Wating for 2smart to answer.

[Guest 2smart4u]

If you really feel they're useless, put them on the ignore list. In the long run it could be less aggravating.

I did that with Bryan. His posts are SOOOO long and usually filled with dribble. I no longer feel like scrolling page after page just to get to the next post. Too bad ignore does not remove their quotes when other people quote them.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

"Filled with dribble" ?? You're obviously confusing Bryan with Paul.

[Guest 2smart4u]

I agree that they don't contribute anything positive or worthwhile to our discussions. Unfortunately and tragically for our country and our culture, an entire political style has grown up around this way of doing things.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, you can certainly speak with authority on negative and worthless posts.

[Guest Guest]

You make a good point. Maybe they're buddies or just part of the same fundie group or something. Or maybe it's one guy with MPD. Who knows? Either way, they rarely post anything worthwhile.

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"Worthwhile" ?? What would you know about worthwhile, make me laugh.

[Guest Paul]

If you really feel they're useless, put them on the ignore list. In the long run it could be less aggravating.

I did that with Bryan. His posts are SOOOO long and usually filled with dribble. I no longer feel like scrolling page after page just to get to the next post. Too bad ignore does not remove their quotes when other people quote them.

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Good idea, Bern. I just put Bryan on ignore too.

[Autonomous]

Me, vicious ??  I'm really just a nice guy that can't stand the LoonyLeft. I support  Republican philosophy; a strong military,

Me too.

personal responsibility

Then show some.

and closed borders.

How about a reasonable immigration policy?

  I detest defeatocratic principles;  a nanny state, national health care, high taxes, no personal responsibility, open borders and a weak military. And BTW, I don't know 2smart4u or BushBacker

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You oppose a caricature of Democratic principles, in other words. You realize I haven't supported any of those things, right? In fact, right now there is a thread in which I explicitly detail my opposition to national healthcare.

[Strife767]

If you really feel they're useless, put them on the ignore list. In the long run it could be less aggravating.

You can't put unregistered users on an ignore list, my friend.

(I wish KOTW would realize how much they are facilitating trolling with their policy...)

I did that with Bryan.

And now the reason you could do that and I can't with 2dim etc. should make itself apparent. *chuckles*

His posts are SOOOO long and usually filled with dribble. I no longer feel like scrolling page after page just to get to the next post. Too bad ignore does not remove their quotes when other people quote them.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah, but thankfully, few people quote an entire post of his. I, personally, would never wreak such havoc on people's scroll wheels by doing that.

[Autonomous]

If you really feel they're useless, put them on the ignore list. In the long run it could be less aggravating.

I did that with Bryan. His posts are SOOOO long and usually filled with dribble. I no longer feel like scrolling page after page just to get to the next post. Too bad ignore does not remove their quotes when other people quote them.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

They're useless but amusingly easy to poke with the stick of reason.

I actually thought of something-another possibility is that 2dim simply apes Patriot. That would explain away most of the 'evidence' for them being the same person.

[Guest Guest]

If you really feel they're useless, put them on the ignore list. In the long run it could be less aggravating.

I did that with Bryan. His posts are SOOOO long and usually filled with dribble. I no longer feel like scrolling page after page just to get to the next post. Too bad ignore does not remove their quotes when other people quote them.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Dribble? Good one Bern. We should all put you on the ignore list for that one.

[Guest 2smart4u]

They're useless but amusingly easy to poke with the stick of reason.

I actually thought of something-another possibility is that 2dim simply apes Patriot. That would explain away most of the 'evidence' for them being the same person.

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You "actually" thought of something !! Congratulations !! Better lie down now and rest your brain.

[Bern]

Dribble? Good one Bern.  We should all put you on the ignore list for that one.

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Please do.

[Autonomous]

You "actually" thought of something !!  Congratulations !! Better lie down now and rest your brain.

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In this post...

http://forums.kearnyontheweb.com/index.php...indpost&p=59887

...you stated that "VietNam vets would be too old."-while quoting me saying that I'm nowhere near old enough to have gone to Vietnam. You're hardly a shining example of the American education system.

[Guest DingoDave]

Ref. post 59 - Atheists in foxholes

I can tell you from experience that you're wrong. I know three from my unit, and some people consider me one. I don't, because I don't believe in making absolute unproven statements such as "there is no god," though I certainly don't believe there is one either.

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I hate to break this to you Autonomous, but if you don't believe that there is a god then you are an atheist. You could fairly describe yourself as an agnostic atheist

[Guest Guest]

Ref. post 59 -  Atheists in foxholes

I hate to break this to you Autonomous, but if you don't believe that there is a god then you are an atheist. You could fairly describe yourself as an agnostic atheist

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I question whether this is really from DingoDave, who always struck me as being smarter than this. Autonomous was very clear in his implicit definition of an atheist as a person who affirmatively claims there is no god, as distinguished from a person who sees no evidence that there is a god. The latter is how Autonomous characterizes himself. You could define it to include the latter, but there's no single "right" meaning of the word. DingoDave always seemed to know better than to reify words.

[Guest Guest]

Ref. post 59 -  Atheists in foxholes

I hate to break this to you Autonomous, but if you don't believe that there is a god then you are an atheist. You could fairly describe yourself as an agnostic atheist

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I know that by the actual definition I am an atheist. In common usage (at least in my area) the term is used to mean "someone who denies the existence of God." While I think that God is incredibly unlikely, I don't like to be dogmatic about it.

[Autonomous]

That was me. Didn't realize that my wife had cleared the cookies.

[Guest 2smart4u]

I know that by the actual definition I am an atheist. In common usage (at least in my area) the term is used to mean "someone who denies the existence of God." While I think that God is incredibly unlikely, I don't like to be dogmatic about it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

"God is incredibly unlikely" ?? Beyond the "mother nature, serendipity and happenstance" explanation the Darwiniacs have for our world and the universe, how do the Darwiniacs explain away the uniqueness of DNA, irises, fingerprints, voices, physical appearances, etc. ?? Certainly, if evolution was the only reason for our being, I think we'd be more similiar in our makeup. The uniqueness of our individual bodies ( DNA, irises, fingerprints, voices, physical appearances) points to Intelligent Design.

[Guest Paul]

"God is incredibly unlikely" ??  Beyond the "mother nature, serendipity and happenstance" explanation the Darwiniacs have for our world and the universe, how do the Darwiniacs explain away the uniqueness of DNA, irises, fingerprints, voices, physical appearances, etc. ?? Certainly, if evolution was the only reason for our being, I think we'd be more similiar in our makeup.  The uniqueness of our individual bodies (DNA, irises, fingerprints, voices, physical appearances) points to Intelligent Design.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You don't know a thing about evolution. Obviously you haven't read any of the significant writings on it, not even an introductory text. The answer to your question is that we are unique because each of us is the product of a unique combination of genetic material generated through a process known as sexual reproduction. If you took the time to look at reproduction, you'd see that non-sexual species are the same, while sexually reproducing species are not. And whether you realize it or not, that includes many plants.

The way I see it, if there was a god:

(1) We wouldn't be carnivores either now or at any time in our history. Food would be food, not a lamb or a chicken or Uncle Joe. (We have been food for other species for most of our history, and sometimes we still are.) Much to my utter shock, you made a reasonably good point just a few days ago (for the first time since I started posting here eight months ago) about the fact that we don't have to be carnivores. You completely missed Strife's point, but at least you got the facts right for once. The point, however, is that if there was a god, sentient creatures wouldn't eat other sentient creatures to survive, ever, let alone as a matter of course. Even if you wanted to throw a curse on human beings (which another reason I don't believe the Judeo-Christian narrative), there'd still be no reason for mistreating the animals. Ever see a cat play with a mouse and then slowly kill it? Watch that and tell me there's a god who made those two species act like that, particularly the cat. Why? No one in his right mind would do it that way on purpose.

(2) Illness wouldn't be arbitrarily handed out without regard to personal merit, which it obviously is. In fact, it's hard to understand why there should be illness at all. If there was a god who wanted to make his point about our behaving ourselves, he'd leave us down here until we got it right. There's a big difference between having to sweat to earn bread and dying of cancer that has metastasized to the bone.

(3) What's with the digestive system, especially the tail end of it (so to speak)? You're telling me someone made us like this on purpose? What kind of a sick sense of humor would that be?

All of nature proves evolution. Every fossil matches the DNA record just as we would expect it to --- and you can't say scientists conformed the DNA record to the fossil record, because they made their predictions from the fossils before they were sophisticated enough to isolate the key elements in the DNA - and then when they could analyze the DNA, it matched their predictions. That's proof. All the dating methods confirm the predictions, too. Millions and millions of data, and they all fit together like a hand in a glove, and I don't mean OJ's glove. And look at us humans. Why do men have nipples? Why is the clitoris in the same location as the penis? Why are some people born sexually ambiguous? It's because our early zygotic and fetal development very nearly traces evolutionary history. So sexual organs don't become recognizable one way or the other until significantly into the pregnancy. Look sometime at what a human fetus looks like at each stage of its development, and then compare that to development of fetuses from other species - you'll see a similarity too striking to pass off as mere chance.

What frustrates me more than anything else is that you're commenting on something you know nothing about. You use the term "Darwiniacs" to dismiss a lot of people who know far more about this subject and (I hate to burst your bubble) are vastly smarter than you are. Study the subject honestly and in sufficient to FORM an opinion. THEN draw your conclusions. All you've done is predetermine your conclusions from your wishes. Don't argue this here. You don't have the tools to do it. Think about it in the privacy of your own head. Then when you have the tools, come back and discuss it. Until then, you may get some amens from the people who agree with you, but I guarantee you that you're not doing anything for those of us who know this subject better than you do, except confirming that you're entirely willing to draw absolutely rock-firm conclusions from complete ignorance and on the basis of nothing. In short, you're not winning our respect, and there's no reason why we should respect your way of thinking beyond respecting the right of every person to have an opinion - I respect your right to have and express your opinion, but the content of your opinions and the manner in which you come to them does not earn you any respect. None.

[Strife767]

"God is incredibly unlikely" ??

Yes.

Beyond the "mother nature, serendipity and happenstance" explanation the Darwiniacs have for our world and the universe,

Straw man, ignored.

how do the Darwiniacs explain away the uniqueness of DNA, irises, fingerprints, voices, physical appearances, etc. ??

You've been told countless times, and it's common knowledge to anyone with the slightest familiarity with the actual science. Just because you ignore the answers doesn't mean they're not there.

Tell me, 2dim--if the soul enters the body at conception, does each of two identical twins have half a soul, since the splitting that causes twins happens after conception?

Certainly, if evolution was the only reason for our being,

It isn't, and was never claimed to be. Evolution is the process through which life develops, not originates. In classic dumb fundie style, you've mixed up abiogenesis with evolution. Again.

I think we'd be more similiar in our makeup.

How much more similar do you want? We've all got the same number of limbs, organs, they're all in the same places, etc.

The uniqueness of our individual bodies ( DNA, irises, fingerprints, voices, physical appearances) points to Intelligent Design.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No it doesn't.

[Autonomous]

"God is incredibly unlikely" ??  Beyond the "mother nature, serendipity and happenstance" explanation the Darwiniacs have for our world and the universe, how do the Darwiniacs explain away the uniqueness of DNA, irises, fingerprints, voices, physical appearances, etc. ?? Certainly, if evolution was the only reason for our being, I think we'd be more similiar in our makeup.  The uniqueness of our individual bodies ( DNA, irises, fingerprints, voices, physical appearances) points to Intelligent Design.

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Precisely why do you think that evolution would produce identical clones?

[WilliamK]

"God is incredibly unlikely" ??  Beyond the "mother nature, serendipity and happenstance" explanation the Darwiniacs have for our world and the universe, how do the Darwiniacs explain away the uniqueness of DNA, irises, fingerprints, voices, physical appearances, etc. ?? Certainly, if evolution was the only reason for our being, I think we'd be more similiar in our makeup.  The uniqueness of our individual bodies ( DNA, irises, fingerprints, voices, physical appearances) points to Intelligent Design.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ah yes. All behold the uniformity of unguided natural phenomena (for example, the vast numbers of identical size and shape rock fragments that invariably stack themselves in neat geometric piles at the bottoms of landslides), as compared with the stunning uniqueness of intelligently designed objects, such as tubes full of freshly stamped coins from a mint.

It would be slightly less absurd to argue in the opposite direction, and say that it is our similarities that are evidence of a creator, not our differences. But only slightly, as there are also examples of uniformity in nature, and of uniqueness in created objects. The point being, that neither similarity nor dissimilarity, by themselves, make a valid argument either way. Both can be found in both created and naturally occurring things.

[Strife767]

(3) What's with the digestive system, especially the tail end of it (so to speak)? You're telling me someone made us like this on purpose? What kind of a sick sense of humor would that be?

This reminds me of something funny I read online toward the same end--it went something like this:

"And what kind of god would make it so that male humans (and other mammals at least) expel liquid waste and the fluid necessary to create new life from the same hole? What, did God run out of real eastate on the body or something?"

[Guest DinogDave]

I question whether this is really from DingoDave, who always struck me as being smarter than this. Autonomous was very clear in his implicit definition of an atheist as a person who affirmatively claims there is no god, as distinguished from a person who sees no evidence that there is a god. The latter is how Autonomous characterizes himself. You could define it to include the latter, but there's no single "right" meaning of the word. DingoDave always seemed to know better than to reify words.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The word atheism simply means 'without a belief in gods'. Therefore, by definition, anyone who does not believe in gods is an atheist.

One does not have to categorically deny that gods exist, in order to describe themselves as being atheistic.

I know very few atheists who would categorically deny the remote possibility that there may be some kind of beings living somewhere in the universe which could be described as gods.

I can't prove that Zeus, or Thor, or Osiris, or Apollo do not exist, however that does not mean that I must describe myself as being agnostic towards them.

I don't believe that these beings exist, therefore I am atheistic with regards to them.

How many Christians or Muslims believe in Thor or Zeus? If they don't, then they are atheistic towards them as well.

Atheists just dis-believe in one more god than most theists do. In that regard atheists are simply being more consistant.

My point was only that someone does not need to categorically deny the existence of gods to describe themself as being an atheist.

Even Richard Dawkins does not categorically deny the remote possibility that gods may exist, but he could not be described as being anything but an atheist.

[Guest 2smart4u]

Ah yes. All behold the uniformity of unguided natural phenomena (for example, the vast numbers of identical size and shape rock fragments that invariably stack themselves in neat geometric piles at the bottoms of landslides), as compared with the stunning uniqueness of intelligently designed objects, such as tubes full of freshly stamped coins from a mint.

It would be slightly less absurd to argue in the opposite direction, and say that it is our similarities that are evidence of a creator, not our differences. But only slightly, as there are also examples of uniformity in nature, and of uniqueness in created objects. The point being, that neither similarity nor dissimilarity, by themselves, make a valid argument either way. Both can be found in both created and naturally occurring things.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

"Similarity" ?? A gross understatement, WillieBoy. 3 billion unique sets of fingerprints, 3 billion unique pair of irises, etc. goes way beyond similarity.

Darwiniacs like to think of themselves as being "enlightened", yet they can't see

the incredible complexity of billions of unique individuals. They're satisfied to credit serendipity with this incomprehensible degree of complexity.

A pile of rocks is a great analogy though, Willy. Good job.

[Strife767]

"Similarity" ??  A gross understatement, WillieBoy.  3 billion unique sets of fingerprints,

1. Identical twins have the same fingerprints. Guess God considers twins to only count as one person, huh?

2. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/06/identity/ <-- fingerprints may not be as unique as has been assumed

3 billion unique pair of irises, etc. goes way beyond similarity.

Funny that the Theory of Evolution predicts these differences perfectly. It's called mutation (and, in the case of humans and other species that reproduce sexually, mutual inheritance is also a factor).

Darwiniacs like to think of themselves as being "enlightened", yet they can't see

the incredible complexity of  billions of unique individuals. They're satisfied to credit serendipity with this incomprehensible degree of complexity.

  A pile of rocks is a great analogy though, Willy.  Good job.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Your straw man is amusing. Not only do evolutionary scientists see the complexity, but they can actually explain it. That's a lot more than can be said for people like you.

[Guest Paul]

The word atheism simply means 'without a belief in gods'. Therefore, by definition, anyone who does not believe in gods is an atheist.

One does not have to categorically deny that gods exist, in order to describe themselves as being atheistic.

I know very few atheists who would categorically deny the remote possibility that there may be some kind of beings living somewhere in the universe which could be described as gods.

I can't prove that Zeus, or Thor, or Osiris, or Apollo do not exist, however that does not mean that I must describe myself as being agnostic towards them.

I don't believe that these beings exist, therefore I am atheistic with regards to them.

How many Christians or Muslims believe in Thor or Zeus? If they don't, then they are atheistic towards them as well.

Atheists just dis-believe in one more god than most theists do. In that regard atheists are simply being more consistant.

My point was only that someone does not need to categorically deny the existence of gods to describe themself as being an atheist.

Even Richard Dawkins does not categorically deny the remote possibility that gods may exist, but he could not be described as being anything but an atheist.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That sounds more like Dave. Well put.