrie.
>
>
> Actually, that was when I began to abandon the religion I was raised
> in.
>
>
>>Keeping religious displays out of schools is in keeping with the
>>governments' job of separating Church and State. Kids can still pray,
>>they just aren't allowed to disrupt others with religious displays
>>designed to pressure those of other faiths. >
>
>
> Depends on your definition of "pressure." Learning how to put a
> rubber on a cucumber or give a BJ in the back seat is "comprehensive
> health education" according to some. But saying grace before meals is
> "pressure." Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?
>
>
>> It's about free choice.
>
>
> You support educational choice for parents, then? (no, I'm not really
> trying to drag this that far OT, but I can't pass up a striaght line.)
>
>
>>I don't want a teacher to countermand the religious beliefs of our immigrants.
>
>
> So now they countermand the religious beliefs of our citizens, and
> that's ok?
>
>
>>Thank God though as Adults we have an un-coerced choice.
>
>
> Agreed. I just read that the Red Chinese have arrested a few more
> Christians for the crime of praying in their homes.
>
>
> Likewise enjoying intelligent discussion of things that matter,
>
> Corrie

Bernie the Bunion

August 25th 03, 12:01 AM

> Jerry Springer > wrote:

> Ok enough of this bs here in RAH, take it back to your bible NG Corrie,
> You don't know when to stop do you?

Good point Mr. Springer but why didn't you trim his post...???????

Scott Marquardt

August 25th 03, 06:15 AM

Corrie wrote:

>Not surprisingly, Cap'n Rich S. came up with a jpeg of a '50's era
>magazine describing the technique in detail.

Where? I'd love to see the article.

This is as pressing an issue for me as was, years back, the question of
what the mannequin's name was in "The Monkees" television show. ;-)

- Scott

>In brief, fly turns
>around a point while the passenger winches down a bag on a looong
>clothesline. Keep flying in circles until the ground crew
>empties/fills it, then crank it back up.
>
>Then go fly straight and level for a while with the windows
>open.....urk.
>
>
>Big John > wrote in message >...
>> Have heard about the rope trick also.
>>
>> Seached the Internet and didn't find anything. Have passed the problem
>> to some friends. Will see what they can come up with.
>>
>> If I had to guess, I'd say it happened many many years ago with some
>> of those olden birds.
>>
>> Big John
>> >
>> >> Question, though. I had always thought it was missionary pilots, but
>> >> perhaps not -- who perfected the art of flying around in circles trailing a
>> >> rope in order to drop off and pick up things from the ground? I can't find
>> >> any references to the technique. What the heck would I enter in a google
>> >> search?

Eric Miller

August 25th 03, 07:09 PM

"Corrie" > wrote
> Proponents of intelligent design theory don't engage in
> pseudo-science. Like our materialist coutnerparts, we observe the
> evidence and predict outcomes. (Testing evolutionary hypotheses is
> done by observation, since you can't very well set up experiments over
> timescales of millions of years, no matter what your persuasion.)
>
> We simply come to a different conclusion. But the materialist
> orthodoxy is so entrenched - is mind-controlling too strong a term? -
> than any deviation from Darwinian Holy Writ is labeled heretical.
> Futher, the heretics are made the target of viscious, mean-spirited ad
> hominem attacks. That's bigotry, plain and simple.
>
>
> Evolution - macro-evolution between phyla or orders - IS only theory.
> It is NOT proven. The evidence can be interpreted in more than one
> way. But it is taught to children as established fact, and those who
> dare deviate are persecuted. Yeah, I have a problem with that. It's
> Scopes in reverse. Someone said something about people should be able
> to make informed choices?

From a purist standpoint, *anyone* entrenched in a belief system, no matter
what their title or beliefs, is not engaging in science. Period. Science is
open to criticism. Faith (and that includes faith *in* science) is not. By
definition, there are no unassailable beliefs in science.

My comments about pseudo-science not observing and predicting was a general
comment directed especially at the pyramid-crystal-magnet-homeopathic crowd
that couldn't conduct a double-blind study if they performed their tests at
midnight in a coal mine after plunging red-hot spikes into their eyes...
(Now, ask me how I *really* feel :p)

Testability is a cornerstone of science. And while macro-evolution doesn't
lend itself well to testing, in theory it could be tested, demonstrated and
proven.You can *not* test and prove intelligent design, that's an article of
faith. Untestable hypotheses are useless and are the hallmark junk science.
The classic cases are mediums, spiritualists and mentalists whose powers
mysterious vanish when subjected to controlled conditions citing "hostile"
environments. "Some things have to be belived to be seen" is not an
acceptable tenet of scientific inquiry.

Personally speaking, I see no tautological difference between saying first
there was a creator who then created the universe and saying first there was
the universe which exists without a creator. For God's sake (pun fully
intended :p), use Occam's razor and cut out the middle man!

We should find the anthropomorphic principle to be mutually acceptable.
Acceptable to me because I can interpret it to state that if conditions
*weren't* just right, we wouldn't be here right now (discussing evolution on
RAH).
Acceptable to you because you can interpret it to state that some higher
power made the conditions just right (so we can discuss evolution on RAH).

Remember the word "theory" has different meaning in the vernacular than it
does in the scientific community, and this causes a lot of confusion.
In common parlance, "theory" means unproven, could be true, who knows?
Scientifically, "theory" means a generally accepted principle without any
major contradictions.
You don't hear much controversy over the Pythagorean Theorem :p

I wouldn't exactly call creationists (honest question: is that the old term
for intelligent design theorists?) persecuted.
However, the fact is they *don't* practice science and for that reason have
excluded *themselves* from the scientific community. If you don't play by
the rules, you don't get to join the club; it's that simple. If I use
steroids, I can't try out for the women's Olympic track and field because a)
steriods aren't allowed b) I'm not a woman and c) I'd get my butt whooped
regardless of a) and b)... However, that doesn't equate my exclusion from
women's track and field with bigotry.

Again, personally speaking, I'd rather children were taught that the world
is subject to change and here is a mechanism which can explain it, than they
were taught the world was created 6007 years ago, hasn't changed since and
BTW God is a big trickster (for creating fossil records, background
radition, etc)... YMMV :p

Eric

Building The Perfect Beast

August 25th 03, 08:27 PM

>Most of us were brain-washed in Sunday School as adolescents Corrie.
>Keeping religious displays out of schools is in keeping with the
>governments' job of separating Church and State. Kids can still pray,
>they just aren't allowed to disrupt others with religious displays
>designed to pressure those of other faiths. If it's still too
>upsetting to a Zealot parent, then you can put your kid in a private
>monk school or something. It's about free choice. I don't want a
>teacher to countermand the religious beliefs of our immigrants. It
>used to be o.k. when a region was: all Puritan for example. It's
>different now. Things had to change.
>
> Thank God though as Adults we have an un-coerced choice. This
>country was founded on the principles of Free Masons who believed in
>religious tolerance above any traditional religion, which is IMHO one
>of the biggest reasons why we have been so successful as a truly free
>people.
>
>For "Pollsters" who may be lurking, I do not desire to discuss this
>with earthbound morANs over at alt.religion. So Corrie, Corky,
>Oldcop, Bernie, others, feel free to comment here, or change my mind
>about anything.
>

Hey Pac, you a Traveling Man? Any of you for that matter?

Rich S.

August 25th 03, 09:02 PM

"Building The Perfect Beast" > wrote in message
...
>
> Hey Pac, you a Traveling Man? Any of you for that matter?

I can use the tools.

Rich S.

Corrie

August 25th 03, 09:58 PM

Valid points. As you say, the materialist worldview is an article of
faith. I've said it before and I'll say it again - neither the
existence nor non-existence of God can be proven or disproven. QED.
That said, the belief in macro-evolution does seem to be an
"unassailable belief." Just look at what happened in Kansas when the
state school board voted to allow teachers to discuss criticisms of
evolution. Not to mandate the teaching of only literalist Biblical
six-day-creationsism, just to allow teachers to present the fact that
not every scientist agrees 110% with Darwin. They were pilloried and
mocked, and ultimately driven out of office.

The term "intelligent design" was coined specifically to gain some
distance from the NON-scientific young-earth-ultra-literal crowd.
Saying that the universe shows evidence of intelligent design is NOT
the same as insisting that it was created in 144 hours. Though
materialists continually attempt to lump us together, but we're rather
different. I commend to you Don Stoner's book, "A New Look at an Old
Earth." If he hadn't written it, I probably would have had to,
someday.

Occam's Razor certainly applies. But the question is not merely
whether it's more logically simple that a universe preexisted or was
created by a preexisting diety; it's whether it's logically simpler
that an infinitely complex, beautiful, and *functional* universe "just
happened" or whether it was designed by some Cosmic Engineer. Occam's
Razor cuts the other way when you look at the question in that light.

I certainly agree with using inductive reasoning - to look at the
evidence and draw conclusions based on fact. Deductive reasoning -
beginning with a philosophical premise and then proceeding - only
leads in logical circles. The problem I see with most materialists is
that they claim to be inductive, but they begin with a deductive
assumption that the physical world is all that exists. That is simply
and demonstrably not true. Can you devise a scientific test for love?
How do you know that you love your children? How can you prove it -
scientifically?

Science is not the be-all and end-all. Those who put their whole
faith in science often claim that it has a pretty good track record
for explaining things. I beg to differ. For every question that
science answers, it raises three more. Science increases uncertainty,
enlarges the realm of that-which-is-not-known. (There's got to be a
pun somewhere in there about curiosity killing Schroedinger's cat...)

Not everything is scientifically testable. The origin of the universe
is not an experiment that can be repeated. That's where the tools of
the historian come into play.

For me, it all hinges on whether Jesus really rose from the dead. If
he didn't, then it's game over as far as religion is concerned. If he
did, well, that raises a whole 'nother set of questions. A
resurrection is not a repeatable experiment. Science is of minimal
value. (Beginning the investigation with, "he didn't because we know
that dead people stay dead" doesn;t work, because it's beginning with
an assumption that precludes one whole line of investigation. If an
all-powerful God really does exist, and Jesus really was His son, then
a one-time resurrection - to prove a point or to accomplish some great
work - is certainly possible.)

For me, Occam's Razor leads me to the conclusion that the Resurrection
was indeed a real, historical event. I'm leaving out the evidence and
reasonings, but I'll be happy to share them if you're interested. But
FWIW I started out as a skeptic, trying to disprove the historical
claims of Christianity. As I said, that leads to a whole other set of
questions, including the conclusion that the materialist worldview is
erroneous.

That doesn't mean I'm superstitious or non-scientific, and it's
insulting to suggest that I am. I have examined the evidence - more
objectively than a grreat many skeptics I've spoken to - and come to
certain conclusions based on that evidence. It's fine to disagree
about the evidence, reasoning, and conclusions - that's what
intelligent, civilized people do.

Corrie

"Eric Miller" > wrote in message >...
> "Corrie" > wrote
> > Proponents of intelligent design theory don't engage in
> > pseudo-science. Like our materialist coutnerparts, we observe the
> > evidence and predict outcomes. (Testing evolutionary hypotheses is
> > done by observation, since you can't very well set up experiments over
> > timescales of millions of years, no matter what your persuasion.)
> >
> > We simply come to a different conclusion. But the materialist
> > orthodoxy is so entrenched - is mind-controlling too strong a term? -
> > than any deviation from Darwinian Holy Writ is labeled heretical.
> > Futher, the heretics are made the target of viscious, mean-spirited ad
> > hominem attacks. That's bigotry, plain and simple.
> >
> >
> > Evolution - macro-evolution between phyla or orders - IS only theory.
> > It is NOT proven. The evidence can be interpreted in more than one
> > way. But it is taught to children as established fact, and those who
> > dare deviate are persecuted. Yeah, I have a problem with that. It's
> > Scopes in reverse. Someone said something about people should be able
> > to make informed choices?
>
> From a purist standpoint, *anyone* entrenched in a belief system, no matter
> what their title or beliefs, is not engaging in science. Period. Science is
> open to criticism. Faith (and that includes faith *in* science) is not. By
> definition, there are no unassailable beliefs in science.
>
> My comments about pseudo-science not observing and predicting was a general
> comment directed especially at the pyramid-crystal-magnet-homeopathic crowd
> that couldn't conduct a double-blind study if they performed their tests at
> midnight in a coal mine after plunging red-hot spikes into their eyes...
> (Now, ask me how I *really* feel :p)
>
> Testability is a cornerstone of science. And while macro-evolution doesn't
> lend itself well to testing, in theory it could be tested, demonstrated and
> proven.You can *not* test and prove intelligent design, that's an article of
> faith. Untestable hypotheses are useless and are the hallmark junk science.
> The classic cases are mediums, spiritualists and mentalists whose powers
> mysterious vanish when subjected to controlled conditions citing "hostile"
> environments. "Some things have to be belived to be seen" is not an
> acceptable tenet of scientific inquiry.
>
> Personally speaking, I see no tautological difference between saying first
> there was a creator who then created the universe and saying first there was
> the universe which exists without a creator. For God's sake (pun fully
> intended :p), use Occam's razor and cut out the middle man!
>
> We should find the anthropomorphic principle to be mutually acceptable.
> Acceptable to me because I can interpret it to state that if conditions
> *weren't* just right, we wouldn't be here right now (discussing evolution on
> RAH).
> Acceptable to you because you can interpret it to state that some higher
> power made the conditions just right (so we can discuss evolution on RAH).
>
> Remember the word "theory" has different meaning in the vernacular than it
> does in the scientific community, and this causes a lot of confusion.
> In common parlance, "theory" means unproven, could be true, who knows?
> Scientifically, "theory" means a generally accepted principle without any
> major contradictions.
> You don't hear much controversy over the Pythagorean Theorem :p
>
> I wouldn't exactly call creationists (honest question: is that the old term
> for intelligent design theorists?) persecuted.
> However, the fact is they *don't* practice science and for that reason have
> excluded *themselves* from the scientific community. If you don't play by
> the rules, you don't get to join the club; it's that simple. If I use
> steroids, I can't try out for the women's Olympic track and field because a)
> steriods aren't allowed b) I'm not a woman and c) I'd get my butt whooped
> regardless of a) and b)... However, that doesn't equate my exclusion from
> women's track and field with bigotry.
>
> Again, personally speaking, I'd rather children were taught that the world
> is subject to change and here is a mechanism which can explain it, than they
> were taught the world was created 6007 years ago, hasn't changed since and
> BTW God is a big trickster (for creating fossil records, background
> radition, etc)... YMMV :p
>
> Eric

Scott Marquardt

August 26th 03, 04:58 AM

Bryan Martin wrote:

>It is quite clear even from a cursory examination of history that the
>founders of the United States strongly believed that the State and the
>Church should be separate entities; that the State should not dictate
>religious beliefs to the people and the Church should not control the
>political process. That was the situation in England; the Anglican Church
>was the official religion of England all others were banned and their
>adherents persecuted. This was one of the reasons people came to America and
>one of the reasons for the revolution.

Ironically, it was New England Baptists who were concerned about separation
of church and state because those same original colonial Puritans held a
hegemony that wasn't in the Baptists' best interests.

>On the other hand, it is not the job of government to keep religion out of
>the public schools but the government may not sponsor religion in the public
>schools nor allow religious displays to cause disruptions of classes in
>public schools. In short, there is no low prohibiting prayer in public
>schools but it is unlawful to stand up in the middle of class and start
>shouting sermons.

Heck, I recall old Stormin' Norman Johnson doin' a lot of secular
hollerin'. A couple others too. Then there was the math teacher who used to
whack us on the head with his college class ring when we'd get out of line.

I've seen a couple preachers as demonstrative as these guys, but I dunno if
I'd care to see 'em again. ;-)

- Scott

pac plyer

August 26th 03, 08:23 AM

Great Stuff Eric,

This Rah "firing line" is a good diversion from all the broken things
on my honey-do list. She's starting to get jealous though.... since
I'm having such a good time with the computer. Oh well, when the sun
goes Red Giant, who's going to care anyway? :-]

pacplyer

<Eric patiently explained>
>
> Well, saying that teachers in Kansas "couldn't discuss criticisms of
> evolution" is a bit disingenuous. The Kansas State Board of Education voted
> to eliminate teaching the theory of evolution entirely... it wasn't exactly
> the time to get into the fine points :p
>
> The theory of evolution is established and accepted. Does that means it's a
> complete and finished work? No, nothing in science ever is. Does that mean
> it's above and beyond critique? Of course not. But it is the "state of the
> art" and I'd *expect* teachers to teach what's current, not about
> phlogiston, the four (or five) elements of nature, the four humers of the
> body nor the world being supported by pillars which are resting on the back
> of a tortoise. And if they *don't* teach what's current, they deserve to
> pilloried, mocked, and fired for being incompetent of performing their jobs
> in a responsible fashion.
>
> I'm sure 6-day creation was "state of the art" at one time, but that time
> has past. Fundamentalist countries are known for burying their heads in the
> sand, ignoring the present and attempting to force the clock to simpler
> times. But guess what? Tempus Fugit (woot! a flying reference!), and you
> can't legislate sand to make it flow up an hourglass.
>
>
> Occam's razor certainly does *not* mandate the existence of a creator. I
> refer you again to the Anthropomorphic Principle.
> Start with an infinite number of universe, each with their own sets of rules
> and eliminate the ones that are inconducive to the existence of RAH (which
> is, after all, the highest form of life as we know it).
> Ice gets denser as it freezes and doesn't float (making bodies of water
> freeze from the bottom up)? Gone!
> Cosmological constant too large and big bang collapses too soon? Later!
> Carbon doesn't have the correct angle and number of covalent bonds? Vamos!
> Hey, there are a million complex and interdependent values. I can't design a
> plane much less a universe (another obligatory flying reference :p), but
> does that mean there's an intelligent force behind it all? Not at all.
> The exact set of rules necessary for intelligent life might also necessitate
> the inarguably complex, beautiful, and functional universe.
> If everything is just right, we exist to banter about it; if not, we don't;
> it's that simple.
> But the beauty of the AP is that it comes in two flavors, one of which says
> you're free to believe in intelligent design, the other says I'm free not
> to.
>
> I believe that the physical world is all that exists. If there's more, and
> it can be demonstrated, "Boom!" it's part of the physical world. If not,
> it's mumbo-jumbo and can safely be ignored.
> Can you devise a scientific test for love? Of course.
> Would any sane person put themselves into jeopardy, whether short and
> immediate - like running into a burning building, or long and protracted -
> like the fiscal hardship that children cause, otherwise?
> You say "love", I say "survival trait", to-MAY-to, to-MAH-to :p
>
> Regardless, I don't recommend faith in science, it's spiritually devoid (for
> those seeking spirituality) and subject to change. Faith is best left to
> dogma.
>
> The fact that science raises more questions than it answers is a *good*
> thing! That's a strength, not a weakness! And it does *not* mean that
> science increases uncertainty because the questions raised are about more
> and more minute things. Haven't you heard the expression "the more you know,
> the more you realize you don't know"? That's not an argument against
> learning in the first place!
>
> Meanwhile, religion has brought us such logical wonders as: discussing about
> how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and testing for witchcraft by
> water immersion (if she sinks and drowns, she's innocent; if she floats and
> lives, the water is rejecting her because she's a witch, kill her!). Though
> the Muslim's did do some good things with religion... witness how it drove
> them towards better math and astronomy.
>
> The other thing which confuses non-scientists (the first being the usage of
> the word "theory") is that there is no single, central, scientific authority
> that decides what is and isn't correct/accepted. If one theory is more
> useful, can explain/predict more things, more accurately, and has fewer
> deficiencies then it "survives" (sorry, couldn't resist) while others fade
> into obscurity. This doesn't have to be all or nothing either. The Bohr
> model of the atom is simple and still useful, even though Quantum Mechanics
> is more comprehensive (at the expense of complexity).
>
> Without attacking Christianity one iota.... it doesn't make sense to hinge
> your belief in creation on Jesus, seeing as how he didn't show up until
> somewhere between 4,000 and 15 billion years after the universe was made
> (depending on who's counting). And certainly no Jesus is *not* the end of
> religion... it's not even the end of religions based on variations of the
> Old Testament.
> And frankly, if resurrection isn't a repeatable experiment, then it can't be
> used to make further predictions, rendering it useless.
> On the other hand, nothing about cosmology says other universes cannot be
> created, so it *may* be repeatable. Stay tuned! :p
>
> BTW you *do* know that the two differing stories of Genesis were stolen from
> the Egyptians and Babylonians (who didn't believe in one god), and that the
> story of Eve is based on an ancient Sumerian pun, right?
> OTOH I saw a great show which used some passages of Genesis to pinpoint the
> probable location of the Garden of Eden :)
>
> If you read again, you'll see I didn't call you either superstitious or
> unscientific (and still am not)...
> I never make ad hominem attacks, as they a sure signal you've already lost
> the argument :p
>
> And I'll finish (somewhat insensitively) with...
> Winning an argument on the Internet is like winning the Special Olympics...
> in the end, we're all still retarded.
>
> Eric

Bob Olds

August 26th 03, 05:16 PM

(Corrie) wrote in message >...
> > >Let me repeat myself Mr. Zealot
> > >
> > >> just how prey tell was YOUR GOD refining HIS people
> > >> when those other teenage boys and girls were shot dead.
> > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> > May I predict....
> > No way will you ever receive an acceptable explanation.
> > Barnyard BOb --
>
> Actually, I do expect to get an explanation someday, at that Great
> Video Party in the Sky when all the questions get answered. Our
> anonymous heckler seems to be hell-bent on refusing the invitation,
> though.
>
> Thanks for the support, Bob. I've had months-long running debates
> with nonbelievers - most of them remarkable civil - and it boils down
> to this: it is neither possible to prove nor disprove either the
> existence or non-existence of God. There's plenty of supporting
> evidence, but conclusive proof would preclude faith. And faith is
> important.
>
> I guess it's like the difference between building a plane and raising
> a child. The airplane is a machine, and does only what it is designed
> and built to do. The child is an independent being with free will of
> his or her own. Your kids don't HAVE to love you. They have a
> choice. Your VP1 hugs you because that's the way it's designed and
> built. It doesn't have a choice.
>
> You're quite right, Bob. If a person is determined to disbelieve,
> then no evidence can possibly change their mind. Their worldview
> forces them to either discount or reinterpret every piece of evidence
> shown to them. Likewise, it's not possible to convince the informed,
> thoughtful believer that they are wrong, because they can answer the
> skeptics from within their worldview. (The skeptics may not be
> satisfied with the answers, but that's not the point.)
>
> I adopted a Christian worldview after a long period of study and
> reflection, and after considering every oher major worldview (and a
> few minor ones). My studies convinced me that Christianity is
> coherent, explanative, predicitve, internally consistent, externally
> verifiable, and even - like any good scientific hypothesis -
> falsifiable.
>
>
> Corrie

************************************************** ******************************

I agree with you Corrie;
If you're wrong you have NOTHING to lose and EVERYTHING to gain.
If the "Scientist" is wrong he loses EVERYTHING! Eternity is a LOOOONG time!!

Bob Olds RV-4 flyer
Charleston,Arkansas

do not archive

************************************************** ******************************

Eric Miller

August 26th 03, 07:28 PM

"nafod40" wrote
> Good books, both. Wolfram has the world's biggest ego.

The big questions is... was his ego created or did it evolve over time? :p

Eric Miller

August 26th 03, 07:43 PM

"Bob Olds" wrote
> Corrie wrote
> > There's plenty of supporting evidence [for the existence of God],
> > but conclusive proof would preclude faith. And faith is important.

There is no such supporting evidence. And to quote my previous post, "you
have to belief to see" is unacceptable.
If you step off a cliff, gravity doesn't care what you believe, you're gonna
fall.

> > You're quite right, Bob. If a person is determined to disbelieve,
> > then no evidence can possibly change their mind. Their worldview
> > forces them to either discount or reinterpret every piece of evidence
> > shown to them. Likewise, it's not possible to convince the informed,
> > thoughtful believer that they are wrong, because they can answer the
> > skeptics from within their worldview. (The skeptics may not be
> > satisfied with the answers, but that's not the point.)

I don't think you can choose to believe or not. Either you do or you don't.
I think people stop believing because they've seen the light of truth and
have finally learned something.
I'm sure you feel the same way about people who start believing.

> > I adopted a Christian worldview after a long period of study and
> > reflection, and after considering every oher major worldview (and a
> > few minor ones). My studies convinced me that Christianity is
> > coherent, explanative, predicitve, internally consistent, externally
> > verifiable, and even - like any good scientific hypothesis -
> > falsifiable.
> >
> > Corrie

Just what exactly does Christianity explain and predict that's useful?
And if it's falsifiable, what evidence would be accepted which could prove
it false?

> If you're wrong you have NOTHING to lose and EVERYTHING to gain.
> If the "Scientist" is wrong he loses EVERYTHING! Eternity is a LOOOONG
time!!
>
> Bob Olds RV-4 flyer

Again, there's no choice in what you believe.
And I would hope that a higher power could see through any posers :p

Eric

Barnyard BOb --

August 26th 03, 08:40 PM

>I agree with you Corrie;
>If you're wrong you have NOTHING to lose and EVERYTHING to gain.
>If the "Scientist" is wrong he loses EVERYTHING! Eternity is a LOOOONG time!!
>
>Bob Olds RV-4 flyer
>Charleston,Arkansas
+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hardly a unique response or argument.
But, certainly a very predictable self serving one,
if you are obliged to hedge your bet.

It is quaintly known as.....
fire insurance.

Do not pass go.
Do not collect $500.
Go directly to..... Hell. 8-D

Barnyard BOb --

Building The Perfect Beast

August 27th 03, 05:22 PM

>Clever anonymous handle.

Thanks, I choose to remain so at this time. Not so I can snipe or gripe, I
just prefer to do it this way. Heck, it's not like you're just the picture of
honesty and openness yourself. You wanna prang me about anonymity you really
oughta sign your posts yourself. Mturner ain't gonna get the mail delivered.
I've posted under my own name for years. And it was verifiable. And some on
this board have actually met me in person. Can you write the same?

> You really are a spineless common loser
>aren't you?

Whoa big boy! To quote John Belushi in the Blues Bros, "Well what did I do to
**** you off this time, baaaaby?" Do you read some threat or slight in my
asking a simple question? Which, by the way, I think your response answers.
But spineless? Me? Hehe, you don't know what you're writing. If anything I
push the envelope a little too hard at times. And no, I am not a loser, and by
no stretch of the imagination common. I just found it to be a humorous
anti-spam device. I actually tried common winner first, but there aren't
enough fields in the AOL spam block.

>Probably didn't get enough cool-aid at the Jim Jones camp.
> You can kiss my highly-traveled ass.

I'm just gonna assume that you woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Either
that or your anger management classes were cancelled and you were upset. :^)

I asked because you had referenced the Masons in one of your posts. I thought
I knew the answer to my question because you wrote of them as Free Masons. Not
to quibble, but it is Freemasons.

Since you did reference the Freemasons in the designing of the United States
Government, in particular the Separation of Church and State, I find it
interesting to point out that at no time has a man been allowed admission into
a Lodge of Freemasons if they did not profess belief in a Supreme Being. Same
for the early patriots. Atheists need not apply.

Corrie

August 27th 03, 06:41 PM

Interleaved responses lead to long posts. Oh, well - it's the nature
of the beast ;-D

"Eric Miller" > wrote in message >...
> "Corrie" > wrote:
> > Your (deductive) argument on the Anthropomorphic Principle still begs
> > the questions of why and how this particular universe came to be.
>
> Well, like I said before, there's no tautological difference between
> starting with a creator and starting with one or more universes. How and why
> does the universe(s) exist? How and why does the creator exist? It's the
> exact same question.
>
> The difference being, I don't think the universe cares one whit about us,
> whereas a hypothetical creator cared/was compelled at least enough to create
> in the first place.

Agreed. It seems that in your worldview, the question "why are we
here?" has no meaning. And if you ask it, the answer is, "there's no
reason - we just are." But if the question and its answer are both
meaningless, then why can we even ask it? Augustine dealth with the
same point - if it cannot possibly exist, how can it be imagined?

> > What is the probability of intelligent life existing in the universe?
> Impossible to calculate
>
> Actually, the Drake equation breaks this down quite nicely. Now, all the
> coefficients might not be known, but that's just a detail :p

Ahh, and you know who's hiding in the details ;->

> > (The term species is pretty vague, btw. Last I counted
> > there were 17 separate, sometimes mutually exclusive, definitions.)
>
> I've never heard any disagreement over the basic definition of species,
> which is "a population which can interbreed".

That's just the biological defninition. But it doesn't always work.
For example, dogs and wolves are generally considered two separate
species, but they can interbreed. Same with horses and donkeys,
though the offspring are sterile. Also, you can't apply the
biological test to extinct creatures; you have to use other
definitions.

> > But I haven't seen any evidence that the same process results in
> > changes to phylum or order. That's an assumption based on a
> > faith-belief in macro-evolution.
>
> It's a much smaller leap in logic to state that we can observe evolution on
> a smaller scale and conclude that macro-evolution occurs in the same/similar
> fashion than to state "Haven't seen any macro-evolution today," give up, and
> conclude a creator made everything.

You would expect to see a LOT of evidence for macro-evolution, but you
don't.

> You know, this is *exactly* what ancient, superstitious and unscientific man
> did, because he was controlled by (instead of controlling) his environment.
> Whenever he came across a phenomenon he didn't understand, he created a god
> and credited the deity with causing it. Sun, moon and eclipses in the
> heavens? Lightning kill your uncle? Storm sink the family fishing boat?
> Drought wipe out the harvest? All gods and more gods.
>
> And you know what? As we learned about how things work, gods started
> disappearing one by one. Now there's just one mystery left "Where do we come
> from?", which is why there's just one god left. (Where we go after we die
> isn't a mystery... people just don't like the answer :p)
>
> > We have genetic evidence of a common ancestor for modern humans -
> > the so-called "genetic Eve.
>
> No need to discuss, since a genetic Eve is consistent with both materialism
> and intelligent design (to use your terms).
>
> > Similar evidence for a common ancestor for birds and reptiles has yet to
> turn up AFAIK.
>
> Now come on, are you deliberately ignoring the evidence of Archaeopteryx?
> Not one, but at least eight different fossil specimens from around the world
> of an organism which is neither dinosaur nor bird but has some of the
> features of both. This is *exactly* what you'd expect from a transitional
> fossil.

Is the platypus a transitional creature? Or just an example of a
wierd combination of features (a designer playing around?)
Archaeopteryx is an interesting creature, but it is a true
transitional form? Maybe it was the platypus of its time. You'd
expect to see a lot more transitional forms, say, right above the KT
boundary, when the small surviving dinos began to grow feathers. But
they're not there.

>
> > Another topic - I've asked this question in a number of forums, and
> > have yet to get an answer - why is it that according to the fossil
> > record, the pace of "evolutionary" change seems to increase the more
> > complex that life forms become? One would think that as complexity
> > increases, the likelihood of a random genetic mutation resulting in a
> > large-scale beneficial change would decrease, yet we see just the
> > opposite. How does materialist evolution explain that?
>
> Can't speak with authority here, but there's nothing inconsistent with that;
> in fact, I'd think you'd expect it.
> Start with one "specie", apply change, get two. Apply change to two, get
> four etc.

No, this isn't a matter of arithmetic progression. It's a question of
complexity. A single change to a complex system will be less visible
than the same change to a simpler system. Now, then, the mathematics
of complexity and chaos can come into play here - a small disruption
can have an unpredictably large effect - but the fundamental principle
remains. It's easier to change a simple system than a complex system.

> Not all mutations are beneficial, but neither are all so detrimental that
> they result in the end of line for the mutation.

True. My point exactly. A single mutation to a simple organism is
likely to have a much greater effect than a single mutation to a
complex organism. Yet the fossil record shows that simple organisms
remain stable for scores of millenia, while complex organisms mutate
rapidly.

>Further, the worth of a mutation may not be demonstrated until long
after it occurs.

If *that's* the case, then natural selection doesn't work! Either
that or you're buying into Lamark's notion that animals will
themselves to change in order to achieve some future goal. Say it
ain't so, Joe!

> Also, be very careful of trying to figure things out by common sense,
> because not everything is intuitive. That's why we perform experiments.
> In orbit, you have to slow down to descend and speed up to reach a higher
> orbit, if you try to move up/down only the shape of your orbit will change.
> Inflate two balloons, one 25% full, the other 75% full and connect them with
> a closed valve. What happens when you open the valve?
> Two balloons 50% full? No, one balloon 5% full, the other balloon 95% full.

If you know all the laws of physics involved, you'd figure those out.
Same with pitch-for-speed, power-for-altitude. (Gotta get an aviation
reference in!) And by looking at the evidence, you'd be able to
figure out the laws involved. So that's what I'm asking - how is it
that complex prganisms evolve more rapidly? I've yet to see an
explanation.

> > Microbes have developed drug resistance over a period of about 200,000
> > generations. (50 years @ 12 generations/day). Now, those are not new
> > species - penicillin-resistant E. Coli is still E. coli. It's like
> > the difference between a wolf and a German Shepherd. Less, actually,
> > since we're talking about the difference of a few molecules in the
> > cell wall. The oldest hominid fossil (Sahelanthropus tchadensis) is
> > about 470,000 generations old (7 million/15). Only twice as many
> > generations, with a vastly more complex organism, but the physical
> > differences between us and "Toumai" are far, far greater than the
> > differences between normal E. coli and penicilin-resistant E. Coli.
> > It just doesn't add up.
>
> First of all, bacteria develop drug resistance a *lot* quicker than 50
> years; try a week if you're irresponsible and quit taking your antibiotics
> as soon as you feel better instead of emptying the bottle as instructed by
> your physician.

I'm talking about the general worldwide population of microbes. Fifty
years ago, the resistant mutation was very rare. If you stopped
taking your meds early, there might not be enough of them to reinfect
you - your body's defenses would take over and finish the job. Today,
the resistant mutation is a lot more common, so you have to really
hammer the bugs in order to kill them off.

> And to the best of my knowledge, the oldest recognized hominid is
> Ardipithicus ramidus, dated at 4.4 my.

I'm using Toumai in an attempt to be conservative, giving the "human
mutation" more generations to come out. Time is *your* ally, right?
If we use A. ramidus, then my argument actually gets stronger.

> Remember what I said about common sense.. it doesn't have to seem to add up.
> 2 hr vs 15 yr long generations. Simple vs complex organisms. All things
> aren't created equal.

Whoah now. If that is the case, then you've just made MY argument
stronger: that the process that gives us weiner-dogs from wolves DOES
NOT explain the difference between cats and dogs. Can't have your
cake and eat it, too. :-D

> Short generations allow for rapid adaptation to the environment.
> Simple organism - there's less there, less to change, less that *can* change
> and still be viable.

Oooh, you're treading on very dangerous ground, now. :-) Ever hear of
"irreducible complexity?" A system that, if you try to "devolve it" -
come up with a simpler antecedent - simply stops working? Some folks
use the eye as an example - bad example. Very simple photo-sensitive
cells can convey a survival advantage. But look at something like
mitochondrial protein transport. That's a VERY complex little series
of chemical reactions inside your cells, and it's necessary for life.
Further, you can't make it any simpler and have it keep working.

> Complex organism - we share 99% the genetic structure with chimpanzees, and
> Ardipithicus ramidus is the point where we branched off, so we can't be more
> than 1% different from him.

That's a statement of faith until there's a genetic study of A.
ramidus. AFAIK all we have is fossilized bone.

> Perhaps the same 1% difference between bacteria 50 years ago and now... in
> about the same number of generations?

Except that the difference in bacteria only resulted in drug
resistance. Resistant E. coli is still E. coli. It's still a
facultative anaerobe, still flourishes in the same environments. It's
simply more resistant to a certain threat. But the difference in
primates is HUGE! Enough to call us and ramidus not only separate
"races" or "breeds" or "strains" and not only different species, but a
different genus!

>
> > As far as us having 99% genetic commonality with chimps - is that
> > evidence of a common ancestor, or evidence of a conservative designer
> > reusing proven systems?
>
> What I don't understand is... how can the previous statement be acceptable
> but yet somehow the idea of an intelligent designer that created everything
> *using* the mechanism of evolution is somehow so repugnant?

I don't have a problem with that, philosophically. The problem is
that it's a statement of faith that's been presented as fact. If you
gave me ironclad proof tomorrow of clear common ancestors, obvious and
numerous transitional forms, etc., it wouldn't shake my faith one
whit. And clearly the lack of proof doesn't seem to affect the faith
of secular fundamentalists. It's just so ironic that they mock people
who believe in God. Talk about missing the log in your own eye...

Enjoying the conversation!

Corrie

Eric Miller

August 28th 03, 02:16 AM

This is off the subject of evolution which is already off-topic for RAH
(especially since none of us here have evolved; we're all either flying
chimps, wrench monkeys or both :p) but...

Corrie wrote:
> I invite you to do your own investigation into the Empty Tomb. That's
> what it all comes down to as far as I'm concerned. If the
> resurrection can be proven false, the whole Christian worldview comes
> tumbling down.

Again, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Nothing could be more extraordinary, so it doesn't have to be proven false,
it's assumed to be false.
Claimants have to prove it's true beyond a shadow a doubt.
Something like 71% of the world population is non-Christian; I'd say that
constitutes some doubt :p

It's a bit like the difference between assuming guilt or innocence in a
court of law.

Eric

pac plyer

August 28th 03, 08:42 AM

wimpered:
> Thanks, I choose to remain so at this time. Not so I can snipe or gripe, I
> just prefer to do it this way. Heck, it's not like you're just the picture of
> honesty and openness yourself. You wanna prang me about anonymity you really
> oughta sign your posts yourself. Mturner ain't gonna get the mail delivered.
> I've posted under my own name for years. And it was verifiable. And some on
> this board have actually met me in person.

No you haven't. I did a search on your "name." You have never posted
anything anywhere up until now. The only person in this NG who's met
you in the flesh is Rosie Palm. Your problem is simple: You have no
testical fortitude, and I predict; you never will. You are an
anoymous coward, and I bet you are this way in life as well as
on-line.

>
> > You really are a spineless common loser
> >aren't you?
>
> Whoa big boy! To quote John Belushi in the Blues Bros, "Well what did I do to
> **** you off this time, baaaaby?" Do you read some threat or slight in my
> asking a simple question? Which, by the way, I think your response answers.
> But spineless? Me? Hehe, you don't know what you're writing. If anything I
> push the envelope a little too hard at times. And no, I am not a loser, and by
> no stretch of the imagination common. I just found it to be a humorous
> anti-spam device. I actually tried common winner first, but there aren't
> enough fields in the AOL spam block.

You are a liar and a dickhead. (and a really bad liar)

Adios, half-man.

pacplyer

Corrie

August 28th 03, 10:40 AM

"Eric Miller" > wrote in message >...
> This is off the subject of evolution which is already off-topic for RAH
> (especially since none of us here have evolved; we're all either flying
> chimps, wrench monkeys or both :p) but...

Actually, the discussion started on religion. Somehow got hijacked to
biology.

> Corrie wrote:
> > I invite you to do your own investigation into the Empty Tomb. That's
> > what it all comes down to as far as I'm concerned. If the
> > resurrection can be proven false, the whole Christian worldview comes
> > tumbling down.
>
> Again, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
> Nothing could be more extraordinary, so it doesn't have to be proven false,
> it's assumed to be false.
> Claimants have to prove it's true beyond a shadow a doubt.

Sorry, Eric, that's simply a cop-out. I don't have to prove it beyond
a shadow of a doubt, because then there would be no room for faith,
and faith is important. There *will* come a time when there is no
more doubt - when every knee will bow and every mouth confess that
Jesus is Lord. But at that point it'll be too late.

But back to the investigation, you're going at things backwards again.
Explain the empty tomb. That's not an extraordinary claim. It's a
puzzling phenomenon. What are the possible explanations? I've heard
four.

1. The resurrection was a Mithras story grafted on in the second
century. But that doesn't explain why Paul - writing in the mid-50's
- preached Christ crucified and risen. It also doesn't explain the
earliest copies of Mark ending with the discovery of the empty tomb.
The textual evidence eliminates this hypothesis.

2. Jesus just fainted on the cross and spontaneously revived over the
weekend. Utter rubbish. Apart from the idiocy of claiming that a
person could undergo so much trauma as to appear dead and then revive
enough to roll back a large stone, Jesus was certified dead by a
professional executioner. What we know of medicine eliminates this
hypothesis.

3. There was a conspiracy to steal the body. Doesn't match the
evidence OR what we know about human nature. The arrest and execution
of Jesus caught the disciples by surprise. They were in shock and
disarray, hiding in fear for their lives. This is a cabal that can
pull off the greatest heist in history and not get caught? Plus, a
conspiracy does not explain the documented sightings of Jesus by
dozens of eyewitnesses. Skeptics usually claim those were mass
hysteria. Unfortunately for them, modern psychological studies of
mass hysteria don't match the reported sightings. Psychology
dismisses this hypothesis.

4. Jesus rose from the dead. Really, historically, factually. It
seems a fantastic impossibility, but it's the only explanation left
standing. As Holmes said to Watson, when you have exhausted all other
possibilities, that which remains, no matter how implausible, must be
the truth.

> Something like 71% of the world population is non-Christian; I'd say that
> constitutes some doubt :p

We haven't reached everyone yet. :-D

> It's a bit like the difference between assuming guilt or innocence in a
> court of law.

No, this is a civil matter - preponderance of evidence prevails. We
start with no preconceptions either way and see where the evidence
leads. Inductive reasoning.

Corrie

August 28th 03, 11:19 AM

"Eric Miller" > wrote in message >...
> "Corrie" > wrote>
> > > Just what exactly does Christianity explain and predict that's useful?
> >
> > Human behavior, mostly.
>
> You don't need belief in a higher power to predict human behavoir.
> Heck, just assume people (and I'm a people too) will do the dumbest thing
> possible at any given point and you'll be right 90% of the time :p

Yup. The NT writers called it "sark" - literally, flesh. Nowadays we
call it "sinful human nature." The point is that as a worldview,
Christianity explains and predicts human behavior. Given a choice to
screw up, we will.

> > > And if it's falsifiable, what evidence would be accepted which could prove it false?
> >
> > Easy: Show me the body of Jesus of Nazareth.
>
> Since it apparently wasn't available historically, either due to the hand of
> god, the hand of man, or because of Romans with really bad maps and even
> worse short term memories, that's a pretty tall order to fill today.
>
> Remember, extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence!
> It takes more than empty tomb to conclude a return from the grave.

No, no, Fluffy. That's a cop-out. See the next post - I wrote it
first. Also provided some details in my email. You might also see
http://www.itasca.net/~corrie/rantgod.htm#sense

But the point is, as a worldview, Christianity is falsifiable. Just
like a good scientific hypothesis - that's my point.

> I have to reject, a priori, any god that rules, rewards and punishes on
> anything except results.

Judging God, are we? :-) I did that, once upon a time. Then I
realized how silly it was of me.

> That means no sending unbaptized babies to Purgatory.

If I remember my Catholic upbringing properly, unbaptized babies went
to Limbo, not Purgatory. But I think they did away with Limbo a few
years ago and promoted the babies to heaven.

>No last minute jailhouse conversions.

Jesus would disagree with you. He forgave the repentant thief hanging
next to him, remember? But hey, if you know more about how God should
work than Jesus, go for it.

> People that don't practice what they preach get sent straight to
> H-E-double-hockeysticks.

Well, that pretty much takes care of all of us, then. No human being
is perfect. We all screw up, large or small.

> And that goes double for faith healers that line their pockets by taking
> advantage of religion and selling false hope to people that can't afford it.
> (Faith healers really need to be tormented on Earth as well as in the
> hypothetical afterlife.)

See Matthew 7, ibid....

> Further, no differentiation between good people that believe (like you) and
> good people that don't (like me).

Define "good person." Seriously. I mean, what's "good" mean? It's
really "good enough, right?" There's a whole spectrum of
goodness/badness between Charles Manson and Mother Theresa. Where's
the cutoff?

> Any supreme being that requires subservience from us po' mortals has a
> serious insecurity complex :p

He doesn't REQUIRE subservience from us. It's just that it's all we
have to offer. He's God, we're not. *shrug* But you raise an
interesting point - does God need us? The answer is no. He needs
nothing. He's supremely happy just being himself.

And in his boundless joy, he does stuff that only he can do, just to
revel in the pleasure of being himself. (Is that narcissistic? It
would be, in a lesser being. But for God, well, we WANT him to value
himself more than anything else. I mean, what good is a Supreme Being
who looks up to somethng else as being more important? John Piper has
written extensively on this topic, btw. Not easy reading, but worth
the mental chewing.)

It's kind of like this: Bob Hoover takes (took?) great delight in
shutting down the engines of his Turbo Commander and then flying his
"Energy Management Sequence." It's a VERY Bob Hoover thing to do. No
one else does it. You have to believe that he gets a serious charge
out of it. He's such a nice man, though, that no one would ever
accuse him of being narcissistic in flying. (Hot-shot fighter-pilot
wannabe, OTOH...) On a much larger scale, God gets a kick out of
creating and running the universe. It's a very God thing to do.

Corrie

Ron Wanttaja

August 28th 03, 05:13 PM

On Thu, 28 Aug 2003 07:50:13 -0700, "wmbjk" > wrote:

>Give them a couple thousand years (or even
>another decade), compile all of their websites into a contradictory
>book, translate it back and forth a few times from different languages,
>and what will we have? ;-)

RAH? :-)

Ron Wanttaja

Barnyard BOb --

August 28th 03, 05:56 PM

>>Give them a couple thousand years (or even
>>another decade), compile all of their websites into a contradictory
>>book, translate it back and forth a few times from different languages,
>>and what will we have? ;-)
>
>RAH? :-)
>
>Ron Wanttaja
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Yep......
With me rising from the dead at the RAH fly-in.

Lotsa' eye witnesses.

MUZZLELOADED BOb --

Eric Miller

August 28th 03, 06:35 PM

"Corrie" wrote
> "Eric Miller" wrote
> But the point is, as a worldview, Christianity is falsifiable. Just
> like a good scientific hypothesis - that's my point.

I'd suggest that's is "conveniently falsifiable" if the only opposing
evidence you'll accept cannot be provided.
(Which is not the same thing as saying it couldn't have been provided at one
time.)

No difference between that and me asking you to prove the ejection from Eden
by producing the (supposedly long decayed) core of the forbidden fruit.

> > I have to reject, a priori, any god that rules, rewards and punishes on
> > anything except results.
>
> Judging God, are we? :-) I did that, once upon a time. Then I
> realized how silly it was of me.

Oh I definitely sit in judgment! After all, having created him in our image,
complete with temper, jealousy and a vengeful nature, we're free, nay
*obligated*, to judge him.

> >No last minute jailhouse conversions.
>
> Jesus would disagree with you. He forgave the repentant thief hanging
> next to him, remember? But hey, if you know more about how God should
> work than Jesus, go for it.

Yeah, I'd be repentant too if I was hanging from a tree suspended by nails
hammered through my body; I'd repent things I never even did!
Oh sure, stealing and killing was fun at the time, but he never would'dve
done it if he knew he'd get caught.
Or maybe it was worth it to him at the time and he still would've, he's just
unhappy with his current situation.
Does that mean he should be seated at God's right hand? I don't think so.

"Do what though wilt, but repent before you die" is a morally corrupt
philosophy.

> > People that don't practice what they preach get sent straight to
> > H-E-double-hockeysticks.
>
> > And that goes double for faith healers that line their pockets by taking
> > advantage of religion and selling false hope to people that can't afford
it.
> > (Faith healers really need to be tormented on Earth as well as in the
> > hypothetical afterlife.)
>
> See Matthew 7, ibid....

Are you suggesting I shouldn't judge slimy, conniving, sellers of false hope
to the downtrodden lest I be judged myself? Haven't sold any false hope
today, I think I'm safe :p

> He doesn't REQUIRE subservience from us. It's just that it's all we
> have to offer. He's God, we're not. *shrug* But you raise an
> interesting point - does God need us? The answer is no. He needs
> nothing. He's supremely happy just being himself.

Tell that to Noah's neighbors and the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Does God need us? Absolutely! Since he's a figment of our creation, if we
go, so does he.
Supremely happy? It'd be nice if every time he threw a temper tantrum,
millions of people didn't suffer and die as a result.
And maybe destroying Job's whole family just to win a bet wasn't such a
great idea.
Supremely happy? I wouldn't even say he's supremely mature.

Eric

Eric Miller

August 28th 03, 06:38 PM

"Ron Wanttaja" > wrote in message
...
> On Thu, 28 Aug 2003 07:50:13 -0700, "wmbjk" > wrote:
>
> >Give them a couple thousand years (or even
> >another decade), compile all of their websites into a contradictory
> >book, translate it back and forth a few times from different languages,
> >and what will we have? ;-)
>
> RAH? :-)
>
> Ron Wanttaja

The holy trinity (circa 4000 AD): Recreation, Aviation and Homebuilding!

Too funny, Ron :-)

Eric

Barnyard BOb --

August 28th 03, 09:52 PM

Building The Perfect Beast) wrote:

<much snipped for brevity.>

>I flew one of my planes to Pinckneyville two years ago. Met quite a few folks
>from Usenet there. Bob U. has been to my shop before. He and I went to lunch.
> I'm afraid I wasn't much of a host as just after inviting him I was informed
>of a potentially devastating problem involving my business. But I knew that I
>had done nothing wrong and the investigation proved me right. Unfortunately
>just the impending hassle left me distracted and not very attentive.
>If any person desires to know who I am, if it's that important to them, then
>all they have to do is send me a private email and I'll gladly verify my ID as
>long as the person requesting does the same. I just ask that the particulars
>not be posted here.

<Lots snipped from here as well>

>And I have to take all this abuse and defend myself just because I asked if you
>were a Traveling Man. Sheesh.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Well...
I'll be dipped.
Glad to see you landed right side up.

I've been keeping my mouth shut about
anonymity, etcetera in this thread.
Wonder how I got so lucky? <g>

BOb U. - My lips are sealed

Building The Perfect Beast

August 28th 03, 10:57 PM

>Well...
>I'll be dipped.
>Glad to see you landed right side up.
>

Yup, tis I. I did land right side up and I think that my vigorous defense has
gone a long way towards preventing something like that from happening again. I
know my insurance company was very appreciative of my insistence of innocence
even though in the beginning they had pretty much decided I was at fault. In
the end I saved them several hundred thousand dollars and some nasty civil
litigation. Hopefully there won't be a next time, but if there is, I know
insurance will believe what I tell them. I got a lot of brownie points to cash
in if necessary.

>I've been keeping my mouth shut about
>anonymity, etcetera in this thread.
>Wonder how I got so lucky? <g>
>

Hey, we are from the same background. Luck is obviously with us or we would
have cashed in long ago. Hehe, personally, I give a lot of credit to a
Guardian Angel and a Higher Power. But I'll keep it to myself in light of this
thread. :^)

>
>BOb U. - My lips are sealed

Well, it's really not a big deal. Or at least I didn't expect it to be. But
you never can tell can you? :^)

Anyway I've got another thread started you may be able to help with. It's the
reason for the new addy anyway.

Corrie

August 29th 03, 06:07 PM

"Eric Miller" > wrote in message >...
> "Corrie" wrote:
> > "Eric Miller" wrote:
> > > Again, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
> > > Nothing could be more extraordinary, so it doesn't have to be proven
> false,
> > > it's assumed to be false.
> > > Claimants have to prove it's true beyond a shadow a doubt.
> >
> > Sorry, Eric, that's simply a cop-out.
>
> "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is certainly *not* a
> cop-out.
> The patent office won't accept submissions for perpetual motion machines
> unless they can be demonstrated.
> Pons and Fleischmann claimed to have discovered cold fusion. An
> extraordinary claim which, lacking evidence, was necessarily rejected.

Apples and oranges. A patentable invention has to be replicatable.
Pons and Fleischman's experiment should have been replicatable.

> > But back to the investigation, you're going at things backwards again.
> > Explain the empty tomb. That's not an extraordinary claim. It's a
> > puzzling phenomenon.

> A resurrection is only a puzzling phenomena and not an extraordinary claim?
> And while I'm not suggesting the empty tomb was "staged", are you suggesting
> people of the time were unaware of how to create a martyr, make him (no pun
> intended) larger than life, and had no motivation to do so?

Which people? The semi-literate fishermen with the hick accents who
followed him around, or the politically-connected, wealthy Pharisees
that he insulted at every opportunity? Those with means had no
motive, and vice versa. Further, his followers had no idea that Jesus
planned to get himself crucified. "Martyrdom" is not a Jewish idea.
(Masada doesn't count. The Maccabin had lost and knew it. The Romans
would have killed them all anyway, slowly and painfully. They chose a
less painful death. They didn't choose death over life.) The whole
notion of "Messiah" in period Jewish thought was of a conquering king,
not a suffering servant. That's how the Sanhedrin got Pilate to
condemn him - as a political subversive.

If you're going to hypothesize a conspiracy, it has to match the
established facts. So far, you're batting zero.

> Eyewitness accounts? I wouldn't trust an eyewitness if they said the sun
> rose in the East, that the sky was blue and that water was wet!

Hey, there's still hope for you. I understand that there ARE in fact
churches in Missouri. :-)

> Sheesh, we
> have eyewitness accounts of flying saucers and alien kidnappings. (True
> fact: most UFOs are spotted at night... near airports!)

No argument there. I met a fellow who claims to have been abducted by
aliens. A deucedly odd fellow - the abduction could explain a lot!
:-) Or vice versa. There are also some sightings that have NOT been
explained. AFAIC, the jury is out.

> (To steal liberally from my own email:)

Cheater! ;-^

> Deductive reasoning moves from the general to the specific while inductive
> reasoning moves from the specific to the general.
> The benefit of deduction is that you can't reach a false (logical)
> conclusion, however, the conclusions you can make are limited to your
> premises. Induction has the benefit of being able to reach new conclusions
> and generate new ideas, but at the cost that false conclusions can be reached.
>
> While deduction has it's limitations, being governed by your assumptions
> isn't the same thing as circular logic... unless your conclusion is one of
> your assumptions.

And that is EXACTLY the point that I'm making. When you say, "A
resurrection is impossible unless proven otherewise" that is exactly
what you are doing! Don't you see that?

> A valid argument by induction, starting with no assumptions and simply
> looking at the evidence, is:
> It rained today. It rained yesterday. It rained the day before. Therefore it
> will rain tomorrow. Logically correct and consistent... and demonstrably
> false (unless you live in Seattle).

As an aside, WWII pilots in the Pacific used that exact method to
predict the weather. It was at least as accurate as the
government-issue met forcasts.

But in the present discussion, your example doesn't examp. One, it's
not demonstrably false until it doesn't rain tomorrow (but will
Schroedinger's cat get wet insude the box? :-p) Two (related to
one), you're using past events to predict the future. That's not what
we're doing. We're using historical documents (and modern science) to
decide whether a reported event occurred or not.

> Now, here's my beef with Holmes. The author called his method deduction,
> most people think it was induction, but what the famous "when you disprove
> everything else, whatever remains, no matter how implausible, must be true"
> really was is called abduction. The problem being that there are an infinite
> number of explanations for anything, so it's not possible to disprove
> everything else. (And come on, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was taken in by the
> Cottingley Fairies!)

And Piltdown Man, IIRC. Excellent hoaxes that were eventually
uncovered. (See the connection?) There may be an infinite number of
explanations, but most of them are patently absurd. "The body of Jesus
was stolen by the Cottingley Fairies" "The body of Jesus was eaten by
Piltdown Man." etc. Now then, it would be PERFECTLY appropriate to
lump the Resurrection in with those. A dead man coming to life is a
fantastic explanation. EXCEPT that we have evidence that a
resurrection actually occured: Documented eyewitness.

If you're going to be an honest skeptic (not that I'm suggesting that
you're being deliberately dishonest; I suspect you just haven't
considered the case) you can't just dismiss those eyewitness accounts
out-of-hand. If you do that, you're in league with the British
scientists who rejected accounts of large apes in the mountains of
Africa and Borneo. You're also intellectually aligned with Quen
Victoria, who refused to pass laws outlawing lesbianism (though she
did outlaw male homosexuality), because she simply didn't belive such
a thing existed.

You have to look at the evidence honestly, using the same tools you'd
use if you were investigating any other ancient event. How many
different texts do we have describing or referring to the event? How
close in time are they to the event? How many copies of each do we
have? How old is the oldest copy? Does the content match the
literary style?

With most ancient writers such as Plato and Aristophanes, we have at
most a few dozen copies of their work. The oldest copies are
centuries newer than the events they describe. Scholars are delighted
with this situation. No one doubts the historical authenticity of
classical Greek writers.

With the Gospels, Acts, and Paul's letters, we have an entirely
different situation. About 90% of the text of the NT can be
reconstructed entirely from quotes in the writings of first and
second-century church leaders. We have THOUSANDS of copies of the
texts. The oldest copies are within living memory of the autographs -
IOW, while we don't have Paul's "look how large I'm writing these
letters" statement in his own hand, the copy we do have could well
have been copied from that original. The autographs were written
within living memory of the events: Paul, Luke, and John all wrote in
first person. Mark's gospel clearly draws on still-older (that is,
closer to the events) sources. The many copies we have correspond
remarkably well - evidence that copyist errors are minimal. In fact,
no point of Christian doctrine is called into question by textual
variance.

According to the rules of historical-document analysis, that qualifies
as "extraordinary evidence".

> In a nutshell, if we have:
> (1) All planes have wings.
> (2) The RV-6 is a plane.
> (3) The RV-6 has wings.
>
> Deduction lets us infer (3) from (1) and (2).
> Induction allows us conclude (1) from (2) and (3).
> Abduction gives us (2) from (1) and (3).

Your example doesn't examp. All three statements are independently
verifiable as true.

> But they all have their place; stating you have to choose one over the
> others is itself a logical "either/or" fallacy!

Point. But to refer back to your earlier statment, each of them has
strengths and weaknesses.

> After all, the general premises used in deduction are usually the result of
> (or are at least suggested by) induction and abduction.
> In any case, an argument can be logically true and still be false if the
> premises are garbage.

Correct. GIGO, to quote my IBM-engineer father. And concluding in
advance of investigation that a premise is "garbage" is itself a
logical fallacy, don't you agree?

To pull the other thread in here: Regarding Elvis sightings, I've got
two responses. One. How many Elvis fans are willing to be tortured
and killed rather than recant their belief that Elvis is still alive?
(My guess, zero.) Two. Do you think it would be possible to
reconstruct an accurate account of Elvis' life today solely by
interviewing living witnesses, or by reference to the recorded
recollections of recently-deceased witnesses such as Sam Phillips?
(My guess, almost certainly.)

Re the thief on the cross, his partner-in-crime chose to die cursing
God. Foxhole conversions aren't guaranteed, merely permissable. See
the Parable of the Workers in the Vinyard, Matthew 20:1-16.

Re snake-old salesman in white suits, please READ mt 7-21 and then we
can talk about it. It doesn't look like you actually know what it
says. Also see Matthew 18:6 about people who preach under false
pretenses, or deliberately mislead their followers.

Corrie

pac plyer

August 30th 03, 08:59 AM

(Building The Perfect Beast) wrote
> And I have to take all this abuse and defend myself just because I asked if you
> were a Traveling Man. Sheesh.

No, you don't take any abuse at all because you're aren't a real man
with a name. You're the only one in this thread that is too yellow to
post who he is somewhere in the header or in past posts so the
majority will know who you are. What is Building a perfect beast?
Some kind of loonie-tune revelations reference? You may really have
reasons, but that does not change your cowardace followed by a
non-participating intrusion asking if pilots travel. That marks you as
a useless troll.
That is the kind of thing only a trouble-making anonymous dickhead
would post. Everyone else involved in the discussion is known to all
of us by his real name, and though all have convictions, can discuss
it without it threatening their manhood or their belief in their
particular faith (Hense, the freemason reference.)
Corrie, Eric, Oldcop, Bob and others for example, are one-hundred
times the man you are, and though they may have taken the oposing view
in this thread, they are valued participants.
You have decided to be a disruptive troll, and you deserve my
criticism. If you ever grow a pair, let me know. Then I will engage
you as an equal until you screw that up with more of your disingenuous
posting. Bob may know who you are, but I don't. Until then you're
zero.

pacplyer

Del Rawlins

August 30th 03, 06:01 PM

On 29 Aug 2003 11:59 PM, pac plyer posted the following:
> (Building The Perfect Beast) wrote
>> And I have to take all this abuse and defend myself just because I
>> asked if you were a Traveling Man. Sheesh.
>
> No, you don't take any abuse at all because you're aren't a real man
> with a name. You're the only one in this thread that is too yellow to
> post who he is somewhere in the header or in past posts so the
> majority will know who you are.

That's sort of the pot calling the kettle black.

----------------------------------------------------
Del Rawlins-
Remove _kills_spammers_ to reply via email.
Unofficial Bearhawk FAQ website:
http://www.rawlinsbrothers.org/bhfaq/

pac plyer

August 30th 03, 06:23 PM

Some of you guys post very interesting angles in this thread, and I
have enjoyed them imensely. Corrie's faith in his religion and
willingness to debate is admirable, Eric's excellent logic is
stunning. Old Cop hit the nail on the head pointing out that religion
does indeed serve an important tranqualizing purpose in life; indeed
it has withstood the test of time. All human races partake in worship
of some sort.

But let me develope my "double-sided" coin theory a little further.
Inevitably, a discussion like this always includes elements of
life-after-death. Life, again to me, is a very relative thing. My
animals have brains and feelings and moods... Does my dog go to a
heaven? How about my really retarded nieghbor? How about a co-joined
at the head infant that dies in the seperation attempt? The
difference between all of these is primarily body to brain weight
ratio, and interactive developement of same. (other evolutionary
factors, dna, etc also play in too.)

I agree with Eric that everything in this universe, no matter how
complex, can be distilled down to simple physics, chemistry, etc;
elementary elements with complex relationships that if we had enough
time and money, could be described and demistified. I mean if I had
enough time and money, I could build a practical mach.80, pressurized
single engine jet in my hangar. So what is love, death, faith, etc.
I believe these are complex chemical reactions within your brain that
give you your being; your soul; your conscience. This beleif, while
sophisticated, does not contradict the original dead sea scrolls, or
any other faith for that matter.

Let me tell you why I believe this is true. All life forms measure
time differently. To a mayfly, who lives out his whole life in a
single day, 24 hours is a lifetime. But to me there aren't enough
minutes in the day to get anything done on my airplane. A day is
nothing. To my computer, (granted never will be an intelligent life
form since it runs MS products) nanoseconds are a lot of time to
carry out instructions in the CPU. Einstien's relativity in a
biochemical application. And then it seems, that the measurement of
time can change within the same organism. During a checkride or
harrowing event, I can attest, time slows way down for me. It seems
like it takes forever.

I suspect that when we die, the mechanism that measures time is
altered. As your brain decomposes, seconds turn to years, minutes
turn to infinity. You indeed do suffer in a hell of guilt if you've
been a telemarketer or lawyer all your life. OTH if you are happy
with who you were in life, and how you treated others, and how they
viewed you, and only believe in a fantasic afterlife.... you decay in
bliss. It lasts forever to you, because time keeps slowing down as
measured by your O2 starved brain, so your "soul" never even makes it
to the funeral. It's stuck without sensory or time input in a coma
forever. (but I'll have to ask Dead Ed about this theory to confirm
its plausibility. ;-)

This would mean that both camps are partly correct in their "faiths."
The athiest is right that all things are physical, and the devote
religious follower is right to want "last rights" from a priest to
get his mind right before he gets stuck into low gear nano-second
time.

pac "lie in a box" plyer
(email and spellchecker are inop. Thanks Bill Gates.)

Building The Perfect Beast

August 30th 03, 07:34 PM

pacplyer wrote:

>No, you don't take any abuse at all because you're aren't a real man
>with a name.

pacplyer,

You know, I posted a humdinger of a comeback to you. But I'm gonna nuke it as
soon as it comes through. I really see no need to answer your name calling. I
plan on asking for help here on occasion and I'd rather not be seen as a
crackpot. Besides that, I really don't care if you know who I am or not. The
important thing is I know who I am. And what kind of a person I choose to be.

However before I wash my hands of all this, I'd like to clear up a few
misconceptions on your part.

..>What is Building a perfect beast?
>Some kind of loonie-tune revelations reference?

No, it is the name of a Don Henley (drummer for the Eagles) album. I found it
fitting considering the fast, very unconventional aircraft which I plan on
building. When I get finished building it it will be a "Beast".

>You may really have
>reasons, but that does not change your cowardace followed by a
>non-participating intrusion asking if pilots travel. That marks you as
>a useless troll.

No pac, it marks you as a hot-head who jumps to conclusions. Notice how I
capitalized "Traveling Man". This is an old slang term which Freemasons have
called themselves for years. When I asked if you were a Traveling Man I was
discreetly asking if you were a Freemason. It's not commonly known, and
there's really no reason a non-Mason would know it, so that's why I made the
statement that I knew the answer to my question after you blew up at me. You
obviously had no idea what I meant. So I knew you weren't a Mason. I must
admit though, I certainly saw no harm, and really can't see why you took such
offense at it. It's not like I called you one of the myriad of names which you
have bestowed on me. And as far as "non-participating intrusion" you better
wake up and smell the coffee. This is Usenet buddy. And, for the record, I
felt my "non-participating intrusion" necessary. Your assertions about the
Patriot Freemasons was correct. However I felt that more needed to be written.
It is vitally important when discussing Freemasons and the Separation of
Church and State that the point is made that Freemasons are NOT anti-religious.
On the contrary, the Fraternity believes in tolerance and acceptance of all
religions. Freemasons are made up of every major religion in the world, and
these men meet together in peace and harmony.

I am a Freemason. I've been a Freemason for over twenty years. I'm from a
family of Freemasons, and my dad will be the head of the Freemasons in my state
in five years. That's one of the reasons that I'm nuking my old post and
answering instead with this more subdued one. My passions get the best of me
at times. But it would appear that I'm not the only one. And I certainly
would not want the Fraternity to get a black eye because of my lack of
restraint.

>You have decided to be a disruptive troll, and you deserve my
>criticism. If you ever grow a pair, let me know. Then I will engage
>you as an equal until you screw that up with more of your disingenuous
>posting. Bob may know who you are, but I don't. Until then you're
>zero.

I am certainly NOT deserving of your criticism or your lack of self-control.
Once again, I can assure you that I am in no way cowardly. But that is all I
will write on the matter. I have nothing to prove to anyone here. I know in
my heart what I am and what I want to be, and I'll be damned if I'm going to
lower myself to your level. There's enough noise in Usenet as it is and I have
no desire to be labeled as one of the reasons.

So you think what you will. You see, it's not what you think, it's what I
know.

Good day mturner, whoever in the hell you are.

pac plyer

August 30th 03, 11:39 PM

(Building The Perfect Beast) wrote >
> .>What is Building a perfect beast?
> >Some kind of loonie-tune revelations reference?
>
> No, it is the name of a Don Henley (drummer for the Eagles) album. I found it
> fitting considering the fast, very unconventional aircraft which I plan on
> building. When I get finished building it it will be a "Beast".
>
> >You may really have
> >reasons, but that does not change your cowardace followed by a
> >non-participating intrusion asking if pilots travel. That marks you as
> >a useless troll.
>
> No pac, it marks you as a hot-head who jumps to conclusions. Notice how I
> capitalized "Traveling Man". This is an old slang term which Freemasons have
> called themselves for years. When I asked if you were a Traveling Man I was
> discreetly asking if you were a Freemason. It's not commonly known, and
> there's really no reason a non-Mason would know it, so that's why I made the
> statement that I knew the answer to my question after you blew up at me.

Pac sezs, Fair enough.

Just how in the hell could I know about your freemason secret
handshake? I thought you were a fundamentalist crackpot "doomsday
prophet" threatening my career with the insinuation that a
professional pilot can not have a religious opinion. I was not the
only one who felt that's what you meant. Finally, you post something
germane to the discussion. O.K. you can stay. :-) I take back the
dickhead part. But if you're going to remain anonymous your going to
have to be happy as a second class citizen around here.

You
> obviously had no idea what I meant. So I knew you weren't a Mason. I must
> admit though, I certainly saw no harm, and really can't see why you took such
> offense at it.

It's not like I called you one of the myriad of names which you
> have bestowed on me. And as far as "non-participating intrusion" you better
> wake up and smell the coffee. This is Usenet buddy. And, for the record, I
> felt my "non-participating intrusion" necessary. Your assertions about the
> Patriot Freemasons was correct. However I felt that more needed to be written.
> It is vitally important when discussing Freemasons and the Separation of
> Church and State that the point is made that Freemasons are NOT anti-religious.
> On the contrary, the Fraternity believes in tolerance and acceptance of all
> religions. Freemasons are made up of every major religion in the world, and
> these men meet together in peace and harmony.
>
> I am a Freemason. I've been a Freemason for over twenty years. I'm from a
> family of Freemasons, and my dad will be the head of the Freemasons in my state
> in five years. That's one of the reasons that I'm nuking my old post and
> answering instead with this more subdued one. My passions get the best of me
> at times. But it would appear that I'm not the only one. And I certainly
> would not want the Fraternity to get a black eye because of my lack of
> restraint.

I've admired you guys for a lot of years. But why in the hell didn't
you just come out and say it? I'm a freemason. I guess that's part
of the thing. You don't attempt to convert others. I like it a lot.

So what, I bit your legg off. I'm a cranky old cargo dog. It's not
going to be the last time either. Good post by the way. (glad I
didn't have to read the other one.)

pacplyer

Building The Perfect Beast

August 30th 03, 11:59 PM

>But if you're going to remain anonymous your going to
>have to be happy as a second class citizen around here.

Dude, I'm NOT anonymous! I've made it clear, anyone who wants to know my name,
rank and serial number need only ask in a private email. As long as they
identify themselves properly I will gladly reciprocate.

Building The Perfect Beast

August 31st 03, 12:04 AM

>Just how in the hell could I know about your freemason secret
>handshake?

Well, it's not a secret! If it were secret I wouldn't share it with my own
mother, much less air it on Usenet. But that is the whole point of the term.
It is (to most people anyway) an unoffensive question which, at worst, might
seem a bit odd. To another Mason, the question is usually immediately
understood.

Building The Perfect Beast

August 31st 03, 12:13 AM

> I thought you were a fundamentalist crackpot "doomsday
>prophet"

Hehe, that reminds me of a great story. Back twenty years ago this year when I
was in high school a good buddy of mine fell asleep smoking in bed at his mom
and dad's house. He woke up to find his mattress smoldering. He ran into the
bathroom and threw several cups of water on it and dowsed the fire. He then
realized that his whole room was filled with smoke. He knew the proverbial
creek he'd be up if his mom or dad found out, so he lit a bunch of candles in
his room to mask the odor and opened the window to let the smoke out. His mom
had heard the commotion so she comes upstairs and opens his door. She looks
in, sees all the smoke and the candles burning everywhere. And there's Chris,
kneeling on the floor in front of the window waving a pillowcase up and down
trying to blow fan the smoke out the window. His mom just started screaming
and ran out of the room and down the stairs to the telephone. Being the good
Catholic family that they were she frantically called the local priest at 2AM
and told him to get over there immediately because her son Chris had become a
Satanist and was practicing black magic in his room! Hehe, I still give him a
hard time about that!

ChuckSlusarczyk

August 31st 03, 01:04 AM

In article >, Barnyard BOb -- says...

I was there ,I saw it ,I helped with the funeral services and I saw Unka Bob
rise from the dead.....Believe it...

Chuck (if Unka Bob wouldn't have rised ,I'd be a murderer) S

>
>Yep......
>With me rising from the dead at the RAH fly-in.
>
>Lotsa' eye witnesses.
>
>
>MUZZLELOADED BOb --
>

Snowbird

August 31st 03, 09:51 PM

"Anonymous Agenda-Boy calling himself mturner" wrote in message:
>...
> (Building The Perfect Beast) wrote
>What is Building a perfect beast?

Building *The* Perfect Beast is the title of a Don Henley album.
Henley was apparently referring to human ability
to manipulate nature through genetic engineering.

> non-participating intrusion asking if pilots travel.

He didn't ask "if pilots travel". He asked if you were a
"Traveling Man".

That's a specific term used by a specific group to refer
to other group members. By failing to catch the reference,
you made clear you are not a member of that group.

> Bob may know who you are, but I don't. Until then you're
> zero.

Pot paging Kettle, Kettle come in please.

Cheers,
Sydney (headin' down to the Sunset Grill)

Building The Perfect Beast

September 1st 03, 02:48 AM

>Cheers,
>Sydney (headin' down to the Sunset Grill)
>

Man, I love that song. And the rest of the album is excellent too for that
matter.

pac plyer

September 1st 03, 08:26 AM

(Snowbird) wrote
>
> I could open up an internet account right now. I could call myself,
> let's see, "tturner". I could make sure the account I open has a
> newsserver which trace routes to an appropriate geographic region,
> or doesn't include an nntp posting host.

You'll have to show me how to do that sometime. :-) But that game
can't be played by me right now, because Direcway disposed of all
newservers six months ago. It's only browse or email now. Nothing
else (according to tech support.)

>
> Gosh! Look! I'm not anonymous! I sign my name, see, "tturner".
> Or hey, I could pick a name in the pilot database with appropriate
> ratings and address.

Well, sorry to bust that bubble, Sydney, this wouldn't work for you,
babe, cuz your inexperience with the equipment would show up in your
posts.
>
> Gosh, now I'm a "real man with a name".

Yeah, you sound pretty liberated. Maybe I'm too much of a real man
for you. ;)

>
> At least, I would be to some people with an apparent depth and
> breadth of naivete', hee hee!
>
> Gimmee a break! Sheesh!
>
> Sydney

That's right sister, just me. M. Turner. Snowbird at snowbird isn't
very brave, but we all know who you are: Ladypilot, Snowbird, Sydney.
Your style is unmistakable. This is how I sign the ships log, so it's
also my email (which is inop for some reason right now.) You can
choose to be a contrarian if you like and believe I am a troll. But
how many trolls post multiple pages up with as many misspellings as
mine? Trolls usually just interject skepicism into threads beteen
other posters without adding anything useful to the topic. Sound
familiar? ;-) Anyway, I suspect I'll run into the RAH crowd next year
at OSH, and someone can run the N number on my plane and will be
satisfied. Untill then, you'll just have to wonder: who was that
masked M. Turner man? Why don't you show up at Osh? I could tell you
some war stories in person to gain your trust. Then if you're still
snotty, I may just have to put you across my knee and spank your cute
little private pilot butt. ;-)

Cheers

pac "liar liar" plyer

Corrie

September 1st 03, 09:08 AM

"Eric Miller" > wrote in message >...
> "Corrie" > wrote
> > "Eric Miller" > wrote
> > > A valid argument by induction, starting with no assumptions and simply
> > > looking at the evidence, is:
> > > It rained today. It rained yesterday. It rained the day before.
> Therefore it
> > > will rain tomorrow. Logically correct and consistent... and demonstrably
> > > false (unless you live in Seattle).
> >
> > But in the present discussion, your example doesn't examp. One, it's
> > not demonstrably false until it doesn't rain tomorrow (but will
> > Schroedinger's cat get wet insude the box? :-p) Two (related to
> > one), you're using past events to predict the future. That's not what
> > we're doing. We're using historical documents (and modern science) to
> > decide whether a reported event occurred or not.
>
> You're missing the point.
>
> It's irrelevant that past events are used to predict future ones, or that
> the truth can't be determined until tomorrow.
> What *is* important is that induction can be logically correct and
> demonstrably false.
> For that reason, induction can't exist in a vacuum, without other
> confirmation.

RIGHT. But the situation we have here is NOT that the conclusion is
"logically correct and demonstrably false."

> On the other hand, deduction cannot lead to such false conclusion, so
> there's no need to confirmation... however, the conclusions that can be made
> are limited without "seeding" it with starting premises... obtained from the
> other types of logic.

HALF-RIGHT. The initial premises do not have to be obtained from
other types of logic. They can simply BE. They can also be incorrect
and/or artificially limiting. And that's my point. When you say,
"People don't rise from the dead, therefore Jesus didn't rise from the
dead," you are seeding your investigation with the conclusion you
expect to reach. When you get to the point of dealing with the
eyewitness evidence, you must force it to fit into the mold of Elvis
sightings. You are prevented by your initial assumptions from taking
it on its own merits.

If, on the other hand, you begin with, "PERHAPS Jesus really did rise
from the dead," you are permitting yourself to be drawn to that
conclusion - without requiring that that conclusion be reached.

> > > In a nutshell, if we have:
> > > (1) All planes have wings.
> > > (2) The RV-6 is a plane.
> > > (3) The RV-6 has wings.
> > >
> > > Deduction lets us infer (3) from (1) and (2).
> > > Induction allows us conclude (1) from (2) and (3).
> > > Abduction gives us (2) from (1) and (3).
> >
> > Your example doesn't examp. All three statements are independently
> > verifiable as true.
>
> Irrelevant, I was simply clarifying the differences between the 3 types of
> logic, I could use the nonsense (and false) statements:
> (1) All ducks are blue.
> (2) My house is a duck.
> (3) My house is blue.
> and it would still be logically correct, if harder to understand.

Ok, I see what you meant by getting (2) from (1) and (3), but it still
does not follow that I'm using abduction to say that "all other
reasonable materialist explanations having proved unsatisfactory to
account for the evidence, the remaining explanation - though
supernatural - is most likely true." It's simple process of
elimination.

> There's a big difference between concluding a premise is wrong in advance
> and saying that it's not true until demonstrated otherwise. It's the
> difference between a closed and an open mind.

The problem is in your initial assumption that it is false. That is
in fact a closed mind. The open mind is in assuming that it may be
either true or false. The difference may seem slight, but it is huge.
Maybe this is a stretch, but think about Schroedinger's cat. (Used
to demonstrate the principle that you can't tell whether a particular
proton has decayed or not without measuring it.) Cat's in a box. At
some unknown time, the cat will be fed (nicer way of illustrating it
than the original, right?).

So - right now - is the cat in the box hungry or not? You'd say that
the cat is hungry unless proven full. I say that we can't tell
without opening the box. Big difference. I say that I don't know
whether the cat is hungry or not. But you say that you DO know, and
without opening the box! You don't even have to open the box, since a
hungry cat suits you just fine. But if you do open the box and don't
see any food, you can say that that the cat is hungry. If I suggest
that the cat ate the food, you can say that well, it's fine for me to
believe that, but as far as you're concerned the cat is hungry since
you don't see any food.

And if the box and cat happen to be set up so that the cat eats all
the food the instant it appears, and no food is dispensed if the box
is open, then you'll NEVER have the proof you demand. Your assumption
that the cat is hungry unless proven fed - that is, unless you see it
eating, an impossible situation - will never be met. The cat may be
very well fed indeed, but you'll never believe it.

> > To pull the other thread in here: Regarding Elvis sightings, I've got
> > two responses. One. How many Elvis fans are willing to be tortured
> > and killed rather than recant their belief that Elvis is still alive?
> > (My guess, zero.)
>
> If you guess zero, then you don't know human nature very well.
> If you and I can even *imagine* something, like "penile spoon piercing" or
> "willing to be tortured and killed for the belief that Elvis is alive" then:
> 1) there are people that get off on it, and
> 2) there's a magazine, newsgroup and scores of web pages devoted to it

I'll take your word on the spoon thing. ;-) Show me one person who
has willingly died for what they KNEW to be a lie, when they could
have lived simply by recanting. In the Middle Ages, people would
falsely confess to practicing witchcraft in order to *avoid* torture.
In contrast, the first followers of Jesus were beaten and threatened
with worse if they didn't just shut up and go back to their nets (see
Acts) but did they? Nope. If they were in on the conspiracy - and if
not Peter and James then who? - why in the world would they not simply
have said, "Ok, guys, the jig is up. Back to the boats." No
conspiracy theory I've ever seen fits the available evidence.

> > Two. Do you think it would be possible to
> > reconstruct an accurate account of Elvis' life today solely by
> > interviewing living witnesses, or by reference to the recorded
> > recollections of recently-deceased witnesses such as Sam Phillips?
> > (My guess, almost certainly.)
>
> I'd guess so too, but that's not even close to a fair comparison.
> Elvis covered more ground, saw (or was seen by) more people, and had the
> benefit of mass media.
> He was literally, to steal the famous quote, "more popular than Jesus (in
> his day)," both in raw numbers and percentage of the world population.

Leave out the radio and television audience. Just deal with people
who saw him live and in person. That's a much smaller number.

> Further, Elvis died in 1977 (if you belief he's dead). The earliest gospel
> wasn't written for at least 40 years after Jesus' death, so by the same
> standards, Elvis's first gospel can't be written for another 14 years,
> minimum.

Ah, but Mark was based on earlier sources, remember? Paul wrote in
the mid-50's - *today* in "Elvis years." Acts was written in the late
50's or early 60's, and Luke not ony traveled with Paul but
interviewed everyone he could get his hands on. The point is, the
*earliest* accounts of Jesus include the conviction - not the faint
hope, but the core conviction - that Jesus had risen from the dead.
The authorities at the time had EVERY incentive to prove that claim
false. That claim was the basis for their persecution of the apostles
from Day One. It was a major embarassment. If anyone had means and
motive to uncover a conspiracy to fake Jesus' resurrection, it was the
political and religious leaders in Jerusalem in the weeks immediately
following Easter!

> Is there room for me in Rock & Roll Heaven (I hear they have a helluva
> band :p) ?

Depends. What do you play? I'm only passing fair as a rhythm
guitarist and backing vocalist, but I don't believe I have to pass an
audition. I've got a backstage pass. For all that, I'm looking
forward to having enough time to really practice. :-)

That reminds me, though - what defines a "good" person? I think you
(maybe another poster?) opined that you'd go to some sort of pleasant
reward if you were a "good" person. My question is, what's "good?"
There's a spectrum, right? Chucky Manson gets the Down Elevator. The
Pearly Gates jump off their hinges for Ma Theresa. The ends of the
spectrum are easy; let's move in a bit.

What about the gal who only killed two people by hacking them with an
axe, and didn't even write on the walls in their blood? Naw, into the
elevator with Chuck. But what if it was her abusive two-timing
boyfriend and the homewrecker he was in bed with? Welll, maybe...
And back on the other end, how about the saintly Father Mulroney, who
spent decades helping the poor children of the inner city, teaching
them to read...teaching some of the boys considerably more. Welll,
maybe.....

Where do you draw the line? At some point, you get a whole bunch of
average schmoes like you and me, whose lives are a mixed bag of good
and bad thoughts and deeds. Who gets in the elevator with Chucky, who
goes marching in with the saints? How can you be sure which group
you're in? How good is good enough?

On the cosmic grading curve, I know what's an F - no plans to do that.
I see what's an A - no possibility of that, for sure. B is probably
too much to hope for, if I'm honest with myself. So where's the
cutoff between D and C? That's the - excuse the expression - burning
question.

Corrie

Eric Miller

September 1st 03, 04:23 PM

"Corrie" > wrote
> "Eric Miller" > wrote
> > "Corrie" > wrote
> > > "Eric Miller" > wrote
> > > > A valid argument by induction, starting with no assumptions and
simply
> > > > looking at the evidence, is:
> > > > It rained today. It rained yesterday. It rained the day before.
> > Therefore it
> > > > will rain tomorrow. Logically correct and consistent... and
demonstrably
> > > > false (unless you live in Seattle).
> > >
> > It's irrelevant that past events are used to predict future ones, or
that
> > the truth can't be determined until tomorrow.
> > What *is* important is that induction can be logically correct and
> > demonstrably false.
> > For that reason, induction can't exist in a vacuum, without other
> > confirmation.
>
>
> RIGHT. But the situation we have here is NOT that the conclusion is
> "logically correct and demonstrably false."

Induction is the observation of multiple specific events and drawing a
general conclusion from them.
If you notice that seagulls, albatross, geese and swan are all birds and are
all white, you can induce that all birds are white.
If your only examples of the weather are rain, then you can induce it will
rain tomorrow. Doesn't matter that you can't verify the truth of the
statement until tomorrow. This is simply the definition of induction.

> > > > In a nutshell, if we have:
> > > > (1) All planes have wings.
> > > > (2) The RV-6 is a plane.
> > > > (3) The RV-6 has wings.

> Ok, I see what you meant by getting (2) from (1) and (3), but it still
> does not follow that I'm using abduction to say that "all other
> reasonable materialist explanations having proved unsatisfactory to
> account for the evidence, the remaining explanation - though
> supernatural - is most likely true." It's simple process of
> elimination.

Abduction = "the simple process of elimination", this is just another
definition.

> > On the other hand, deduction cannot lead to such false conclusion, so
> > there's no need to confirmation... however, the conclusions that can be
made
> > are limited without "seeding" it with starting premises... obtained from
the
> > other types of logic.
>
> HALF-RIGHT. The initial premises do not have to be obtained from
> other types of logic. They can simply BE. They can also be incorrect
> and/or artificially limiting. And that's my point. When you say,
> "People don't rise from the dead, therefore Jesus didn't rise from the
> dead," you are seeding your investigation with the conclusion you
> expect to reach. When you get to the point of dealing with the
> eyewitness evidence, you must force it to fit into the mold of Elvis
> sightings. You are prevented by your initial assumptions from taking
> it on its own merits.

The premises you say "simply ARE" are simply induction over the long term.
Every day we observe that people don't rise from the dead and reasonably
conclude that it doesn't happen.
In fact, if it DID happen, Jesus' claim wouldn't be remarkable, when we BOTH
agree it is, which supports this premise.

The premise that people don't rise from the grave doesn't prevent me (or
you) from accepting Jesus' claim.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Anecdotal evidence, especially eye witness accounts, especially secondhand
accounts, NEVER qualifies as extraordinary evidence because it's
demonstrably unreliable.
That's what prevents me from accepting the claim.

> > There's a big difference between concluding a premise is wrong in
advance
> > and saying that it's not true until demonstrated otherwise. It's the
> > difference between a closed and an open mind.
>
> The problem is in your initial assumption that it is false. That is
> in fact a closed mind. The open mind is in assuming that it may be
> either true or false. The difference may seem slight, but it is huge.

I doubt you'd disagree with the premise that "people don't rise from the
dead".
Our disagreement stems from what is considered acceptable evidence.
However, not accepting anecdotal evidence due to unreliability, isn't closed
mindedness.
Anecdotal evidence, no matter how voluminous, can only suggest; hard
evidence is necessary for confirmation.

> Maybe this is a stretch, but think about Schroedinger's cat. (Used
> to demonstrate the principle that you can't tell whether a particular
> proton has decayed or not without measuring it.) Cat's in a box. At
> some unknown time, the cat will be fed (nicer way of illustrating it
> than the original, right?).
>
> So - right now - is the cat in the box hungry or not? You'd say that
> the cat is hungry unless proven full. I say that we can't tell
> without opening the box. Big difference. I say that I don't know
> whether the cat is hungry or not. But you say that you DO know, and
> without opening the box! You don't even have to open the box, since a
> hungry cat suits you just fine. But if you do open the box and don't
> see any food, you can say that that the cat is hungry. If I suggest
> that the cat ate the food, you can say that well, it's fine for me to
> believe that, but as far as you're concerned the cat is hungry since
> you don't see any food.
>
> And if the box and cat happen to be set up so that the cat eats all
> the food the instant it appears, and no food is dispensed if the box
> is open, then you'll NEVER have the proof you demand. Your assumption
> that the cat is hungry unless proven fed - that is, unless you see it
> eating, an impossible situation - will never be met. The cat may be
> very well fed indeed, but you'll never believe it.

First, I wouldn't change the experiment because I don't like cats :p
Second, this isn't just a strawman argument, you're stuffing hay down my
shirt!
When you put words in my mouth, please don't assign me the role of comic
relief.

Speaking for myself...you're completely missing the point of Schroedinger's
Cat, as well as, misstating my position.
Maybe because you're missing an important part of the experiment: when the
box is opened the cat is snuffed.

Although the cat can only be either dead or alive, it's condition is
actually a probability state.
Whether the cat is alive or not is both unknown and unknowable.
You CAN'T open the box to check and see because doing so alters the
experiment (kills the cat).
The act of observing alters the observed (Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle).

This is NOT directed at you Corrie, but my pet peeve with the junk
science/crystal/magnets/spiritualist/homeopathic crowd is hijacking
scientific terms (which have precise meanings), that they have
little/no/negative understanding of, and assembling them in random and
nonsense fashion according to what sounds good to the authoring huckster's
ear.

Back to your example to pick a few nits:
- I do NOT say I know whether or not the cat is hungry without opening the
box
- If the box is opened and no food is there, I'd suggest the cat ate it
(non-extraordinary claim)
- On seeing no food, you're the one claiming it wasn't eaten (extraordinary
claim)
- I don't have to see the cat eat the food to believe it's not hungry
- I do have to see the food disappear without assistance from the cat to
believe the cat IS hungry.

> > > To pull the other thread in here: Regarding Elvis sightings, I've got
> > > two responses. One. How many Elvis fans are willing to be tortured
> > > and killed rather than recant their belief that Elvis is still alive?
> > > (My guess, zero.)
> >
> > If you guess zero, then you don't know human nature very well.
> > If you and I can even *imagine* something, like "penile spoon piercing"
or
> > "willing to be tortured and killed for the belief that Elvis is alive"
then:
> > 1) there are people that get off on it, and
> > 2) there's a magazine, newsgroup and scores of web pages devoted to it
>
> I'll take your word on the spoon thing. ;-) Show me one person who
> has willingly died for what they KNEW to be a lie, when they could
> have lived simply by recanting. In the Middle Ages, people would
> falsely confess to practicing witchcraft in order to *avoid* torture.
> In contrast, the first followers of Jesus were beaten and threatened
> with worse if they didn't just shut up and go back to their nets (see
> Acts) but did they? Nope. If they were in on the conspiracy - and if
> not Peter and James then who? - why in the world would they not simply
> have said, "Ok, guys, the jig is up. Back to the boats." No
> conspiracy theory I've ever seen fits the available evidence.

You're misstating me again.
I never said people would willingly die for what they knew to be a lie.
But a willingness to be tortured and killed for what you belief doesn't
prove that what you believe is true.

The Heaven's Gate cult believed that they'd meet up with a flying saucer
that would whisk them off to heaven.
Then, over the course of 3 in days in March of 1997, 40 cultists suicided.
I'd certainly say they put their money where their mouth was.
Does that prove the existence of extra-terrestrials and flying saucers?

> Ah, but Mark was based on earlier sources, remember? Paul wrote in
> the mid-50's - *today* in "Elvis years." Acts was written in the late
> 50's or early 60's, and Luke not ony traveled with Paul but
> interviewed everyone he could get his hands on. The point is, the
> *earliest* accounts of Jesus include the conviction - not the faint
> hope, but the core conviction - that Jesus had risen from the dead.

See above. Conviction isn't truth and isn't proof.

> The authorities at the time had EVERY incentive to prove that claim
> false. That claim was the basis for their persecution of the apostles
> from Day One. It was a major embarassment. If anyone had means and
> motive to uncover a conspiracy to fake Jesus' resurrection, it was the
> political and religious leaders in Jerusalem in the weeks immediately
> following Easter!

You can't use a lack of disproof as proof..
It could be a fabrication they failed to disprove and still be false.
The explanation could've been lost (or suppressed, remember, history is
liberally written and re-written by the victors) over time.
For that matter, it could've been beneath notice and no attempt to disprove
was made.
None of which would make it true.

> That reminds me, though - what defines a "good" person? I think you
> (maybe another poster?) opined that you'd go to some sort of pleasant
> reward if you were a "good" person. My question is, what's "good?"
> There's a spectrum, right? Chucky Manson gets the Down Elevator. The
> Pearly Gates jump off their hinges for Ma Theresa. The ends of the
> spectrum are easy; let's move in a bit.
>
> What about the gal who only killed two people by hacking them with an
> axe, and didn't even write on the walls in their blood? Naw, into the
> elevator with Chuck. But what if it was her abusive two-timing
> boyfriend and the homewrecker he was in bed with? Welll, maybe...
> And back on the other end, how about the saintly Father Mulroney, who
> spent decades helping the poor children of the inner city, teaching
> them to read...teaching some of the boys considerably more. Welll,
> maybe.....
>
> Where do you draw the line? At some point, you get a whole bunch of
> average schmoes like you and me, whose lives are a mixed bag of good
> and bad thoughts and deeds. Who gets in the elevator with Chucky, who
> goes marching in with the saints? How can you be sure which group
> you're in? How good is good enough?
>
> On the cosmic grading curve, I know what's an F - no plans to do that.
> I see what's an A - no possibility of that, for sure. B is probably
> too much to hope for, if I'm honest with myself. So where's the
> cutoff between D and C? That's the - excuse the expression - burning
> question.

Easy for line for me. A surprising lack of raping, pillaging, murder and
mayhem on my part puts me squarely in the "good" column. Not my job to judge
anyone else... that's more of a hobby :p

The cutoff between C and D doesn't matter, unless you're a cosmic slacker
trying to squeak by on the bare minimum, you do the best you can and hope
it's good enough.

BTW I have a working theory that Mother Teresa was an intensely selfish
individual that derived secret and perverse pleasure from self-denial,
self-sacrifice and the apparent assistance of others... an Altruistic
Masochist if you will :p

Eric

Eric Miller

September 1st 03, 04:40 PM

"Corrie" > wrote
> (pac plyer) wrote
> An interesting concept in its own right, as the next poster
> illustrated. The great swordsman Miamato Mushashi spoke of "the mind
> of no mind." When he was in combat, he was not "aware" of anything,
> really, not as most people would define awareness. He simply reacted
> to his opponent. Physically, he was likely in a high-alpha-wave state
> that researchers call a "flow" or "fugue" state. Subjectively, he was
> not thinking. It may have something to do with "spiritual" feelings
> or trance states. But it would be an error to assume that the
> perception of a spiritual reality is the *result* of an alpha state,
> and therefore does not objectively exist. It may be that the
> objectively-real spiritual realm can only be perceived when the brain
> is in a certain relaxed state.

I dunno, you're starting from MM tried to articulate, interpreting it,
speculating an explanation and drawing a conclusion from that....

Any athlete (myself included) can tell you about training and muscle memory
and reflexes... no need to conclude a spiritual world/existence/state based
on that.

> > I suspect that when we die, the mechanism that measures time is
> > altered. As your brain decomposes, seconds turn to years, minutes
> > turn to infinity...
>
> Interesting idea, but AFAIK studies of people who have had near-death
> experiences does not bear this out. The "floating above by body on
> the operating table" experience doesn't have an altered sense of time
> passing - persons report watching events in real-time. The "floating
> towards a warm white light" doesn't seem to be correlated to belief
> system, at least as far as I've read. Interviews with survivors of
> drownings don't indicate an altered sense of time (read "The Perfect
> Storm" for an interesting and harrowing description of what it's like
> to drown).

You both might be interested in reading Susan Blackmore's explanation of
near death experiences (NDEs) and the biological explanation for the
similarities (and differences).

Eric

Corrie

September 2nd 03, 03:08 AM

What you describe is called "cheap grace," Pete, and it's not what
Christianity is all about. Paul discussed it in his letter to the
Romans. Chapter 2, IIRC.

I'd go into more detail, but from your tone it appears that you're not
seeking information as much as taking cheap shots. I'm not in the
mood to spar. Sorry to disappoint you.

"Pete" > wrote in message >...
> "Corrie" > wrote in message
> om...
> >
> > What about the gal who only killed two people by hacking them with an
> > axe, and didn't even write on the walls in their blood? Naw, into the
> > elevator with Chuck. But what if it was her abusive two-timing
> > boyfriend and the homewrecker he was in bed with? Welll, maybe...
> > And back on the other end, how about the saintly Father Mulroney, who
> > spent decades helping the poor children of the inner city, teaching
> > them to read...teaching some of the boys considerably more. Welll,
> > maybe.....
> >
> > Where do you draw the line? At some point, you get a whole bunch of
> > average schmoes like you and me, whose lives are a mixed bag of good
> > and bad thoughts and deeds. Who gets in the elevator with Chucky, who
> > goes marching in with the saints? How can you be sure which group
> > you're in? How good is good enough?
> >
> > On the cosmic grading curve, I know what's an F - no plans to do that.
> > I see what's an A - no possibility of that, for sure. B is probably
> > too much to hope for, if I'm honest with myself. So where's the
> > cutoff between D and C? That's the - excuse the expression - burning
> > question.
> >
> > Corrie
>
> Hey Corrie,
>
> But what about all this stuff about "if you accept Jesus into your life"
> then you'll still get the up elevator, Chucky and axe-Gal included... no?
>
> Sounds like a deal.... do your deads; axe some folks, rob some banks, spend
> the stolen money on women and wine. Live 40 years of fun, fun, fun! Then
> when you either get caught, or even better just get tired of it all, then
> "accept Jesus" and bingo! all is forgivin, and you get to compare notes with
> Ma Theresa. (while all your victims get nothing..... no life savings,
> missing limbs, etc).
>
> Doesn't compute with common sense, respect or civil diginity (to me at
> least). Why bother then with police forces, or armies for that matter, just
> put Billy on the tube and get all the baddies to "accept" and be born again,
> an the world will be a nice and pretty place.
>
> Geesh.
>
> Pete

Corrie

September 2nd 03, 04:00 AM

"Eric Miller" > wrote in message >...
> This is simply the definition of induction.
> Abduction = "the simple process of elimination", this is just another
> definition.

Sounds like we're in vigorous agreement, then.

> Anecdotal evidence, no matter how voluminous, can only suggest; hard
> evidence is necessary for confirmation.

That's the nugget, then. What hard evidence would convince you?

> > Maybe this is a stretch, but think about Schroedinger's cat.

Like I said, it was a stretch. It's HARD to come up with good
analogies on the fly at two in the morning!

I don't claim to be a phizzykist, just a fairly-well-read layman with
a few years of engineerin' skoolin. You're quite right about
misinformed believers half-quoting science. Bothers me a great deal.
Verges on "false witness" IMO. It's nearly as irritating as
non-believers misquoting and misrepresenting religious beliefs.

> > > > To pull the other thread in here: Regarding Elvis sightings, I've got

> You're misstating me again.
> I never said people would willingly die for what they knew to be a lie.
> But a willingness to be tortured and killed for what you belief doesn't
> prove that what you believe is true.

Agreed. The point is that the ringleaders of any hypothetical
conspiracy to fake a resurrection and mass sightings would have been
among those whom the authorities tried to threaten into silence. But
they weren't silenced.

> > Ah, but Mark was based on earlier sources, remember? Paul wrote in
> > the mid-50's - *today* in "Elvis years." Acts was written in the late
> > 50's or early 60's, and Luke not ony traveled with Paul but
> > interviewed everyone he could get his hands on. The point is, the
> > *earliest* accounts of Jesus include the conviction - not the faint
> > hope, but the core conviction - that Jesus had risen from the dead.
>
> See above. Conviction isn't truth and isn't proof.

True, but the point is merely that the "borrowed from Mithraism"
hypothesis doesn't fly - it's documentabe that the belief dates to the
earliest days of the Jerusalem church.

> > The authorities at the time had EVERY incentive to prove that claim
> > false. That claim was the basis for their persecution of the apostles
> > from Day One. It was a major embarassment. If anyone had means and
> > motive to uncover a conspiracy to fake Jesus' resurrection, it was the
> > political and religious leaders in Jerusalem in the weeks immediately
> > following Easter!
>
> You can't use a lack of disproof as proof..

Agreed, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" - it cuts
both ways, though. The point here is that the folks with means to
pull off a PR con-job lacked motive - unless that motive was to
discredit the movement. The folks with alleged motive to fake a
resurrection (and that motive is HIGHLY debatable) lacked the means.

> It could be a fabrication they failed to disprove and still be false.

Sure, but you still have to have a plausible fabrication. I'm still
waiting for a scenario that fits the facts.

> The explanation could've been lost (or suppressed, remember, history is
> liberally written and re-written by the victors) over time.

Nuh-uhn, that dog won't hunt. The argument might have been valid a
century or two ago, but we've since discovered NT documents that
predate Constantine. The contents of the Gospels were not altered
when Christianity became legal.

> For that matter, it could've been beneath notice and no attempt to disprove
> was made.

Wrong again, my friend. Have a look at Acts - Within weeks after the
resurrection, Peter was hauled up in court and ordered to stop
preaching. He refused.

> you do the best you can and hope it's good enough.

So on the question of the resurrection you demand incontrovertible
ironclad proof, but on the question of your *own* eternal fate you're
perfectly satisfied with a fuzzy-wuzzy I'm-ok-you're-ok warm happy
feel-good explanation? Error, Will Robinson! That does not compute!
War-ning! War-ning! *waves vacuum-hose arms* :-D

BTW, that is *precisely* what kept Martin Luther up nights. He
couldn't be sure. He had a worldview that laid out a clear roadmap to
salvation - do these do's, don't those don'ts, and it'll all work out.
Problem was, he couldn't figure his grade. Never mind the fine line
between C and D. He couldn't tell if he was running a B+ or a D-.
That's when he figured out that salvation HAS to be by faith alone,
apart from works. "Do the best you can" doesn't count, because no
human best can come anywhere CLOSE to perfect - and perfect is all
that gets across the gate.

Oh BTW, you dodged the question. You place yourself in the group with
Ma T, but you don't say where the line gets drawn. Somewhere between
you and pillagers and looters, though, right? Them folks are SOL,
right?

But pillaging and looting is really just theft, writ large. So is ANY
theft automatically disqualifying? Think about that carefully - ever
get back too much change and not notice till later? If you keep the
money, that's technically theft. It'd be a real bummer to go to Hell
over a couple of lousy bucks. So maybe SOME level of theft is
acceptable? How much? How do you determine it? Is it a
percentage-transaction basis, an incident count (three strikes and
you're out), or is there a lifetime dollar limit? What if you steal
from the rich and give to the poor? Is that OK?

See, when you say, "I'm good enough" you're automatically drawing a
line and claiming to be above it. Which means that somewhere are two
people whose deeds and misdeeds are very much alike, except that one
of them is just a tiny bit worse than the other - just worse enough to
miss the glory train. Doesn't matter that you're comfortably above
that point. For your worldview to be consistent, it has to account
for that tipping point. So where is it?

pac plyer

September 2nd 03, 07:20 AM

(Corrie) wrote
> Agreed, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" - it cuts
> both ways, though. The point here is that the folks with means to
> pull off a PR con-job lacked motive - unless that motive was to
> discredit the movement. The folks with alleged motive to fake a
> resurrection (and that motive is HIGHLY debatable) lacked the means.
>
> > It could be a fabrication they failed to disprove and still be false.
>
> Sure, but you still have to have a plausible fabrication. I'm still
> waiting for a scenario that fits the facts.

O.K. here it is Corrie. The crusifiction was botched. A roman
soldier, who really didn't like this do-gooder, King of the Jews,
decided to inflict an extra measure of pain right before he was tasked
with terminating the dying display. Instead of just thrusting a spear
up inside him, he decides to hold the head of the spear over a flame,
and lets it get red-hot before percing Jesus. Unbeknownst to him,
this sadistic act cauderizes the wound, his weak pulse is unnoticed,
and he revives himself inside the tomb. He is not liked by the Romans
so he gets a common grave, which would not be closed until it is full
(efficiency) The disiples are shocked, he lives for a few days,
decides to avoid a repeat of this excersize, and "the three men you
admire most, the father son and holy ghost catch the last train for
the coast" and a religion is born.

And I have to hear about this fanciful myth for the rest of my life!

No one is immortal except Barnyard Bob; there were eyewitnesses of him
rising from the dead and it was documented by Pastor Dave, therefore
it HAS to be true. (illogic 101)

pac "holy muzzel water" plyer

Eric Miller

September 2nd 03, 07:26 AM

"Corrie" > wrote
> "Eric Miller" > wrote
> > This is simply the definition of induction.
> > Abduction = "the simple process of elimination", this is just another
> > definition.
>
> Sounds like we're in vigorous agreement, then.

Now that we agree on definitions, refer back to my earlier point.
Induction and abduction can lead to false (logical) conclusions even when
logically correct and consistent.
Deduction can never lead to false logical conclusions, but may be limited as
to what conclusions can be reached.
All three forms of logic have their strengths and weaknesses which you have
to be aware of when using them.

> > Anecdotal evidence, no matter how voluminous, can only suggest; hard
> > evidence is necessary for confirmation.
>
> That's the nugget, then. What hard evidence would convince you?

Good question, and I don't have an answer... but then I don't need to have
one, convincing me is your job.
If I come across some convincing and acceptable evidence, I'll let you know,
but nothing I've seen comes even remotely close, so don't hold your breath
:p

> > You're misstating me again.
> > I never said people would willingly die for what they knew to be a lie.
> > But a willingness to be tortured and killed for what you belief doesn't
> > prove that what you believe is true.
>
> Agreed. The point is that the ringleaders of any hypothetical
> conspiracy to fake a resurrection and mass sightings would have been
> among those whom the authorities tried to threaten into silence. But
> they weren't silenced.

While I'm not suggesting conspiracy..

It's not a given that the authorities, and there were at least 3 different
authorities, would necessarily have any/all the ringleaders identified,
contacted, threatened and silenced.
Lack of evidence isn't evidence, so lack of silence doesn't mean there
*wasn't* a conspiracy.

> True, but the point is merely that the "borrowed from Mithraism"
> hypothesis doesn't fly - it's documentabe that the belief dates to the
> earliest days of the Jerusalem church.

I won't be drawn in to defend a theory I didn't suggest :p

> > For that matter, it could've been beneath notice and no attempt to
disprove
> > was made.
>
> Wrong again, my friend. Have a look at Acts - Within weeks after the
> resurrection, Peter was hauled up in court and ordered to stop
> preaching. He refused.

You can't use the contents of the bible to defend the veracity of the bible.

> > you do the best you can and hope it's good enough.
>
> So on the question of the resurrection you demand incontrovertible
> ironclad proof, but on the question of your *own* eternal fate you're
> perfectly satisfied with a fuzzy-wuzzy I'm-ok-you're-ok warm happy
> feel-good explanation? Error, Will Robinson! That does not compute!
> War-ning! War-ning! *waves vacuum-hose arms* :-D

First, I have no proof (or even suggestion) of an afterlife, so I don't need
hard fast rules to live and die by.
Second, even if I did believe in a hereafter, nothing says I'm required to
have the same standards for all my beliefs.
I'm free to window-shop, pick and choose as I please. There's nothing
inconsistent here.

People are notoriously short sighted, especially where short-term pleasures
vs. long-term benefits are concerned.
It's clear that smoking, drinking and overeating will cut years off your
life, and yet the world is full of people that abuse one, more, or all.

> BTW, that is *precisely* what kept Martin Luther up nights. He
> couldn't be sure. He had a worldview that laid out a clear roadmap to
> salvation - do these do's, don't those don'ts, and it'll all work out.
> Problem was, he couldn't figure his grade. Never mind the fine line
> between C and D. He couldn't tell if he was running a B+ or a D-.
> That's when he figured out that salvation HAS to be by faith alone,
> apart from works. "Do the best you can" doesn't count, because no
> human best can come anywhere CLOSE to perfect - and perfect is all
> that gets across the gate.

I just said "you do the best you can", I didn't suggest that only perfect
scores were acceptable, or were even achievable.

> Oh BTW, you dodged the question. You place yourself in the group with
> Ma T, but you don't say where the line gets drawn. Somewhere between
> you and pillagers and looters, though, right? Them folks are SOL, right?

Since I don't belief in life after death, I'm free to dodge the question.
To me it's all just recreational hot air, *you're* the one that has to sweat
the details.
If I had to judge I'd do it like most us judge "art"... I'm not an expert,
but I know what I like!
(As always, the rulings of the judge are arbitrary, capricious and final!)

> But pillaging and looting is really just theft, writ large. So is ANY
> theft automatically disqualifying? Think about that carefully - ever
> get back too much change and not notice till later?

Yes, and if it was too far to walk to return immediately, I call when I get
home.
Unless it's a huge amount, they invariably say keep it and don't worry about
it.
If it's larger, they just say return it next time you come by, and I do.

> If you keep the money, that's technically theft.

I don't agree that an honest mistake on someone else's part becomes a
crime/sin on mine.
And what's more, if the judge of our lives is some self-important,
officious, little prick trying to ding us on technicalities, then I have a
few anatomically dubious suggestions on where he can stick it and twist it
sideways... twice.
In any case, since I don't keep valuables that aren't mine without trying
earnestly to return them, I'm Scot free on this account.

> What if you steal from the rich and give to the poor? Is that OK?

Depends. Am I the rich or the poor in this scenario? :p

> See, when you say, "I'm good enough" you're automatically drawing a
> line and claiming to be above it. Which means that somewhere are two
> people whose deeds and misdeeds are very much alike, except that one
> of them is just a tiny bit worse than the other - just worse enough to
> miss the glory train. Doesn't matter that you're comfortably above
> that point. For your worldview to be consistent, it has to account
> for that tipping point. So where is it?

My worldview is consistent because mine has no afterlife and thus no line.
If there was an afterlife, I'm comfortable with my position.
Given that, I'm free to leave all the other real and hypothetical cases
unexamined without threat of any inconsistency.

Eric

pac plyer

September 2nd 03, 10:09 AM

(Corrie) wrote
> In Eastern science (which of course is based on eastern philosophy)
> there is an important concept called "polar complimentary opposites."
> It's derived from the concept of yin/yang - two things that at first
> glance appear to be diametrically opposed. If one is true, the other
> cannot be. But when one steps back to the proper perspective, it is
> revealed that BOTH are in fact true, and the sum of them becomes a
> single whole truth that is greater than the sum of the parts.

That's it. You've come around. No need to argue the diliniation
between natural selection and artifical selection. Nature does not
recognize these clasifications. The mechanisms of DNA "unzippering"
are the same in both the breeders cage and in the wild. From a
perspective of shear molecular function, there is no difference.
Evolution of the blood line occurs the same in both (mutations create
diversity. The degree of that morphing is different only from our
perspective as huge life forms.) Classification, true/false
characterizations are human contrivances. If the truth were known,
there is no difference between the sciences of Chemistry and Physics.
They are the same thing. We just tend to break things down into tidy
true/false packages so that we can get our mind around the basic
concepts. I believe the Bible is one of the most acurate records of
human history we have. But there's no reason to let those accounts
morph into Greek Mythology. Most myths have their basis in fact. The
great flood certainly seemed like it soaked the whole known world to
the men of the time. Indeed it appears the Black Sea covers massive
settlements and matches exactly the account in the Bible. Does this
make the account false? No. To the men of the time, it was the best
info they had.

>
> In western thought this is called a paradox. There are some inherent
> paradoxes in religion and in science. They are sometimes erroneously
> called contradictions. There's an important difference. With a
> contradiction, both A and B cannot possibly be true. With a paradox,
> it seems that both A and B cannot both be true, but it is
> demonstratable that in fact both A and B ARE true.
>
> The classic Christian paradox is man's accountability and God's
> soveriegnty. How can God hold us accountable for our actions when He
> is ultimately in control of everything? It seems like a logical
> impossibility, but it is in fact a paradox. Both-and, not either-or.
> (The 'proof' for our purposes that both are true is Scripture. From
> Genesis to Revelation both God's sovereignty and humankind's
> accountabiltiy are inseparably interwoven.)
)
Well back to the definition of God. When I spit a lugie on the
sidewalk, before it hits, its entirely possible, since it is a group
of life forms (cells) that quark life forms have reached consciencness
mid-way to the ground, are looking out into their universe and
wondering if a supreme being, a god cares about them (that would be
me.) Yes I care that I don't get caught by a cop doing this; I know
that those cells are my children that are part of my grand design (to
clear my throat) but I don't desire to let them in on the big picture,
cuz I'm outa here.
>
> A classic scientific paradox is the wave/particle nature of light.
> Light behaves as a wave. It also behaves as a particle. Both are
> demonstrably true.
>
>
> > I agree with Eric that everything in this universe, no matter how
> > complex, can be distilled down to simple physics, chemistry, etc;
> > elementary elements with complex relationships that if we had enough
> > time and money, could be described and demistified.
>
> Since that statement is unproven and unprovable, you are a
> materialist. I believe (again in the inevitable absence of proof)
> that there exist things in and beyond this universe that we not only
> do not comprehend, but that we cannot comprehend. We both have faith,
> albeit in different things.

Got news for you, fellow lugie rider: We're floating halfway to the
sidewalk in a universe (the lugie)that is part of God's (the larger
universe's) big plan. We shouldn't assume our world is very important
from God's perspective. Who are you to judge God? Maybe he is a
materialist. Your own faith says you can't rule this out.

>
> > So what is love, death, faith, etc.
> > I believe these are complex chemical reactions within your brain that
> > give you your being; your soul; your conscience. This beleif, while
> > sophisticated, does not contradict the original dead sea scrolls, or
> > any other faith for that matter.
>
> Actually, it does contradict *most* world religions. You are saying
> that what we perceive as the 'spiritual reality' beyond this world is
> really just a series of complex chemical reactions - no world exists
> beyond this one of time/space/matter. *Every* religion (with the
> possible exception of Dianetics/Scientology) - every variant of
> Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Pagan, animist, etc. -
> has at its core the conviction that this world that we see is NOT the
> ultimate reality.

Could the prophets *see* a chemical reaction? That my friend was an
unseen world back then. I maintain that nothing in science
contradicts the great faiths before they were translated.
>
>
> > Let me tell you why I believe this is true. All life forms measure
> > time differently. During a checkride or
> > harrowing event, I can attest, time slows way down for me. It seems
> > like it takes forever.
>
> An interesting concept in its own right, as the next poster
> illustrated. The great swordsman Miamato Mushashi spoke of "the mind
> of no mind." When he was in combat, he was not "aware" of anything,
> really, not as most people would define awareness. He simply reacted
> to his opponent. Physically, he was likely in a high-alpha-wave state
> that researchers call a "flow" or "fugue" state. Subjectively, he was
> not thinking. It may have something to do with "spiritual" feelings
> or trance states. But it would be an error to assume that the
> perception of a spiritual reality is the *result* of an alpha state,
> and therefore does not objectively exist. It may be that the
> objectively-real spiritual realm can only be perceived when the brain
> is in a certain relaxed state.
>
> > I suspect that when we die, the mechanism that measures time is
> > altered. As your brain decomposes, seconds turn to years, minutes
> > turn to infinity...
>
> Interesting idea, but AFAIK studies of people who have had near-death
> experiences does not bear this out. The "floating above by body on
> the operating table" experience doesn't have an altered sense of time
> passing - persons report watching events in real-time. The "floating
> towards a warm white light" doesn't seem to be correlated to belief
> system, at least as far as I've read. Interviews with survivors of
> drownings don't indicate an altered sense of time (read "The Perfect
> Storm" for an interesting and harrowing description of what it's like
> to drown).

Well, the subconcious mind is not too reliable (just like RAH :-)
However it is common for Coma patients who have been out for five
years to not believe that even a month has gone by when they recover.
The mind cannot determine time passage without some input. Sleep
studies without the sun bear this out. Sensory deprivation chambers
are famous for confusing the occupants as to what day it is, without a
watch or the sun to mark time. Death may be just an eternal coma.
>
>
> > This would mean that both camps are partly correct in their "faiths."
> > The athiest is right that all things are physical, and the devote
> > religious follower is right to want "last rights" from a priest to
> > get his mind right before he gets stuck into low gear nano-second
> > time.
>
> Except that what you're *really* saying is that the believer is really
> fooling himself; that God, Heaven and Hell are figments of his
> imagination. I strenuously disagree. They are real whether or not
> you believe in them, as real as the mountain inside the cloud. As
> real as the horizon when your 8-ball gyro seizes up.

Got more news: everything you know is a figment of chemical storage.
Nope, the pain is real even though your leg has been cut off. You
still swear you have a leg until you take in some logical
observations; pull the sheet back and use those eyes God gave you. It
shouldn't shake your faith in your brain; even though your brain is
telling you a leg is down there. No you don't have to fool yourself.
Things are only as you percieve them to be. Those things Hell, God,
Heaven, RAH are not simple time/space locations like GPS coordinates.
They aren't physical dots on a map somewhere. They don't exist like
some mirage that solidifies into solid matter. They are, like
everything else you've ever been though, rather, experiences.
Experiences that are recorded and weaved physically in your constantly
evolving chemical brain.

God I get smarter with each post :-)

pac

Snowbird

September 2nd 03, 02:28 PM

"anonymous agenda boy posting as " wrote in message >...

I didn't think you would grasp (or maybe admit) the point, that the
use of something which looks like a real name does not make someone
un-anonymous on USENET.

The only thing which makes someone un-anonymous on USENET is being
personally known to the participants in the group or having enough
history/details to be internally consistant that (for example) yes,
this really is Dudley Henrique the Mustang fighter pilot/instructor
mentioned in several books and not some pretender assuming the name.

Picking a "real name" like "mturner" or "fsmith"? Doesn't do it.
And anyone who has been around USENET any length of time ought to
know it.

Watching someone who is essentially anonymous viciously attack others
as anonymous cowards is truly a game of pot, kettle, black.

I don't know if you can't see that, or simply won't, and I don't
really care. The point stands just the same.

> (Snowbird) wrote
> > I could open up an internet account right now. I could call myself,
> > let's see, "tturner". I could make sure the account I open has a
> > newsserver which trace routes to an appropriate geographic region,
> > or doesn't include an nntp posting host.

> You'll have to show me how to do that sometime.

Never done it.

AOL is pretty untraceable though, unless you know someone who works
there. You might ask Bill Phillips about that. Oh, wait, I forget;
we're not supposed to hold poor underdog Mr. Phillips past posts against
him, it's only OK if it's him or his buds holding a 5 year grudge against
someone else over a couple USENET posts or $20 or some beer.

Sorry, I forgot your agenda for a moment.

The information on at least two ways to do it is right on this
group, though. I just don't happen to care enough to spend $10
and 10 minutes on that game.

> But that game can't be played by me right now

Yeah, right. Bzzt. It can be played by anyone with internet access.

> Well, sorry to bust that bubble, Sydney, this wouldn't work for you,
> babe, cuz your inexperience with the equipment would show up in your
> posts.

Like I called you, "anonymous agenda boy". Quacks, feathers, duck.

You show it so clearly every time you respond to me.

> > At least, I would be to some people with an apparent depth and
> > breadth of naivete', hee hee!
> > Gimmee a break! Sheesh!

> That's right sister, just me. M. Turner. Snowbird at snowbird isn't
> very brave, but we all know who you are: Ladypilot, Snowbird, Sydney.
> Your style is unmistakable.

This is really, really, really funny. You think *I'm* Ladypilot?
Because "my style is unmistakeable"???? Bzzzzzzt! Wrong. But
thank you for playing.

You are just so cute! Insulting, but so funny! Almost as funny
as when you seemed to imply maybe I made that post about the pig
from a directway email address. I let that slide. I'll answer now.

For the record, I have signed every post I've made to USENET in
the last 4 years (maybe longer) with my name, Sydney.

The only other posting name I've used is Snowbird, and pretty much
all the regulars on the newsgroups I posted as knew it was me right
away. So I think I can rightly claim to have never posted anonymously.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is well, um, not as clever as they
believe themselves to be. Or maybe trusting information from someone
who isn't as clever as they believe themselves to be.

They could put an expert on it, and subpoena every ISP record in the
universe, and that's what it would show. Not because I don't know
how to do otherwise, but because that's not how I choose to spend
my time.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled agenda.

I'll probably let your follow-up slide too. It's just amusing to
post to you from time to time, because when you're not responding
to me or a couple others you manage a pretty good facade of being
a normal aviation joe just hangin' here shooting the breeze.

When you're responding to me, or a couple others though, you really
let your agenda show.

Toodle-oo, Anonymous Agenda Boy Posting as MTurner!

Cheers,
Sydney

Corrie

September 2nd 03, 11:11 PM

"Eric Miller" > wrote in message >...

> Now that we agree on definitions, refer back to my earlier point.
> Induction and abduction can lead to false (logical) conclusions even when
> logically correct and consistent.
> Deduction can never lead to false logical conclusions, but may be limited as
> to what conclusions can be reached.
> All three forms of logic have their strengths and weaknesses which you have
> to be aware of when using them.

My point exactly. The issue is the initial assumption. I maintain
that you have blinders on with an initial assumption that
"resurrections don't happen unless proven otherwise. "

> > > Anecdotal evidence, no matter how voluminous, can only suggest; hard
> > > evidence is necessary for confirmation.
> >
> > That's the nugget, then. What hard evidence would convince you?
>
> Good question, and I don't have an answer... but then I don't need to have
> one, convincing me is your job.
> If I come across some convincing and acceptable evidence, I'll let you know,
> but nothing I've seen comes even remotely close, so don't hold your breath
> :p

IOW, "I'll know it when I see it?" Oh, c'mon now. That has to be the
ultimate cop-out! It proves my point exactly! Your initial
assumption is that supernatural events DO NOT happen. Not that they
PROBABLY DON'T happen, but that they DO NOT. And with that FAULTY
initial assumption, your deduction winds up wrong.

"I can't even say what evidence would convince me." Pshaw. Even
Doubting Thomas was able to specify the conditions under which he
would believe.

This is a one-time historical event we are talking about, not a
repeatable experiment. Do you believe that the Saxon King Harold
caught an arrow in the eye at Hastings in 1066? That Pickett led a
charge at Gettysburg? That Hannibal crossed the Alps? You're trying
to apply the rules of science to history - using a screwdriver to
swage a Nicopress fitting. (Gotta keep SOME homebuilding content in
here.)

BTW, it is NOT my job to convince you. Are you familiar with the
parable of the seeds? "Some fell on rocky ground, some fell on good
soil" - that one. Remember it from Sunday School? My job is not to
make the seeds take root - that's what "convincing you" is. It's
humanly impossible to convince someone who will not be convinced. All
I can do is shoo away birds and maybe pull out a few rocks and weeds.
The rest is up to God.

> While I'm not suggesting conspiracy..
>
> It's not a given that the authorities, and there were at least 3 different
> authorities, would necessarily have any/all the ringleaders identified,
> contacted, threatened and silenced.

The Sanhedrin hauled *Peter* into court. Remember Peter? The leader
of the apostles?

> Lack of evidence isn't evidence, so lack of silence doesn't mean there
> *wasn't* a conspiracy.

Best to keep your foil hat on tight, then. You never know when THEY
are listening.... :-p

> > Wrong again, my friend. Have a look at Acts - Within weeks after the
> > resurrection, Peter was hauled up in court and ordered to stop
> > preaching. He refused.
>
> You can't use the contents of the bible to defend the veracity of the bible.

I'm not using "The Bible." I'm using the archelogical and documentary
evidence available, which includes several dozen very ancient copies
of a particular document called "Luke/Acts." That document was
written in the late 50's or early 60's, and chronicles important
events in the earliest days of the "Jesus Movement." I take no
position on whether the document is "inspired and infallible" just
because it happens to have been included in the canon of the New
Testament. As an historical record, it stands on its own, with better
scholarly attestation than Caesar's account of the conquest of Gaul.

> > > you do the best you can and hope it's good enough.
> >
> > So on the question of the resurrection you demand incontrovertible
> > ironclad proof, but on the question of your *own* eternal fate you're
> > perfectly satisfied with a fuzzy-wuzzy I'm-ok-you're-ok warm happy
> > feel-good explanation? Error, Will Robinson! That does not compute!
> > War-ning! War-ning! *waves vacuum-hose arms* :-D
>
> First, I have no proof (or even suggestion) of an afterlife, so I don't need
> hard fast rules to live and die by.

Consider the suggestion made, then: There IS an afterlife. Look into
it. Sure I'm crazy - but what if I'm right?

BTW - If you think that Christianity is about following a set of
rules, you have it very very wrong. The whole point of Christianity
is that humans CAN'T follow even a simple rule like "love your
neighbor." THAT'S why we need a Savior. "Make it up as you go along"
doesn't work.

> People are notoriously short sighted, especially where short-term pleasures
> vs. long-term benefits are concerned.

You certainly got THAT right!

Corrie

Del Rawlins

September 3rd 03, 12:37 AM

On 02 Sep 2003 02:11 PM, Corrie posted the following:

> BTW - If you think that Christianity is about following a set of
> rules, you have it very very wrong. The whole point of Christianity
> is that humans CAN'T follow even a simple rule like "love your
> neighbor." THAT'S why we need a Savior. "Make it up as you go along"
> doesn't work.

Speak for yourself.

----------------------------------------------------
Del Rawlins-
Remove _kills_spammers_ to reply via email.
Unofficial Bearhawk FAQ website:
http://www.rawlinsbrothers.org/bhfaq/

Eric Miller

September 3rd 03, 01:59 AM

"Corrie" > wrote
> "Eric Miller" > wrote
> > All three forms of logic have their strengths and weaknesses which you
have
> > to be aware of when using them.
>
> My point exactly. The issue is the initial assumption. I maintain
> that you have blinders on with an initial assumption that
> "resurrections don't happen unless proven otherwise. "

There's nothing wrong with the assumption that the dead don't rise from the
grave.
We both believe it, just as we both believe that coming back to life would
be an extraordinary event.
The difference is, you believe it happened once, on what I consider flimsy
evidence.

You say, "there are none so blind as those who refuse to see.".
I say, "it's good to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain
falls out."

> > Good question, and I don't have an answer... but then I don't need to
have
> > one, convincing me is your job.
> > If I come across some convincing and acceptable evidence, I'll let you
know,
> > but nothing I've seen comes even remotely close, so don't hold your
breath
> > :p
>
> IOW, "I'll know it when I see it?" Oh, c'mon now. That has to be the
> ultimate cop-out! It proves my point exactly! Your initial
> assumption is that supernatural events DO NOT happen. Not that they
> PROBABLY DON'T happen, but that they DO NOT. And with that FAULTY
> initial assumption, your deduction winds up wrong.

Not a cop out, and certainly doesn't prove your point.

If a teacher is trying convey geometry to teach a student who doesn't get
it, and asks the question "what will make you understand this?", a response
of "I don't know" doesn't mean the student is unteachable or uncooperative
(or that you're right ;p).
At some point the student will get it and only then will they be able to
identify what made them understand.

And while I didn't state it, I don't believe that supernatural events
happen, but that won't prevent me from accepting one given sufficient proof.
However, in the entire history of the world, there hasn't been a single
certifiable, repeatable, supernatural event.
"That's mighty suggestive," he says with tones of massive understatement :p

> "I can't even say what evidence would convince me." Pshaw. Even
> Doubting Thomas was able to specify the conditions under which he
> would believe.
>
> This is a one-time historical event we are talking about, not a
> repeatable experiment. Do you believe that the Saxon King Harold
> caught an arrow in the eye at Hastings in 1066? That Pickett led a
> charge at Gettysburg? That Hannibal crossed the Alps? You're trying
> to apply the rules of science to history - using a screwdriver to
> swage a Nicopress fitting. (Gotta keep SOME homebuilding content in
> here.)

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, mundane claims do not.

Saxon king gets too close to a battle and a random arrow fells him. I'd
believe that.
Civil war general leads civil war charge. Makes sense.
Punic war general takes only unguarded land route to surprise Romans (taking
tremendous losses en route). Sure, why not.

All mundane, if decisive, events. All can be accepted at face value. Most
especially because all could conceivably be simulated if not duplicated.

(And clearly a hammer is the correct tool for swaging. I'm not even sure
what a "screwdriver" is; my toolbox only contains two tools: a hammer and a
bigger hammer :-)

> BTW, it is NOT my job to convince you. Are you familiar with the
> parable of the seeds? "Some fell on rocky ground, some fell on good
> soil" - that one. Remember it from Sunday School? My job is not to
> make the seeds take root - that's what "convincing you" is. It's
> humanly impossible to convince someone who will not be convinced. All
> I can do is shoo away birds and maybe pull out a few rocks and weeds.
> The rest is up to God.

Of course I was speaking figuratively. Would you prefer the wording "it's
not my job to prove your case for you" ?

However, my mind is the most fertile of ground and you've cast your seeds.
By your claim God isn't doing his job, ipso facto, there is no God :p

> > Lack of evidence isn't evidence, so lack of silence doesn't mean there
> > *wasn't* a conspiracy.
>
> Best to keep your foil hat on tight, then. You never know when THEY
> are listening.... :-p

Again, I'm not, and never have, suggested a conspiracy; I don't require
anything so convoluted.

> > First, I have no proof (or even suggestion) of an afterlife, so I don't
need
> > hard fast rules to live and die by.
>
> Consider the suggestion made, then: There IS an afterlife. Look into
> it. Sure I'm crazy - but what if I'm right?

I didn't mean suggested by a person, I meant suggested by even the hint of a
shred of the tiniest piece of evidence.

Yes, it's crazy, and the world at large doesn't waste time disproving every
crazy idea. If it did, nothing else would ever get done.
For this reason, crazy ideas have to prove themselves before they're
accepted and the explanation for why they're not crazy to begin with is
found.
This is the cornerstone of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary
evidence."

> BTW - If you think that Christianity is about following a set of
> rules, you have it very very wrong. The whole point of Christianity
> is that humans CAN'T follow even a simple rule like "love your
> neighbor." THAT'S why we need a Savior. "Make it up as you go along"
> doesn't work.

People all over the world, regardless of religion, are generally good.
We band together and help each other in times of need.
We don't have to be told this, we just do it, and we do it well.

This is a far cry from "Here is a set of rules which your sorry asses can't
be expected to follow in the first place".

Human history and human progress has done just fine "making it up as we go
along".
It has proceeded from before, until after, the supposed resurrection
uninterrupted and unaffected.
It was, both figuratively and literally, a non-event.

Eric

Barnyard BOb --

September 3rd 03, 05:58 AM

On 2 Sep 2003 18:05:26 -0700, Just Wondering >
wrote:

>>He and Captain Doug are prime-time entertainment. :-D I dare say I
>>would pay money for that kind of writing. I think you agree, because
>>you keep on talking about him.
>>
>>Cheers,
>>
>>pacplyer
>
>Does anyone, anywhere, not know that pacplyer is Bill Phillips?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Does anyone, anywhere, care?

Del Rawlins

September 3rd 03, 07:28 AM

On 02 Sep 2003 09:47 PM, Corrie posted the following:

>> Saxon king gets too close to a battle and a random arrow fells him.
>> I'd believe that. Civil war general leads civil war charge. Makes
>> sense. Punic war general takes only unguarded land route to surprise
>> Romans (taking tremendous losses en route). Sure, why not. All
>> mundane, if decisive, events. All can be accepted at face value. Most
>> especially because all could conceivably be simulated if not
>> duplicated.
>
> But why do you believe them as SPECIFIC EVENTS? Not hypothetical
> possibilities, but actual things that really happened? The only
> records we have are historical documents. So I assume that you must
> believe the documents.

In the end, does it matter? The Normans, Romans, and Yankees all won.

----------------------------------------------------
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pac plyer

September 3rd 03, 09:45 AM

Del Rawlins > wrote in message >...
> On 02 Sep 2003 02:11 PM, Corrie posted the following:
>
> > BTW - If you think that Christianity is about following a set of
> > rules, you have it very very wrong. The whole point of Christianity
> > is that humans CAN'T follow even a simple rule like "love your
> > neighbor." THAT'S why we need a Savior. "Make it up as you go along"
> > doesn't work.
>
> Speak for yourself.
>

Gee, thank god we have the expert opinion of another troll Del Rawlins
to enlighten us all with his prophetic one liners. This bush pilot
wanna-be is just what the world needs. An accountant in real life (was
I close?) Rawlins hangs out at Lake Hood making up stories and
insinuating that he flys in Alaska. When in reality, he has less than
1000 hours total time, none of it substancial, but he can roar like a
lion in Rah. I ran into imposters like this many a night in the Bush
Company and F street station pretending that they are bonifide
commercial bush pilots. Typically, in fifteen minutes I could tell
whether or not they full of ****. I'm tired of hearing about how much
experience you have in Alaska Del, I betcha I was in that game before
you even got signed off. I bet you haven't even broke away from
Merril Field yet. If you want to contribute to this thread, then post
something using your Gonads. Corrie has gonads. He will post his
convictions for all to read and lay himself open to attack by guys
like me who don't share his sacred beliefs. You on the other hand,
take cheap shots and have this upper 48 fixation, not knowing that
many of us in the lower 48 have more time flying in Alaska than you do
on the barstool spewing tall tales to people who have actually done
these things.

pacplyer - out

Del Rawlins

September 3rd 03, 11:20 AM

On 03 Sep 2003 12:45 AM, pac plyer posted the following:

> Gee, thank god we have the expert opinion of another troll Del Rawlins
> to enlighten us all with his prophetic one liners. This bush pilot
> wanna-be is just what the world needs. An accountant in real life (was
> I close?) Rawlins hangs out at Lake Hood making up stories and
> insinuating that he flys in Alaska. When in reality, he has less than
> 1000 hours total time, none of it substancial, but he can roar like a
> lion in Rah.

I've been called a lot of things but never an accountant. I'm a low
time private pilot and never claimed to be anything else. If you are
really bored you can look me up in the database and see that I have had
my certificate for less than 5 years. You can't say the same thing
since you do not have the courage to post anything resembling your real
name, and nobody on the newsgroup (at least nobody who has been willing
to admit to it) has so far vouched for your legitimacy.

> I ran into imposters like this many a night in the Bush
> Company and F street station pretending that they are bonifide
> commercial bush pilots. Typically, in fifteen minutes I could tell
> whether or not they full of ****. I'm tired of hearing about how much
> experience you have in Alaska Del, I betcha I was in that game before
> you even got signed off. I bet you haven't even broke away from
> Merril Field yet.

I wouldn't know, never having been inside either of those establishments.
I'm a bit surprised that you are tired of hearing about my flying
experience seeing as how I have posted very little of it here. I do not
consider myself a bush pilot, I don't have fancy ratings and have no
interest in such. To me, flying is a tool to get to places I could not
otherwise reach. Period. Several of my closest friends happen to be
bush pilots but that is neither here nor there.

> If you want to contribute to this thread, then post
> something using your Gonads. Corrie has gonads. He will post his
> convictions for all to read and lay himself open to attack by guys
> like me who don't share his sacred beliefs. You on the other hand,
> take cheap shots and have this upper 48 fixation, not knowing that
> many of us in the lower 48 have more time flying in Alaska than you do
> on the barstool spewing tall tales to people who have actually done
> these things.

No thank you, I have no desire to contribute anything of substance to
this useless thread. You and your fellow anonymous coward can continue
to jerk each other off (and probably will) for another month or two for
all I care. If I am feeling bored, I may or may not continue to snipe
at you from time to time.

----------------------------------------------------
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Barnyard BOb --

September 3rd 03, 12:42 PM

>>> Saxon king gets too close to a battle and a random arrow fells him.
>>> I'd believe that. Civil war general leads civil war charge. Makes
>>> sense. Punic war general takes only unguarded land route to surprise
>>> Romans (taking tremendous losses en route). Sure, why not. All
>>> mundane, if decisive, events. All can be accepted at face value. Most
>>> especially because all could conceivably be simulated if not
>>> duplicated.
>>
>> But why do you believe them as SPECIFIC EVENTS? Not hypothetical
>> possibilities, but actual things that really happened? The only
>> records we have are historical documents. So I assume that you must
>> believe the documents.
>
>In the end, does it matter? The Normans, Romans, and Yankees all won.
>
>Del Rawlins-
++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Wow....
Heavy stuff.
And here it was thought all you knew was welding. <g>

Barnyard BOb --

Barnyard BOb --

September 3rd 03, 12:55 PM

>On 03 Sep 2003 12:45 AM, pac plyer posted the following:

< Most of pac's garbage snipped>

>> If you want to contribute to this thread, then post
>> something using your Gonads. Corrie has gonads. He will post his
>> convictions for all to read and lay himself open to attack by guys
>> like me who don't share his sacred beliefs. You on the other hand,
>> take cheap shots and have this upper 48 fixation, not knowing that
>> many of us in the lower 48 have more time flying in Alaska than you do
>> on the barstool spewing tall tales to people who have actually done
>> these things.
>
>No thank you, I have no desire to contribute anything of substance to
>this useless thread. You and your fellow anonymous coward can continue
>to jerk each other off (and probably will) for another month or two for
>all I care. If I am feeling bored, I may or may not continue to snipe
>at you from time to time.
>
>Del Rawlins-
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Gee...
What a polite way of telling pac to blow it out of his ass. <g>

P.S.
Knowing good manners is one thing.
Using them is something else.
Don't axe how I know.

Barnyard BOb --

Snowbird

September 3rd 03, 03:49 PM

(pac plyer) wrote in message >...
> (Snowbird) wrote >
> > The only thing which makes someone un-anonymous on USENET is being
> > personally known to the participants in the group or having enough
> > history/details to be internally consistant that (for example) yes,
> > this really is Dudley Henrique the Mustang fighter pilot/instructor
> > mentioned in several books and not some pretender assuming the name.

> Identitiy theft is a processcutable crime.

The point stands: using something which looks like a real name does
NOT make someone other than anonymous on USENET. "Building the
Perfect Beast" is less anonymous than "mturner" at this point, because
he has been identified with enough detail to be consistant, by regulars
who know him and he's stated his willingness to identify himself in
email to anyone who identifies themselves sufficiently.

This issue which gets made about "sign your real name" and how "brave"
people who sign their "real name" are vs "anonymous cowards" is just
funny to people who know how USENET works. Especially given some
people's track record of posting under other "real names".

> But you pretending to be knowledgable in aviation is not.

You are welcome to post one example, with Google archive references,
of a place where I have pretended to either aviation experience or
to aviation knowledge which I do not, in fact, possess. Or for that
matter to life experience which I do not, in fact, possess.

You can't do so, because I have never presented myself as anything
but what I am or as doing anything I have not done.

Interestingly, the same can not be said of Mr. Phillips. In his
own words all times, permanently archived in Google.

If you don't like my "drivel", take the advice liberally given
to others by so many of the regulars here: *don't read it*.

OBTW, the proper social address for someone with an academic
doctorate is "Mr" "Miss" "Ms" or "Mrs". Consult any etiquette book.

> > When you're responding to me, or a couple others though, you really
> > let your agenda show.

> If my agenda is to child women pilots who pretend to be great aviators
> riding around in the right seat with their husbands, then yes, I have
> to plead guilty to that agenda.

Interestingly, this is *so* identical to an off-the-wall slam at me
issued by Mr. Phillips years ago.

Truthfully, I'm old enough that I'd kinda like to go back to being
a "child woman". All too soon I'll be flattered to be called "middle
aged". (Where's Stella? Stella? At least you're not mistaken for
your daughter's Grandma!!) It's true that I rode in the right seat with
my husband last weekend -- for the first time in 3.8 years. My insurance
company and my Wings applications for the last 4 years show plenty of
logged time else.

> He doesn't need me to solicite respect for him
^
Judging by your posts, you appear to believe that he does. In fact,
"fluffing" for him appears to be your raison d'etre here. Dissing
me in terms curiously identical to those used by Mr. Phillips, and
attempting to draw me into off-topic debate appears to be a strong
secondary agenda. You appear to have a startling lack of independence
or objectivity in your judgement on some matters.

Or maybe not so startling *g*. One theory would account for it
perfectly.

Personally, as the friend of several people who raise cattle, I think
chasing and frightening cattle by plane is the sort of immature and
ill-judged action which gives GA a bad name and a black eye. Even if
the cattle weren't directly injured, cows in calf can miscarry or give
birth prematurely, beef cows lose weight, and milk cows lower milk
production. Either way it's lost money for the farmers/ranchers who
are having hard times already. If Mr. Phillips can't find something
better to do in the air than disrespect personal property and give
harder times to hard working folk like farmers and ranchers, it's my
personal opinion GA would be better served if he stayed on the ground.
Just my personal opinion, mind. It's like people who let their dogs
loose to chase sheep or cattle. Hahahahaha, not so funny for the farmer.

You've already made clear that you think it's just fine.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled agenda.

Toodle-o, "Anonymous Agenda Boy Posting as mturner"
Sydney

pac plyer

September 4th 03, 09:04 AM

snowbird101 master cross breeder of barnyard animals and hound dogs
wrote:

> You are welcome to post one example, with Google archive references,
> of a place where I have pretended to either aviation experience or
> to aviation knowledge which I do not, in fact, possess. Or for that
> matter to life experience which I do not, in fact, possess.

Sydney,

Private pilots like you and Del for example do not have adequate
background or experience to be posting opinions about things as
complex as ATC services. Ref: your ongoing harassment for months of
Chip and the other fine controllers that post great stuff over at RAP.
Anyone following those fantastic threads by Chip knows what I am
talking about. The implied sarcasm and skepticism in your posts is
dishonest. You post your name in some of you posts, but you never are
forthright about your rating (singular?) and meager experience. Hell
I'm sure you probably don't even have an instrument rating. If you
do, I bet you haven't seen the inside of a cloud in years (not
counting your last swine wrestling match.) Your tone makes it clear
that you enjoy purporting yourself as some kind of expert in areas you
know nothing about. You simply don't use the ATC system five hours a
working day hence you can't possibly know all the things that are
deficient in the present system. The damage you do to aviation when
you heckle these fine professionals is considerable and others have
pointed this out to you. Now Del thinks I'm checking the FAA data
base to determine how long he's had his license and what ratings he
has. But I don't have to bother, because I can tell a lot about your
background just by the things you post and more by the absence of
material you should be posting if you are more than "a weekend weenie"
as BWB puts it. :-D God he cracks me up. As well, you have no
business trying to run off anybody, especially an experienced pilot
like BWB. Now that I have corresponded with you a little, I see why
the fine Doctor Phillips lost his temper with you.
>
> You can't do so, because I have never presented myself as anything
> but what I am or as doing anything I have not done.
>
> Interestingly, the same can not be said of Mr. Phillips. In his
> own words all times, permanently archived in Google.

I think you're bitter and your ongoing grudge is petty. Why is it
beneath you to forgive the guy? I still am of the belief that it is
you who should apologize for lecturing such a highly qualified aviator
as he is. BWB is clearly a master of a great variety of flying
machines. You on the other hand "serve whine to go with your cheese"
to pros that are trying to impart knowledge and entertainment to
resonable GA pilots.

pacplyer

pac plyer

September 4th 03, 09:46 AM

Barnyard BOb -- > wrote in message >...
> >On 03 Sep 2003 12:45 AM, pac plyer posted the following:
>
> < Most of pac's garbage snipped>
> >
> Gee...
> What a polite way of telling pac to blow it out of his ass. <g>
>
> P.S.
> Knowing good manners is one thing.
> Using them is something else.
> Don't axe how I know.
>
> Barnyard BOb --

Dang, Bob's got me by the ear and is dragging me and Del over for a
session with Sister Mary Holysmoke! Just when you set youself up to
break some bonds and "slap the face of God" here comes the Law of Rah.

Now that hurts. :-# By the way Bob, which part was garbage? The
whole thing? Wait a minute... how do I know you're the *real*
Barnyard Bob, and not just someone using his name... hmmmmmm

Isn't it clear to everybody that Barnyard Bob is actually Bill
Phillips? I mean BYB died at a party years ago from BYOB.

Christ, you couldn't write a worse sitcom than Rah. Maybe you
could.... Now that I think about it. Let's see if BYB was Lamont,
that would make BWB Fred G. Sanford, and Snowbird Aunt Ester and Del
Bubba.... but that wouldn't work cuz then I'd have to be Woody....

Moral of the story: don't drink and type diatribes. It always turns
out badly.

pac

pac plyer

September 4th 03, 10:48 AM

(Snowbird) wrote on and on:

> OBTW, the proper social address for someone with an academic
> doctorate is "Mr" "Miss" "Ms" or "Mrs". Consult any etiquette book.

LOL! :^D Horsefeathers (another farm reference: just to make you
feel at home.) No one uses an etiquette book, Robert's rules of
Order, or any formal essay techniques for that matter on Usenet
anymore. If that were so, I would correct you, and request you
address me as Captain Turner in the future. LOL!
>
<snip hysterical stuff here>
>
> > He doesn't need me to solicit respect for him
> ^
> Judging by your posts, you appear to believe that he does. In fact,
> "fluffing" for him appears to be your raison d'etre here. Dissing
> me in terms curiously identical to those used by Mr. Phillips, and
> attempting to draw me into off-topic debate appears to be a strong
> secondary agenda

Draw you off topic? The subject is religious bush pilots. As usual,
you haven't posted anything to do with the subject. That seems to be
your function around here; arguing about nits and other irrelevant
details. You weren't even involved in this thread until a few days
ago, surfing for possible trolling waters.

>
> Personally, as the friend of several people who raise cattle, I think
> chasing and frightening cattle by plane is the sort of immature and
> ill-judged action which gives GA a bad name and a black eye. Even if
> the cattle weren't directly injured, cows in calf can miscarry or give
> birth prematurely, beef cows lose weight, and milk cows lower milk
> production. Either way it's lost money for the farmers/ranchers who
> are having hard times already. If Mr. Phillips can't find something
> better to do in the air than disrespect personal property and give
> harder times to hard working folk like farmers and ranchers, it's my
> personal opinion GA would be better served if he stayed on the ground.
> Just my personal opinion, mind. It's like people who let their dogs
> loose to chase sheep or cattle. Hahahahaha, not so funny for the farmer.
>
> You've already made clear that you think it's just fine.
>

Boy are you gullible. Were you raised in a barn or something? Do you
think BWB really did that after announcing the route of flight he was
on so that one phone call from a farmer would put him in hot water
with the fuzz? It's entertainment, nothing more. You really must be a
pig farmer or something if it upsets you so much. Typical PPL
misconceptions complete with zero sense of humor. Sydney, are you
this much of a wet blanket in person? Lighten up. Tell us a flying
story you're fond of. You can do it. :-)

pacplyer

Del Rawlins

September 4th 03, 10:49 AM

On 04 Sep 2003 12:04 AM, pac plyer posted the following:

> Private pilots like you and Del for example do not have adequate
> background or experience to be posting opinions about things as
> complex as ATC services.

That is one reason I haven't done so. Also, the places I want to fly,
there is no ATC. It looks like you have some sort of gripe with Sydney
stemming from posts in another newsgroup, and if that is the case I
would appreciate you leaving me out of it.

> pointed this out to you. Now Del thinks I'm checking the FAA data
> base to determine how long he's had his license and what ratings he
> has.

I honestly don't care what you do; I was just making the point that I
haven't misrepresented myself and that my info can be verified if
anybody really wants. The same cannot be said of you. For all anybody
here knows you are just a solo student posing as an airline captain. I
doubt if that is the case, but where do you get off criticizing others
for lack of flying experience when your own has not been established?
Not wanting to post your personal information to usenet is fine, but it
leaves you with zero credibility when you slam those who do. While I do
not agree with everything he has posted here, at least your hero BWB
posts under his own name and is a known quantity to the members of the
group.

I've learned a lot about flying and homebuilts from reading BWB's posts
over the years, along with other members of the group. As a low time
private pilot building his own airplane I believe that some of this
knowledge is vital to my survival and I am thankful to have been exposed
to it. At your claimed level of experience, you would be equally worth
listening to, but I have to disregard your info because I have no way of
judging your veracity. On the other hand, I've personally met at least
one of the regulars here who knows Bill, and can verify that they are
the real deal and worth listening to. One of these years my schedule
will allow me to attend the P-ville flyin and meet some of the rest.
The nice thing about Alaska is the isolation from the 48. Unfortunately,
it is also the bad thing sometimes.

----------------------------------------------------
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Del Rawlins

September 4th 03, 10:52 AM

On 04 Sep 2003 12:46 AM, pac plyer posted the following:

> Now that hurts. :-# By the way Bob, which part was garbage? The
> whole thing? Wait a minute... how do I know you're the *real*
> Barnyard Bob, and not just someone using his name... hmmmmmm

Now why would anybody want to do that? 8^)

----------------------------------------------------
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Snowbird

September 4th 03, 01:26 PM

Barnyard BOb -- > wrote in message >...

> P.S.
> Knowing good manners is one thing.
> Using them is something else.
> Don't axe how I know.

My darlin' Unk,

We don't have to ask

*smooch*
Sydney

Barnyard BOb --

September 4th 03, 04:10 PM

>> P.S.
>> Knowing good manners is one thing.
>> Using them is something else.
>> Don't axe how I know.
>
>My darlin' Unk,
>
>We don't have to ask
>
>*smooch*
>Sydney
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sho' nuff, but I luv to use the word AXE....
instead of ask, every chance I get.

Why, you might ask?
Well. I look silly with a ball cap turned
around backwards at my tender age.

'smooch' to you too,
Barnyard BOb --

Morgans

September 4th 03, 05:50 PM

Ploink

Morgans

September 4th 03, 05:55 PM

at least your hero BWB
> posts under his own name and is a known quantity to the members of the
> group.
> ----------------------------------------------------
> Del Rawlins-

You don't think pacplyer is BWB's sock puppet? Hummmmm
--
Jim in NC

Corrie

September 4th 03, 09:03 PM

"Eric Miller" > wrote in message >...
> "Corrie" > wrote
> > "Eric Miller" > wrote
> > The difference is, I started the investigation with the premise, "It
> > may have happened." You start with, "It did not happen." As you so
> > ably pointed out, your beginning assumptions have a great deal of
> > influence on your conclusions. In this case, your initial assumption
> > prevents you from reaching any conclusion other that your initial
> > premise. I'm still stunned that you don't see this.
>
> There's no difference between our starting positions, I'm not unconvincible,
> just unconvinced.

There is a huge difference. Subtle, but huge. I assume that the
resurrection MAY have happened - let's see whether there is any
plausible non-supernatural explanation. You assume that it DID NOT
happen unless "proven" oherwise.

> Our only difference is our standards for evidence and proof. Mine are
> reasonable and yours are ludicrous :p

Funny, I see it as QUITE the other way around. ;p

> If you said you accept it on faith, that'd be fine and I'd let it go, but to
> say there's proof is just silly.

I never said there was proof. There isn't and can't be proof,
oherwise there would be no need for faith. Faith is another word for
trust. God wants us to trust him. He didn't build robots that have
no choice. He gave us free will and wants us to exercise it to trust
him.

So there isn't proof, but there is evidence, a preponderance of
evidence IMO. The evidence is sufficient to convince this skeptical
inquirer that it is more likely than not that the resurrection did in
fact occur. It is the most plausible explanation that fits the facts.
Facts which include solid historical/documentary evidence that a LOT
of people claimed to have seen and interacted with the risen Jesus.

> > > If a teacher is trying convey geometry to teach a student who doesn't
> get
> > > it, and asks the question "what will make you understand this?", a
> response
> > > of "I don't know" doesn't mean the student is unteachable or
> uncooperative
> > > (or that you're right ;p).
> > > At some point the student will get it and only then will they be able to
> > > identify what made them understand.
> >
> > Your example doesn't examp. This isn't a geometry lesson.
>
> How can you possibly say this isn't an accurate parallel?

Well, maybe it is, at that. I remember my high-school geometry,
staring dumbfunded at the blackboard while the teacher assured us that
this set of symbols proved thus-and-such theorem. The proof was
correct, even though I didn't comprehend it. So I suppose the example
DOES examp after all!

> There's nothing wrong with an answer of "I don't know".
> It takes a wise man to say "I don't know".
> Only a fool says he knows when he doesn't... or doesn't know what he doesn't
> know in the first place.

Oohh, are we going to get into epistimology?
How-do-you-know-what-you-know, what is knowledge, all that good stuff?
Careful with that can opener, Eugene! That aside, you *aren't*
saying that you don't know. You're saying that you *do* know: "The
resurrection did not happen unless you prove that it did."

I'm the fellow saying that I don't know: "Maybe the resurrection
really happened, maybe it didn't. Let's investigate the evidence and
the hypotheses."

> Sufficient proof is what will convince me. By definition, if something
> doesn't, it's insufficient.
> I may or may not know what "sufficient" is in advance. In this case, I can't
> even imagine it.

Still sounds like a cop-out to me. :-P

> > If you can't define "extraordinary evidence," that sentence has no
> > meaning.
>
> Extraordinary evidence means demonstrably and repeatable.
> Not really that extraordinary, unless you're claiming something that isn't
> true, and then it's not just extraordinary, it's impossible!
> If something isn't demonstrable and repeatable, it's useless.
> If the Wright Brothers' powered flight couldn't be demonstrated and
> repeated, it would've been of interest to no one and long since been
> forgotten.

You're mixing apples and oranges. We're not talking about a
technology demonstration, we're talking about a singular historical
event.

> If a magician produced a rabbit out of hat, would you believe he conjured it
> out of thin air?
> What if he only did it once and refused to do it again so you could watch
> and examine his movements more closely?
> What if the only time he did it was 2000 years ago?
> What if the only witnesses were illiterate peasant-folk?
> What if they told the story about the magician, back and forth, over the
> next 50 years, and it grew with each retelling, until finally it was heard
> by someone that knew how to write who then put pen to paper?
> What if? :p

You seem to be making the "legendary accretion" argument. Doesn't
work. The time interval between the reported date of the resurrection
and the earliest collection is too short for "golly we sure miss
Jesus" to become "I saw Jesus alive again - and so did Jerry over
there!" Not all the witnesses were illiterate peasants. Jesus'
followers were from all walks of life. He had very few friends among
the Pharisees, but even on the Sanhedrin he had some supporters.

> I can accept mundane specific events that don't violate the laws of physics.

If an observation conflicts with our understanding of how the world
works, then either the observation or our understanding may be in
error. You're assuming that your undertanding of the way things work
is accurate. Two hundred years ago, it was believed that a human
being would die if he traveled at more than 25 miles per hour. A
hundred and ten years ago, it was believed that heavier-than-air
flight violated the laws of physics. Seventy years ago, it was widely
believed that supersonic flight was impossible. Fifty years ago, the
thought of living in space was the stuff of fantasy.

Today, laboratory observations of quantum synchronicity phenomena
appear to violate the laws of physics. Does that mean that the
observations are erroneous, or that the "laws of physics" need to be
revised?

Now, I already know that you're going to counter with the "but those
are repeatable experiments." But they are repeatable only if you're
willing to use the tools. If I refuse to believe the evidence of an
airspeed indicator, then you can never convince me that Yeager broke
Mach 1. It's like the "Apollo was faked" crowd. They reject or
reinterpret every piece of evidence there is. What will it take to
convince them of the truth? They don't know and they can't say. :-D

Concepts of reality change. My view of what is possible is simply
larger than yours. Prayer works. But you have to actually PRAY to
find that out.

BTW, have you ever read "Flatland"? It's a very good metaphor for
what we're talking about. There's a whole race of beings that exist
in two dimensions. The all live on a flat plane called "Flatland."
One day a sphere passes through. The Flatlanders see it as a dot that
grows into a circle, expands, and finally shrinks back to a dot and
vanishes. Some Flatlanders perceive this phenomenon as evidence of
the 3rd dimension. Skeptics argue that the third dimension simply
does not exist. They've never personally experienced it, don't trust
eyewitnesses who saw the circle, and have no use for such silly
superstitions.

> > Try these mundane events, also drawn from historical documents: An
> > itenerant preacher draws large crowds - no problem believing that, I
> > presume? Happens even today. He repeatedly accuses the local leaders
> > of hypocrisy. He's arrested as a troublemaker and tried with false
> > witnesses in a kangaroo court - still all very believable, right?
> > He's sentenced to be tortured and executed by a particular method
> > known to scholars to have been used in that time and place. He dies,
> > and the death is verified by the executioner. His body is placed in a
> > hole carved in the side of a hill, and his followers are sad and
> > afraid.
> >
> > So far, there's absolutely nothing that you would take issue with,
> > right? Very believable. Simulatable, even.
>
> I have no problem with a historical Messiah. In fact, there have been
> several dozen purported messiahs since the first century BCE.
> Notably, Muhammad clearly stated he was NOT a messiah, perhaps because
> messiahs tended to meet untimely ends.

None of them ever claimed to have risen from the dead.

> > And then the narrative ends with a remarkable thing - the followers
> > return to the tomb a day later and find it empty. How to explain
> > that? Oh, there're plenty of possibilities. But now other
> > contemporary ancient texts pick up the thread, with the utterly
> > startling assertion that the dead guy came back to life and was seen
> > my lots of people.
> >
> > Now we have a real problem, because the same texts that contain this
> > fantastic tale also contain these utterly mundane observations. And
> > the literary styles of the day don't include fiction that reads like
> > this. There's fiction, but it's very different. This stuff really
> > reads like authentic eyewitness accounts. You can't just dismiss it -
> > you have to account for it somehow.
>
> I don't HAVE to do anything.

There you go again, copping out and avoiding the issue.

> Fortunately, there's no need to, because I suspect human nature has changed
> very little over 2000 years.
> People are just as poor observers, just as gullible, just as superstitious
> and just as willing to believe what they want to believe today.

That's not an argument based on the evidence. That's merely a slur
directed at people of a different culture. A thousand years from now,
people will look back at us as hopelessly backwards, gullible, etc.
(Remember Star Trek's Dr. MCoy's reaction to the idea of surgery?
"Cutting people open and sewing them back up - how BARBARIC!")

I challenge you to get off your modernist high-horse and actually
investigate the scholarly evidence. I'm not suggesting that you take
the Bible on faith. Just look at it through the lens of a scholar.
Set your assumptions and prejudices aside and just look at the
evidence.

> That leaves the claim of a divine power that just doesn't feel like
> convincing me right now.
> As the SNL Church Lady would say, "How convenient!" :p

He's the potter, we're the clay. For all I know you're a just a skeet
target. I'm not going to argue with him. I just keep hacking at the
weeds.

> > Do you ever wonder why several billion people, including many highly
> > educated, intelligent, non-superstitious all belive this crazy idea?
> > We're not talking about a dozen or so social outcasts who believe that
> > a UFO is flying right echalon on a comet.
>
> No, I don't wonder at all.
> People believe in life after death because they don't like the idea of a one
> time existence and then vanishing forever into nothingness.

Oddly enough, Jewish theology does NOT contain the idea of life after
death. "Sheol" is simply the "land of the dead," not a reward or
punishment.

> What I find truly disturbing is that these people find more comfort in the
> possibility of eternal torment than in just being snuffed out.

Interesting point. There's a fairly large school of thought within
even conservative Christianity that suggests that Hell is eternal
destruction, not eternal torment. Dead and gone, not dead and
burning. Either way, it's a ****-poor alternative to eternal life in
paradise. Imagine - no need for annuals or pre-flights! :-D

> Probably because they all belief the eternal torment part will happen to
> someone else.

Actually, Luther's whole motivation was that he had no assurance that
he was going to heaven.

> You know, when Fido dies, we tell Little Sally that we sent him off to a
> farm, somewhere upstate, where he can run around in fields chasing rabbits
> all day.

Not me. My kids know what death is. I've been close on several
occasions. Our elderly neighbor died a year or so ago. The kids know
she's not on vacation.

> Believing in life after death is no different, except it's a lie you tell
> yourself and let yourself believe. Grow up Little Sally!

I see it as just the opposite. Believing that this-is-all-there-is
lets you avoid the unpleasant thought that maybe there really is a
Judge, and that you don't measure up - no matter how "good enough" you
think you are. Grow up indeed.

> > > People all over the world, regardless of religion, are generally good.
> > > We band together and help each other in times of need.
> > > We don't have to be told this, we just do it, and we do it well.
> >
> > You can say the same for murder and pillage. "We just do it, and we
> > do it well." Didja ever stop to consider that the civilization we
> > take for granted here in the US is wildly atypical? Most of the world
> > settles disagreements with guns and knives, not words. People band
> > together, sure - to help their own tribe. But we better kill the
> > other guys before they take our stuff - THAT is the history of the
> > human race. Sad but true.
>
> Murder and pillage are also universally punished.

Not when it's government policy, or if there's no government. Just
ask anyone from Cambodia, Bosnia, or Rwanda. And just try to set up a
sign in a US courtroom that says "Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not
steal" and see what happens. *Where* are we going and *why* are we in
this handbasket?

> And if the amount of violence in the world exceeded the amount of
> benevolence we wouldn't be 6-7 billion strong now.

Don't confuse birthrate with benevolence. Human populations grow to
the limit of their food supply, just like any other critter. We're
just clever enough to alter the environment. If agriculture hadn't
replaced foraging, we'd still be living in small tribal clusters.

> Anyone else find the idea of a religious cynic and an atheistic optimist to
> be ironic? :-)

The optimist believes we are living in the best of all possible
worlds. The cynic knows this to be true. :-D

Corrie

Del Rawlins

September 4th 03, 09:32 PM

On 04 Sep 2003 08:55 AM, Morgans posted the following:
> at least your hero BWB
>> posts under his own name and is a known quantity to the members of
>> the group. ---------------------------------------------------- Del
>> Rawlins-
>
> You don't think pacplyer is BWB's sock puppet? Hummmmm

I may be giving BWB too much credit but using a sock puppet doesn't seem
like his style (excluding Ms. Geeter of course). Certainly there are
other arrogant high-timers out there who look down on less experienced
pilots, and another one may have easily found the newsgroup. Of course,
that all assumes that "pacplyer" aka "mturner" or whoever the hell he is
happens to be telling the truth, and there is no way of knowing that at
this point.

----------------------------------------------------
Del Rawlins-
Remove _kills_spammers_ to reply via email.
Unofficial Bearhawk FAQ website:
http://www.rawlinsbrothers.org/bhfaq/

Eric Miller

September 4th 03, 11:41 PM

"Corrie" > wrote
> "Eric Miller" > wrote
>
> God wants us to trust him.

Remember that trust isn't a right, it has to be earned. I can't trust that
which:
a) doesn't exist in the first place, or
b) if it did exist has been shown to be arbitrary, inconsistent and at least
as foul tempered and prone to tantrums as any over-tired 2 year old.
He can have my trust after a spanking, a time out, has thought about all
he's done wrong, and has sincerely apologized for his bad behavior. Maybe.

> You're mixing apples and oranges. We're not talking about a
> technology demonstration, we're talking about a singular historical
> event.

The historical is irrelevant, it's the singular that's the conundrum.
If it only apparently happened once 2000 years ago, we can safely call it
observer/experimental error and ignore it.

> > I can accept mundane specific events that don't violate the laws of
physics.
>
> If an observation conflicts with our understanding of how the world
> works, then either the observation or our understanding may be in
> error. You're assuming that your undertanding of the way things work
> is accurate. Two hundred years ago, it was believed that a human
> being would die if he traveled at more than 25 miles per hour. A
> hundred and ten years ago, it was believed that heavier-than-air
> flight violated the laws of physics. Seventy years ago, it was widely
> believed that supersonic flight was impossible. Fifty years ago, the
> thought of living in space was the stuff of fantasy.

But continued observation and experimentation has led to greater
understanding of how things work.
No observation or experimentation has resulted in resurrection. Until it
does, there's no need to change our understanding.

> Today, laboratory observations of quantum synchronicity phenomena
> appear to violate the laws of physics. Does that mean that the
> observations are erroneous, or that the "laws of physics" need to be
> revised?

No, because they're predicted and expected by quantum mechanics.
What's more, quantum mechanics predicts other things which we can test and
verify.
That's what makes QM useful and valuable.
Theories which don't predict and can't be tested or verified are useless and
worthless.

Now you can say that the Resurrection predicts an after-life... but unless
someone comes back and confirms then it's untestable.
If someone DOES come back, it satisfies my required for repeatability.
But then it would also supply proof, which defies faith, so it can't be
ALLOWED to happen.
A nice little bit of circular logic.

> Now, I already know that you're going to counter with the "but those
> are repeatable experiments." But they are repeatable only if you're
> willing to use the tools. If I refuse to believe the evidence of an
> airspeed indicator, then you can never convince me that Yeager broke
> Mach 1. It's like the "Apollo was faked" crowd. They reject or
> reinterpret every piece of evidence there is. What will it take to
> convince them of the truth? They don't know and they can't say. :-D
>
> Concepts of reality change. My view of what is possible is simply
> larger than yours. Prayer works. But you have to actually PRAY to
> find that out.

Prayer works. So do sugar pills, with the same efficacy. Consult your
physician for possible side effects of either.

> BTW, have you ever read "Flatland"? It's a very good metaphor for
> what we're talking about. There's a whole race of beings that exist
> in two dimensions. The all live on a flat plane called "Flatland."
> One day a sphere passes through. The Flatlanders see it as a dot that
> grows into a circle, expands, and finally shrinks back to a dot and
> vanishes. Some Flatlanders perceive this phenomenon as evidence of
> the 3rd dimension. Skeptics argue that the third dimension simply
> does not exist. They've never personally experienced it, don't trust
> eyewitnesses who saw the circle, and have no use for such silly
> superstitions.

Of course I know "Flatland".
And if the sphere should pass through flatland but once, what need is there
to explain it?

And just because they're in a 2D world, doesn't prohibit them from
formulating a 3D model.
That, however, doesn't make the 3D world real (see superstring theory... not
to be confused with Silly String).

Further, while there's a elegant 3D explanation in this case, it's not
REQUIRED.
You could just as easily explain it as a growing and shrinking circle, and
it's just as valid.

> > Fortunately, there's no need to, because I suspect human nature has
changed
> > very little over 2000 years.
> > People are just as poor observers, just as gullible, just as
superstitious
> > and just as willing to believe what they want to believe today.
>
> That's not an argument based on the evidence. That's merely a slur
> directed at people of a different culture. A thousand years from now,
> people will look back at us as hopelessly backwards, gullible, etc.
> (Remember Star Trek's Dr. MCoy's reaction to the idea of surgery?
> "Cutting people open and sewing them back up - how BARBARIC!")
>
> I challenge you to get off your modernist high-horse and actually
> investigate the scholarly evidence. I'm not suggesting that you take
> the Bible on faith. Just look at it through the lens of a scholar.
> Set your assumptions and prejudices aside and just look at the
> evidence.

You misread me. No modernistic high-horse here!
I'm not judging the people of 2000 years ago and saying they're gullible....
I'm saying people TODAY are gullible, and the people of 2000 years ago were
likely no better.

> > No, I don't wonder at all.
> > People believe in life after death because they don't like the idea of a
one
> > time existence and then vanishing forever into nothingness.
>
> > What I find truly disturbing is that these people find more comfort in
the
> > possibility of eternal torment than in just being snuffed out.
>
> Interesting point. There's a fairly large school of thought within
> even conservative Christianity that suggests that Hell is eternal
> destruction, not eternal torment. Dead and gone, not dead and
> burning. Either way, it's a ****-poor alternative to eternal life in
> paradise. Imagine - no need for annuals or pre-flights! :-D

Or maybe an endless string of BFRs! :P

But is paradise an actual, available alternative or are you just fooling
yourself?
"If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" clearly applies.

> I see it as just the opposite. Believing that this-is-all-there-is
> lets you avoid the unpleasant thought that maybe there really is a
> Judge, and that you don't measure up - no matter how "good enough" you
> think you are. Grow up indeed.

It's just a reality, pleasantness or unpleasantness doesn't enter into it;
it simply is.
And I have no doubt about measuring up as "good enough", in this or any
other category... except humility.
(But really, what's the point if you can't claim bragging rights for being
the Most Humble Ever! :p)

> > > > People all over the world, regardless of religion, are generally
good.
> > > > We band together and help each other in times of need.
> > > > We don't have to be told this, we just do it, and we do it well.
> > >
> > > You can say the same for murder and pillage. "We just do it, and we
> > > do it well." Didja ever stop to consider that the civilization we
> > > take for granted here in the US is wildly atypical? Most of the world
> > > settles disagreements with guns and knives, not words. People band
> > > together, sure - to help their own tribe. But we better kill the
> > > other guys before they take our stuff - THAT is the history of the
> > > human race. Sad but true.
> >
> > Murder and pillage are also universally punished.
>
> Not when it's government policy, or if there's no government. Just
> ask anyone from Cambodia, Bosnia, or Rwanda.

Exceptions which prove the rule.

Eric

Roger Halstead

September 5th 03, 02:37 AM

On 4 Sep 2003 01:04:43 -0700, (pac plyer) wrote:

>snowbird101 master cross breeder of barnyard animals and hound dogs
>wrote:
>
>> You are welcome to post one example, with Google archive references,
>> of a place where I have pretended to either aviation experience or
>> to aviation knowledge which I do not, in fact, possess. Or for that
>> matter to life experience which I do not, in fact, possess.
>
>Sydney,
>
>Private pilots like you and Del for example do not have adequate
>background or experience to be posting opinions about things as
>complex as ATC services.

*Any* pilot regardless of ratings or experience has the right to post
opinions. Even a non pilot has that right. Everyone has an opinion
of what every they have to deal. The keyword is opinions.

A new student certainly will not have the background...then again they
might. That student might just be a controller who decided to get
his, or her, license.

Are all controllers and people working in the system high time
commercial pilots? Maybe even a few might be week end pilots?

The ratings and time just don't necessarily translate into knowledge.

> Ref: your ongoing harassment for months of
>Chip and the other fine controllers that post great stuff over at RAP.

One thing I've noted on RAP. Most of the old timers are no longer
there and there has been a distinct degradation of the tolerance shown
by the current posters.

> Anyone following those fantastic threads by Chip knows what I am

I'm always suspicious when some one says "fantastic threads".

>talking about. The implied sarcasm and skepticism in your posts is
>dishonest. You post your name in some of you posts, but you never are
>forthright about your rating (singular?) and meager experience. Hell

Ratings don't mean a whole lot as presented here.
I've never posted mine and see no reason to. They serve me well and
have for many years.

>I'm sure you probably don't even have an instrument rating. If you
>do, I bet you haven't seen the inside of a cloud in years (not
>counting your last swine wrestling match.) Your tone makes it clear
>that you enjoy purporting yourself as some kind of expert in areas you

You certainly are talking about someone different than what I've seen
posted under that name.

>know nothing about. You simply don't use the ATC system five hours a
>working day hence you can't possibly know all the things that are
>deficient in the present system. The damage you do to aviation when

Finding something deficient in the system is not the same as knowing
all the deficiencies in the system.

I've had controllers forget me, tell me to circle in the wrong
quadrant for a runway (they told me to circle in front of departing
traffic -- SE when it should have been SW) I've had approach tell me
to follow the guy ahead while on vectors for an approach and I
couldn't even see my wing tips. I've had them give me wrong headings
and the list goes on...Yet the pilot and controller relationship is a
two way street. We are all human...at least for the most part.

I knew they gave me the wrong circle instructions with the winds and
runways in use...I questioned it. When they forgot me, I called,
rather than blindly continue heading off in to the distance. When
they told me to follow the plane ahead I responded I would, but
unfortunately I could not see my own wing tips...(It was thick) They
responded and had me hold the heading to where I could safely descend
for the visual. I was filed into Battle Creek, they were setting me
up to expect the ILS for a runway Battle Creek doesn't have. I
questioned it as I was passing directly over Battle Creek. They
quickly came back and asked if I could make the visual for which ever
runway from my location or did I need vectors. BC and Kalamazoo share
the same approach control. And OTOH I've heard that ..."ahhh...watch
the altitude there" when I was in the process of starting to overshoot
my assigned altitude while getting the snot beat out of me. I didn't
get chewed out, or written up. It was just a friendly reminder from a
contentious controller.

>you heckle these fine professionals is considerable and others have
>pointed this out to you. Now Del thinks I'm checking the FAA data
>base to determine how long he's had his license and what ratings he
>has.

Why would any one care how long some one has had their license and
ratings? They have them and they are qualified, or at least were once
upon a time.

I mentioned to several of the "used to be" regulars I had not seen a
post from them in some time and wondered where they had been. The
universal answer was they had gotten tired of the attitudes over there
from a bunch of bitter pilots.

If you go back for a couple of years you will see a distinct change
between then and current conversational attitudes.

Roger Halstead (K8RI EN73 & ARRL Life Member)
www.rogerhalstead.com
N833R World's oldest Debonair? (S# CD-2)

Snowbird

September 5th 03, 02:54 AM

Del Rawlins > wrote in message >...

> I may be giving BWB too much credit but using a sock puppet doesn't seem
> like his style (excluding Ms. Geeter of course).

I don't know nor care if mturner is a sock puppet for BWB, but
Bill has posted under other names and email addresses in this and
other groups before (excluding Ms. Geeter of course).

Not trying to debate credit or take away credit, that's just a fact.

Cheers,
Sydney

Mark Hickey

September 5th 03, 06:42 AM

"Eric Miller" > wrote:

>"Corrie" > wrote
>> "Eric Miller" > wrote
>>
>> God wants us to trust him.
>
>Remember that trust isn't a right, it has to be earned. I can't trust that
>which:
>a) doesn't exist in the first place, or
>b) if it did exist has been shown to be arbitrary, inconsistent and at least
>as foul tempered and prone to tantrums as any over-tired 2 year old.
>He can have my trust after a spanking, a time out, has thought about all
>he's done wrong, and has sincerely apologized for his bad behavior. Maybe.

Imagine suddenly finding yourself before the very being who created
life, the universe and everything. Someone who could populate a void
with a few trillion stars just 'cuz he felt like it. Someone who
didn't discover DNA, but assembled it.

I try to imagine how ANYONE in that situation would want to tell him
what he did wrong, and why they should be admitted into his presence
because "they earned it".

Somehow, I don't think that's likely... but that's just my take on it.

Mark Hickey

Barnyard BOb --

September 5th 03, 08:21 AM

>On 4 Sep 2003 01:04:43 -0700, (pac plyer) wrote:
>
>>snowbird101 master cross breeder of barnyard animals and hound dogs
>>wrote:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hmmmmm.

IMO...
The above is totally out of character for any BWB persona.
More like a Jaun puppet, if a non SWAG must be made.

*BARNYARD* BOb --

pac plyer

September 5th 03, 10:30 AM

Roger Halstead >wrote:

<snips thoughout>
>
> *Any* pilot regardless of ratings or experience has the right to post
> opinions. Even a non pilot has that right. Everyone has an opinion
> of what every they have to deal. The keyword is opinions.

Sure, I agree with you. But not to continuously berate and child a
first rate controller like Chip Jones who balances his airspace
competently between rookies and pro's and: lays out the staffing
problems that we line dogs have to deal with on a daily basis. Look
at one of his threads over there. Click on his name on the Google
header. If you are an IFR driver you will be impressed.
>
> Are all controllers and people working in the system high time
> commercial pilots? Maybe even a few might be week end pilots?
>
> The ratings and time just don't necessarily translate into knowledge.

Sorry Roger in most cases it does. We have to deal with lost errant
week-end warriors all the time. On the wrong freq, stuck mike thats
wrecking the freq, unable to follow simple ATC directions, on the
wrong runway or taxiway. But that's where I came from so I'm
completely understanding about it. I frequently have to point out to
my military crewmembers who get frustrated with GA pilots, and feel
they should all be banned as hazards to navigation, that there are
more GA pilots than ATP's. Their fuel taxes built most of the
airports we air-commerce types use. But some new copilots are just as
bad. It takes a while to break all their bad habits. Odds are
though: that if you do it for a living, visit a Tracon and talk with
these haggard controllers, go have beers with these guys, you will
know like I do that IFR atc in class B has been skating on thin ice
for years. They do a good job, but they are overworked, underpaid,
and totally unappreciated by the FAA. Nothing gets fixed until
something like Avionca on Long Island happens. I had just landed at
JFK before that crash, we routinely had trouble with the controllers
screwing up: they forgot to turn on the ILS we were cleared for. It
was bad wx, and we needed everything working to shoot a CAT III
autoland. Since they forgot, it was assholes and elbows just for us
to get the 747 stabilized enough to shoot the approach. We had just
come from Heathrow, were tired and did not need this poor service from
these guys. But the morale at that tracon was reported in the press
as the "worst in the country" by a indep review of the facilities.
Things have not improved much I've heard. JFK, and BOS are always in
open time because no body wants to be subjected to that kind of stress
all the time.

>
> > Ref: your ongoing harassment for months of
> >Chip and the other fine controllers that post great stuff over at RAP.
>
> One thing I've noted on RAP. Most of the old timers are no longer
> there and there has been a distinct degradation of the tolerance shown
> by the current posters.

Yeah, I noticed that. Seems to be full of doctors and lawyers busy
arguing with themselves about nothing.
>
> > Anyone following those fantastic threads by Chip knows what I am
>
> I'm always suspicious when some one says "fantastic threads".

Well, when a controller starts admitting all the screw ups that happen
with equipment and controllers and management and the FAA in great
detail, it makes for fascinating reading. Yeah, you're right. Let's
change it to "very-interesting threads."

> I've never posted mine and see no reason to. They serve me well and
> have for many years.

You may not have that many. That's O.K. Your not berating people
who have gone to the trouble and expense and great dedication to
become professional aviators or controllers.
>
..
>
> I've had controllers forget me, tell me to circle in the wrong
> quadrant for a runway (they told me to circle in front of departing
> traffic -- SE when it should have been SW) I've had approach tell me
> to follow the guy ahead while on vectors for an approach and I
> couldn't even see my wing tips. I've had them give me wrong headings
> and the list goes on...Yet the pilot and controller relationship is a
> two way street. We are all human...at least for the most part.
>
> I knew they gave me the wrong circle instructions with the winds and
> runways in use...I questioned it. When they forgot me, I called,
> rather than blindly continue heading off in to the distance. When
> they told me to follow the plane ahead I responded I would, but
> unfortunately I could not see my own wing tips...(It was thick) They
> responded and had me hold the heading to where I could safely descend
> for the visual. I was filed into Battle Creek, they were setting me
> up to expect the ILS for a runway Battle Creek doesn't have. I
> questioned it as I was passing directly over Battle Creek. They
> quickly came back and asked if I could make the visual for which ever
> runway from my location or did I need vectors. BC and Kalamazoo share
> the same approach control. And OTOH I've heard that ..."ahhh...watch
> the altitude there" when I was in the process of starting to overshoot
> my assigned altitude while getting the snot beat out of me. I didn't
> get chewed out, or written up. It was just a friendly reminder from a
> contentious controller.

You sound like a good PIC. But this is pretty pedestrian stuff
compared to complex arrivals and sequencing during peak hours into
DFW, ATL, SFO, LAX, and many airports up and down the northeastern
seaboard. Route revisions are complex, and happen fast in a jet. The
inadequacies of today's ATC are clear to drivers who have TCAS. Not a
month goes by that "the system" doesn't make a major fubar and sets
off my resolution advisory. But Sydney says the controllers are just
whining, and no different than any other government worker and that
she is tired of hearing about it. Either she doesn't fly in very
congested airspace or she's never even been off the farm I'm not sure
which. There's just no excuse for this kind of charade. The airspace
Chip Jones is discussing is ATL ATC. I'm sure Sydney has never been
into Hartsfield during peak hours skirting around bad weather. It's
nuts.

pacplyer

Snowbird

September 5th 03, 02:57 PM

Roger Halstead > wrote in message >...

> > Ref: your ongoing harassment for months of
> >Chip and the other fine controllers that post great stuff over at RAP.
<...>
> > Anyone following those fantastic threads by Chip knows what I am

> I'm always suspicious when some one says "fantastic threads".

Chip's threads genuinely are fantastic sometimes. IMO.

The big joke here, Roger, since I don't think you're "in"
on it, is that Chip and I have been e-friends crossing into
RL for half a decade. So it's a total *hoot* for both of
us to see me accused of "harassing" him.

Anyone is welcome to go ask Chip if he thinks he's being
"harassed" by me and see what he says. Try a big *LOL*
and "don't change a thing" (direct quote).

There's a huge "reality disconnect" between how this dude
sees my posts, how most rational people see them, and in this
instance it's particularly telling because it's so clear both
parties directly involved think he's totally out to lunch.

IMO no one but a person toting a huge personal grudge could
miss the boat so totally as "mturner" has here. I could be
mistaken, of course: he could just be seriously lacking in
reading comprehension/interpretation skills. Quite sad if true.

> You certainly are talking about someone different than what I've seen
> posted under that name.

Thank you Roger, I appreciate that.

But I believe you are either talking to a stooge with a capitol
A "Agenda" or a sock puppet for Badwater Bill who is well known
to have a persistant grudge against me which he's been toting
around for 5 years.

Don't know which, don't care, but suggest you leave him alone.

JMO of course.

Best,
Sydney

Snowbird

September 5th 03, 03:10 PM

Barnyard BOb -- > wrote in message >...
> >On 4 Sep 2003 01:04:43 -0700, (pac plyer) wrote:
> >
> >>snowbird101 master cross breeder of barnyard animals and hound dogs
> >>wrote:
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> Hmmmmm.
>
> IMO...
> The above is totally out of character for any BWB persona.
> More like a Jaun puppet, if a non SWAG must be made.

Like I said elsewhere, if I were voting, I'd vote against
"sock puppet" and for "stooge."

I have my reasons, but I admit it's possible I give Mr.
Phillips too little credit and "sock" isn't impossible.

But it strikes me as a moot point either way.

Either way, he's shown himself to be lacking in either
credibility, or sense, and he ought to be treated accordingly.

Don't believe anything you can't independently verify.

Cheers,
Sydney

RobertR237

September 5th 03, 03:42 PM

In article >, Mark Hickey
> writes:

>
>Imagine suddenly finding yourself before the very being who created
>life, the universe and everything. Someone who could populate a void
>with a few trillion stars just 'cuz he felt like it. Someone who
>didn't discover DNA, but assembled it.
>
>I try to imagine how ANYONE in that situation would want to tell him
>what he did wrong, and why they should be admitted into his presence
>because "they earned it".
>
>Somehow, I don't think that's likely... but that's just my take on it.
>
>Mark Hickey
>
>

Mark,

Its all about FAITH. You either have it or you don't. If you do, you can
easily find the justification for it. If you don't, you can also easily find
the justification. No amount of argument is going to change the minds of the
other party so the argument remains endless.

The best that either can do is to accept the position of the others and allow
both to live in peace. I will agree to not try and change you, you agree to
not try and change me.

Bob Reed
www.kisbuild.r-a-reed-assoc.com (KIS Builders Site)
KIS Cruiser in progress...Slow but steady progress....

"Ladies and Gentlemen, take my advice,
pull down your pants and Slide on the Ice!"
(M.A.S.H. Sidney Freedman)

RobertR237

September 5th 03, 03:42 PM

In article >, Barnyard BOb --
> writes:

>
>>>snowbird101 master cross breeder of barnyard animals and hound dogs
>>>wrote:
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>Hmmmmm.
>
>IMO...
>The above is totally out of character for any BWB persona.
>More like a Jaun puppet, if a non SWAG must be made.
>
>
>*BARNYARD* BOb --
>
>

In any case, it did search for a new low and found it.

Bob Reed
www.kisbuild.r-a-reed-assoc.com (KIS Builders Site)
KIS Cruiser in progress...Slow but steady progress....

"Ladies and Gentlemen, take my advice,
pull down your pants and Slide on the Ice!"
(M.A.S.H. Sidney Freedman)

Warren & Nancy

September 5th 03, 09:28 PM

pac plyer wrote:

>
> And Barnyard, Robert, Roger, Morgans (forgot: already ploinked me.)
> others: My bad. I will sit in the corner and never mention Sydney
> again. Not good enough? O.K, I'll be nice to her and not pull her
> hair anymore. O.K, O.K I'll say I'm sorry! Geeez! ;-)
>
> pac "grouchy old stooge puppet crow-eating Bart Simpson" plyer
>
> happy?

You didn't say "pretty please"!

Snowbird

September 6th 03, 06:19 AM

(*unplonk because I'm told I ought to read this*)

(pac plyer) wrote in message >...
> You're getting enough support from the Rah regulars to let
> me know that I am wrong about you in General.

Fairly spoken.... a fair beginning. I appreciate that.

> I don't have a grudge against you Sydney. But you have a tendency,
> more than most posters, to escalate things with disrespectful slams
> embedded in your prose.

Boy that "wrong about you in general" part sure wore off
quick!

And why does the phrase "Pot! Kettle!" leap to my lips?

Considering how you've responded to some people here who were
totally civil and by NO stretch slamming you, if you reached
a new low I don't feel I can claim credit. Sorry. Grandma
said, you can't make someone show a side of themselves they
don't have.

It's true I can "dish it out" when provoked, and don't sit well
with insecure folk who can "dish it out but can't take it". More
than most posters, escalate? Don't think that's my rep, but
I'll leave that for others.

Which brings us to:

> All I know is I dislike the rift between you and Bill.
> <...> I've seen no effort by you to meet the guy
> halfway. Every time I'm talking to somebody else about something
> else, you jump in and bring it up again. <snipppitty-doo-dah>

Sorry, mturner, nice try. Much better than your last 5-6
posts, but still much too thick to be believable from what's
gone before. Still a big disconnect from reality here IMO.

You still look like Anonymous Agenda Boy with zip credibility
here. But that's me.

Show the world that I'm wrong. Let this go, tell funny stories
about flying, and the RAHian world will eat from your hand.

Keep on with the POP and BAH, and the credibility factor will
dwindle.

Just predictions.

*replonk*
Sydney

Corrie

September 8th 03, 06:09 AM

> > God wants us to trust him.
> Remember that trust isn't a right, it has to be earned.

Answered very well by another contributor. I'll simply add that God
owes you nothing-zero-zip-zilch-nada, as he already 0wnZ you lock,
stock, and barrel.

> > You're mixing apples and oranges. We're not talking about a
> > technology demonstration, we're talking about a singular historical
> > event.
>
> The historical is irrelevant, it's the singular that's the conundrum.
> If it only apparently happened once 2000 years ago, we can safely call it
> observer/experimental error and ignore it.

You're still terribly confused, attempting to apply the tools of
science to a question of history. Worse, you don't even recognize the
fallacy of doing so.

Just because an event only happened once does not mean that it never
happened! The K-T impact only happened once. The flooding of the
Mediterranean basin only happened once. Krakatoa only blew up once.
Same for Mt. St. Helens.

I already know that you're going to say, "but those are within the
realm of reason, and a resurrection is not." That is true only within
a worldview that DENIES THE POSSIBILITY of a singular resurrection a
priori. You're beginning with a premise, and using that premise to
reject any evidence that would lead to a conclusion that conflicts
with it.

IT'S BAD LOGIC!

The resurrection of Jesus is singular for a reason. It's only
*needed* once. You may smirk and say, "how convenient," but that
doesn't change the facts. In the Christian worldview, only one
resurrection is required. One does not expect to see further
examples. The model does not predict them.

The question is, did the one really happen or not? You're simply
refusing to investigate. You're ducking the question.
Bwaaaawk-buk-buk-buk-buk-buk! :p

> But continued observation and experimentation has led to greater
> understanding of how things work.
> No observation or experimentation has resulted in resurrection. Until it
> does, there's no need to change our understanding.

Q.E.D. The point is, your modernist worldview is insufficient to the
task. It disregards a large chunk of reality simply because it cannot
be measured by "scientific" means. A friend recently sent me a very
apropos quote from Albert Einstein on the subject: "Not everything
that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted
counts."

> > Today, laboratory observations of quantum synchronicity phenomena
> > appear to violate the laws of physics. Does that mean that the
> > observations are erroneous, or that the "laws of physics" need to be
> > revised?
>
> No, because they're predicted and expected by quantum mechanics.

Not the first time! The laws of QM were written to *explain*
observations that contradicted the accepted laws of physics. The
Newtonian worldview was insufficient to the task - "real" reality
could not be adequately or defined by F=MA anymore. So the definition
of "real" was expanded to include color, strange, and charm. The
point is that "real reality" is much larger than the shadow that you
accept.

> Theories which don't predict and can't be tested or verified are useless and
> worthless.

Such as the idea of one phylum morphing into a different phylum over
millions of years? Can't test it or verify it. Not repeatable.
Doesn't predict anything, at least not anything of use to us, or
anything we can measure. So it must be worthless, right? :-P

> Now you can say that the Resurrection predicts an after-life... but unless
> someone comes back and confirms then it's untestable.
> If someone DOES come back, it satisfies my required for repeatability.
> But then it would also supply proof, which defies faith, so it can't be
> ALLOWED to happen. A nice little bit of circular logic.

Nice little straw man. Not what I claimed at all. The resurrection
is not a theory. It's an historical event. You're using the wrong
hammer.

> Prayer works. So do sugar pills, with the same efficacy. Consult your
> physician for possible side effects of either.

Wrong hammer again. I expect an MD to know about pills, but not
necessarily about prayer. Consult your clergy for evidence about the
efficacy of prayer.

> Of course I know "Flatland".
> And if the sphere should pass through flatland but once, what need is there
> to explain it?

Maybe because it's coming back? :-D

> And just because they're in a 2D world, doesn't prohibit them from
> formulating a 3D model.
> That, however, doesn't make the 3D world real (see superstring theory... not
> to be confused with Silly String).
> Further, while there's a elegant 3D explanation in this case, it's not
> REQUIRED.
> You could just as easily explain it as a growing and shrinking circle, and
> it's just as valid.

No, because the third dimension and the sphere are in fact REAL, which
we can see from our three-dimensional vantage point. The "it's just a
growing and shrinking circle" explanation is WRONG. It does, however,
work better than any non-supernatural explanation of the evidences of
the Resurrection of Jesus that you've offered to date. At least the
skeptical flatlanders had an explanation that FIT THE EVIDENCE.

> You misread me. No modernistic high-horse here!
> I'm not judging the people of 2000 years ago and saying they're gullible....
> I'm saying people TODAY are gullible, and the people of 2000 years ago were
> likely no better.

Accepted. So then I assume that you'd be willing to take up the
challenge and look at the evidence at face value? I dare ya! :p

> > > Murder and pillage are also universally punished.
> > Not when it's government policy, or if there's no government. Just
> > ask anyone from Cambodia, Bosnia, or Rwanda.
> Exceptions which prove the rule.

If exceptions prove the rule, then any rule can - perhaps should -
have exceptions. For example, the rule that says dead people don't
come back to life? :p

> > There's a fairly large school of thought within
> > even conservative Christianity that suggests that Hell is eternal
> > destruction, not eternal torment. Dead and gone, not dead and
> > burning. Either way, it's a ****-poor alternative to eternal life in
> > paradise. Imagine - no need for annuals or pre-flights! :-D
>
> Or maybe an endless string of BFRs! :P

Shoot, that'd just be Purgatory. If you're *really* unrepentant, you
bust a TFR and get a ramp check on every flight. ;-^

> > But is paradise an actual, available alternative or are you just fooling
> yourself?
> "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" clearly applies.

I thought *you* were supposed to be the optimist here. :-) We're
back to Pascal's wager. If you're right, I gain nothing and you lose
nothing. If I'm right, I gain everything and you lose everything.

To your question, though, yes - paradise is actual and available. The
PTS is a bitch, though. "Excruciating" would not be too strong a word
for it. No one has ever been able to meet the specs, or ever will,
except for this one guy with the scarred hands and feet. (He got
those scars passing the checkride.)

Here's the deal, though - the DE gives you a total waiver from the PTS
if you let that guy endorse your logbook - which he does in his own
blood. All you have to do is ask.

Corrie