Now, I know I get a lot of feedback about how accurate Evolution is.
But, IMHO, Evolution is more faith than believing in God is.
God, in the big scheme of things, will only be proven once I am dead. And that in the ‘modern’ world has no effect.
Yes, I believe God acts upon the world today, but other people will not take my anecdotal experience as empirical evidence.
But, where do you start in your faith?
Do you start with Logic, Evolution, or Modern American Hollywood and CNN programming? No pun there.
I start with Logic.
And yes, my logic quickly leads me to the Bible as support for what I have seen and beheld concerning Jesus. But, my real world experience is what I base my faith upon.
How about you?
Wayne
luvsiesous 
“Actually, a ‘Creator’ makes one primary assumption. The other assumptions are entirely based on this: It is possible that there is a Supreme Being. All other assumptions would evolve from that assumption.”
They’re still assumptions. The advantage over the “the universe just exists/came to exist” position, while also ridiculous (and not my position) is that we know the universe does in fact exist. We do not know a god exists.
You are keeping me busy, thanks!
However, the Big Bang makes one basic assumption, “man can define what he cannot see, taste, smell, touch, or hear.”
That is the a priori assumption to all Big Bang Cosmology. It is said we cannot see, taste, smell, touch, or hear ‘god.’ But, billions of humans have claimed to have heard from God. Not just Christians.
So, you are willing to dismiss the anecdotal billions for the assumption of man’s intellectual prowess?
I am no longer ready to do that.
wayne
“You are keeping me busy, thanks!”
You’re welcome : )
“However, the Big Bang makes one basic assumption, “man can define what he cannot see, taste, smell, touch, or hear.”
I don’t think it really does make assumptions, I would go as far as to say that some parts of it (like inflation) are maybe not scientific, but then I am not a theoretical physicist so I can’t say for sure. Either way like with any other idea the things we don’t understand do not negate the things we do.
“That is the a priori assumption to all Big Bang Cosmology. It is said we cannot see, taste, smell, touch, or hear ‘god.’ But, billions of humans have claimed to have heard from God. Not just Christians.”
People have claimed to have heard from over ten thousand gods. Either they’re all real or none of them are. Personally I think the human mind is just modular and we are only consciously aware of and in control of a small part of it, so it’s easy to interpret the other parts as being god or the devil etc. We are essentially all schizophrenic to some degree, we can want something and not want it at the same time. So we sometimes tell ourselves the part of us that wants to cheat on our spouse for instance is us or the devil and the part that doesn’t want to hurt her is god or our better angels or our conscience. The secular equivalent of this is to call evil acts “inhuman” and good acts our “humanity”, we are just externalizing the nasty bits and internalizing the good bits of ourselves. Or doing the reverse which people also do for psychological reasons, the way abuse victims take the blame for abuse onto themselves as a defense mechanism. Some people say “god has blessed me, look how awesome I am” and others say “I’m a filthy disgusting worm but I’m blessed by proxy of god”. People use these concepts to debase and glorify themselves, to justify evil and encourage good and everything in between.
“So, you are willing to dismiss the anecdotal billions for the assumption of man’s intellectual prowess?”
It’s not an either/or proposition. And if you want me to believe you’re talking to god then the test is the same as proving you’re psychic or talking to aliens – provide evidence that you are repeatedly gaining information that could not possibly come from your own mind. If all “god” tells people is “hang in there, it’s gonna be okay” or gives them ideas that could just as easily be from their own intuition or subconscious mind then call me skeptical.
“I am no longer ready to do that. wayne”
Sure you are. Just with every other religion, psychics, ancestor worship, spirit journeys and a million other forms of new-agey fluff.
So, when I prove ‘Big Bird’ is a fake, I have proven the ‘Big Bang’ and ‘Evolution’ as a fake?
Proving other ‘gods’ wrong does not prove the God wrong.
Two different things do not have to have a correlation, or congruence, even if they are considered congruent.
What I am saying is that I cannot in all honesty consider something like subjective conviction, prophecy, miracle stories or supposed revelation valid evidence for one religion and then not consider it valid evidence for another religion. And the religions that use these forms of evidence conflict with each other, meaning they cannot all be correct. So either one religion is right (and has only the forms of evidence thousands of other religions also have) or none of them are. I think it is far more likely that religions are a psychological/cultural phenomenon than that one in ten thousand happens to be correct. It’s like saying goblins are real but dragons, fairies and elves are nonsense when there’s equal proof of all of them.
I have never said that.
I believe all people are able to listen to God. But, like a badly tuned radio, or TV station, some people (most people) do not get a clear picture of what is being communicated by God to people.
And from that, you get conflicting religions.
Wayne
God must do a really crappy job of getting his views across.
What I see in religions is the same thing I would expect if people were all just talking to themselves.
Like I wrote, you are getting a bad picture of what God is communicating.
It is like someone listening to Russian and then telling you what they heard. Bad reception or not, you must be tuned into the correct channel, be getting a clear signal, and understand the language ….. and not be distracted by the cares of this world.
And let me guess, you’re getting a good signal.
Sometimes. Like the time he told me to slow down, and kept me from getting on the train track in time for the train to hit me.
Other times, I have terrible reception, and sometimes, I totally misunderstand what he is saying.
How about you? Have you never heard from God?
Wayne
Even if I heard an audible voice in my head saying “hello, this is god” I would have reason to doubt it actually was from god, or a god. Just as if the voice said it was from aliens or the CIA I would wonder if I was hallucinating or having a delusion or something else. I think that people who think they “hear” god are deceiving themselves, perhaps not intentionally, but the same way people who think they’re psychic do. The illusion is actually very simple, all you have to do is remember selectively. Whenever you think of something or get a feeling that ends up paying off or being accurate in some bizarre way, remember it and attribute it to psychic ability or god or whatever – and the other ten thousand times you get a bad feeling and nothing happens or you think of something and it ends up not mattering, ignore or forget it and don’t attribute it to god or prayer or psychicness or whatever.
My best friend is christian and we’ve stopped having this debate because it never goes anywhere, but she has pivotal times in her life where she felt like she couldn’t do something and found the strength to do it or made a decision or changed her mind and she has convinced herself that it wasn’t her, it was god. But I, as her friend and as an atheist, can bear objective witness to her life and know that many times she has said she felt god wanted her to do something that then blew up in her face and then she said “oh, I guess god wasn’t telling me to do that after all”. Remember the hits, ignore the misses. That’s how the game works.
OK, there is a lot of truth to your statement.
But, honestly, there are “the hits, ignore the misses. That’s how the game works.” in Science as well ….
Second, I have had a voice tell me to slow down, and had I not listened, I would be dead.
I have looked at that train track many times. Trying to figure out how my ‘subconscious mind picked up something and pretended to be a godlike voice to save me.’
But, there was no way to see the tracks because of the hill in the way and the trees on the ridge-line of that hill.
So, I know for me, anecdotally, there is a real correlation.
And I would not want that ‘recreated’ in or out of a lab.
Would you?
“OK, there is a lot of truth to your statement.”
Aside from it being totally wrong, right?
“But, honestly, there are “the hits, ignore the misses. That’s how the game works.” in Science as well ….”
One, if there was science wouldn’t work, and two even if there was this is still “I know you are but what am I”.
“Second, I have had a voice tell me to slow down, and had I not listened, I would be dead.”
Did you hear an audible voice? Bear in mind the fact that I asked you that can actually re-write your memory (the power of suggestion). And if the voice said go faster wouldn’t that have saved your life too?
“I have looked at that train track many times. Trying to figure out how my ‘subconscious mind picked up something and pretended to be a godlike voice to save me.’”
I don’t know how a voice could be “godlike” exactly, but trains tend to make a lot of noise before they run you over, it’s entirely possible you simply heard it, weren’t paying attention but your subconscious produced a sense of caution or an urge to slow down.
“But, there was no way to see the tracks because of the hill in the way and the trees on the ridge-line of that hill.”
Had you gone down that road before? And as I said, sight isn’t the only sense. Had you ever seen a map of the area?
“So, I know for me, anecdotally, there is a real correlation.”
You get that anecdotal evidence can be used to “prove” virtually anything, right? It might be enough to convince you, but proof is when you can demonstrate something is true to someone else.
“And I would not want that ‘recreated’ in or out of a lab. Would you?”
No, but then I don’t see how you could.
But lets say for instance that you just got a feeling or urge to slow down and it was just some fluke impulse that happened to pay off – one in a million chance. How is that different than the one in a million bad things that happen all the time? I’ve heard stories like one guy was firing a gun into the ocean just for kicks and he didn’t realize the buoyancy of the water was pushing the bullets back up so they were actually ricocheting off of the water further away, and a 20-something year old woman who was driving home on a road by the ocean a mile or two away slumps over and drives off the road and nobody can figure out why – turns out the window was cracked open just a little and one of the bullets went in through the crack in a moving car window and had just enough force to penetrate the back of her neck and sever her spinal cord. If it had hit her basically anywhere else it would’ve been non-lethal. Did the unlikeliness of this event mean that god must’ve been guiding the bullet?
I have seen a map of the area, I have driven both sides of the train track as close as I could.
The train never hit their horn.
There was no way for me to see, or hear the train ahead of time.
Even if it was some random fluke impulse that kind of thing happens all the time, 99 times nothing comes of it and we dismiss it, occasionally it matters. Also what kind of train crossing doesn’t have any sort of alarm or warning of any kind? Is this in a rural area? And also you can hear a train even if it doesn’t sound a horn, they are pretty loud.
I could hear the train after my truck stopped.
At first, I thought I had the stereo too loud.
Yes, but this one happened to me, so I paid attention.
Our subconscious mind picks up more than our conscious mind does. I remember seeing a tv show called “head games” where they did all kinds of mental experiments, one was to show how narrow peoples’ attention is, they got a guy dressed in a full-blown clown suit to ride a unicycle past people talking on their cell phones and the people didn’t notice him even after making several passes back and forth. But if he had been been walking at them with a knife or something I bet their subconscious mind would get their attention somehow. The same way our eye immediately is drawn to motion because in nature something moving is potentially deadly or edible, and advertisers take advantage of this by making moving or blinking signs, animated logos etc so that we will pay attention and their advertising/branding will be more effective. Our subconscious mind “sees” what our conscious mind doesn’t and directs our attention to what it instinctively thinks is important. Something that can kill you is definitely important.
Yes, but my analytical mind took the scene apart.
While I realize there is a chance a magician did a magic trick, it makes more sense to believe a real ‘god,’ or ‘spiritual being’ intervened than it does to believe in magic.
Don’t you think that is more realistic?
So if I make a quarter disappear it is more reasonable that yahweh made a miracle occur than that there is an underlying logical mechanism that eludes you?
Show me the underlying mechanism you have found and claim it eludes me?
I didn’t claim to know anything that eludes you.
PS, I do agree you have good logic in most of this statement, although you do realize everyone has a priori biases?
I was biased toward your religion. I’m not anymore.
Good comeback … I guess.
I didn’t mean it in a point-scoring kind of way. I was honestly biased toward belief in god and christianity and changed my mind. Took a long time too. When I did it felt as if a fog had lifted.
You changed your mind?
Without any influence of your education, science, or the community around you?
Wayne
No one lives in a bubble, but I was an atheist before I knew there was such a thing. When I discovered the word I realized it applied to me. I didn’t just go out and read a richard dawkins book and agree with everything in it. Nor was there some atheist in my life who swayed me somehow.
Ahhh, Dawkins.
Sometimes I like the guy, and then I read one of his books. His authorial voice is much different than his speaking voice.
All I know of his books is a few short passages and a video of him reading parts of the god delusion. He seems to be a good writer though.
He is, but his authorial voice is much more arrogant than his in person voice, usually.
I guess he has earned that right.
Thank you gentlemen, you are keeping me busy.
That keeps me alive.
Wayne
About the creator part, you are right. It is extremely absurd. They are both absurd, none less than the other. That is why, since both sound impossible, we can dismiss both as unverifiable (universe origin) or untestable (god) and live with our beliefs whatever they may be without fanaticism, with or without religion. Don’t forget to answer the above question if you are still there.
I have to agree with Aimer on this.
Why would one unverifiable ‘source’ be less verifiable than another? Why is one considered ‘Myth’ and the other ‘Science?’ I am using scientific ‘myth’ there, not common myth.
“I have to agree with Aimer on this. Why would one unverifiable ‘source’ be less verifiable than another? Why is one considered ‘Myth’ and the other ‘Science?’ I am using scientific ‘myth’ there, not common myth.”
One isn’t considered science. Again the big bang theory doesn’t make any claims about the origins of the universe, it simply describes it’s expansion and cooling which is currently observable. It deals with what happens after the universe begins, not how it began. Just as if you found a half-melted ice sculpture in your living room you could extrapolate based on the temperature, the properties of ice and the amounts of ice and water what it’s original size was and how long it had been melting even if you didn’t have a clue where it came from or who put it there.
‘Expansion’ has NEVER been observed. This is a comment I made about Expansion.
From: https://luvsiesous.wordpress.com/about/why-the-big-bang/
“But, the first three minutes? Holy guacamole Bat Man! I really do get excited …. Think about it. The Universe went from nothing to something like 3 billion light years across …. in the snap of your fingers, the Universe went from nothing to the size of our Milky Way Galaxy …. that is HUGE!!!!”
Yup. Though under those conditions the properties of physics we encounter go out the window. We know for instance that time is distorted by gravity, so “in a snap of your fingers” is a meaningless concept under those conditions. So is “the first three minutes”. I do not know by what math or logic or point of reference that is calculated.
Weinberg is the undisputed champion of the Big Bang, I believe.
http://www.amazon.com/The-First-Three-Minutes-Universe/dp/0465024378
I don’t even know what that is supposed to mean.
Weinberg wrote the book “The first three minutes.” He is the champion of the Big Bang. He is an Astro-Physicist.
Dismissing God as non-scientific is the same as my dismissing your science.
If we come to the discussion with a priori answers, there is not debate, and no discussion.
I come to the discussion with respect for disagreement. That does not mean I will change my position. But, I am willing to respect your position.
Are you willing to do the same for my position?
Something can be non-scientific and still be valid or real, science has a very specific purview, it deals with that which we can (currently) observe, make predictions about and test empirically. Many things we consider fact today we not scientific a few decades ago. God is not a scientific concept, a god is not an observable phenomenon and cannot be subject to experimentation and the concept is not useful for making repeated accurate predictions of any kind. It’s not science.
There are many planets in the Universe where we cannot step foot.
To say those planets are not science is interesting. If those solar systems, and galaxies are not science,
Then how do we include the Big Bang as ‘science?’
Any idea that is useful for making testable predictions and observations is scientific. Planets, the big bang, solar systems and galaxies all qualify.
I agree in theory, but I think you are applying that differently than I would.
Do we agree?
I don’t know, you haven’t explained what you mean. If you agree with me, we agree.
You made the statement, and you do not know if you agree with your statement?
That myst be a typo.
You are asking if I agree with myself? Why yes, yes I do.
Once more, what ad hominem did I make against you? And I haven’t been getting emotional, I just am tired of giving thoughtful replies and then having them dismissed.
And yes I believe in justice and equality, but it’s hard to say which is more important since they are largely overlapping concepts. You can’t have one without the other.
“About the creator part, you are right. It is extremely absurd. They are both absurd, none less than the other. ”
The creator makes more assumptions and is thus less likely if you agree with occam’s razor. But both are hogwash in my opinion. That doesn’t make them both valid though, that makes them both invalid.
Actually, a ‘Creator’ makes one primary assumption. The other assumptions are entirely based on this:
It is possible that there is a Supreme Being. All other assumptions would evolve from that assumption.
They are both theories, and all theories in my opinion are to be respected until proven otherwise. These two theories in particular do not essentially disprove or omit each other, rather, evolution could simply be a method of creation.
As for you, Wayne, God bless you.
Evolution is a theory, intelligent design isn’t even a hypothesis (since it’s untestable) and literal creationism was “proven otherwise” a long time ago. And in science ideas are not taken seriously until there is testable, repeatable evidence to support them. They are considered false until proven true, not true until proven false. Otherwise science textbooks would talk about aliens and unicorns and all kinds of things because we can’t prove they don’t exist somewhere.
Again, I enjoy your comments. Primarily, because I am fascinated by Evolution. Even though I do not believe in it, I love studying Evolution.
Evolution is no more testable than ID (Intelligent Design).
I am not in the ID (Intelligent Design) camp.
‘Creationism’ has never been proven wrong. Many have claimed it to be wrong, but they do so without evidence, just as you have done so.
Wayne
Evolution is extremely testable, there are countless things about the fossil record, DNA, the comparative anatomies of different species etc which must be true if it is correct and can’t be true if it is correct. And over and over these things were predicted before they were known using the theory. That is how science tests a hypothesis.
And creationism is not simply belief in a creator (which cannot be falsified) but belief in a strict, literal interpretation of genesis or some other creation account which is contradicted by everything we know about every form of science as well as history, linguistics and common sense. The flood story, the tower of babel – these stories are absurd if you take them literally. Are you saying there is no evidence for the age of anything older than a few thousand years old in the entire world? Do you reject all of science?
‘science’ or ‘Science?’
And you think I am mixing my metaphors?
Lowercase science. And I don’t know.
Lower case versus upper case. One is the science, the other is general usage ….. So, Science should normally be the subject ‘science.’ Whereas, ‘science’ can be anyone’s perception of ‘science.’ Similar in scope to ‘God,’ and ‘god.’
I thought you meant as in truth or Truth, ie a dogmatic or meaningful sense of the term.
Actually the same meaning applies here, some people might think otherwise.
But, there is truth, and there is Truth.
This relates to your epistemology, how you apply your standards, and how you separate the general from the specific.
“science” is merely anything and everything that might be ‘Science’. But, ‘Science’ is the actual field of study. It is an academic difference, but it can be important.
“Science” as in what is in a science textbook or what is in your medicine cabinet is simply the end product of actual science, which is the scientific method – a series of methods for systematically testing claims and explanations about nature.
Almost.
Most people would define Creationism as requiring believe in a Creator. I can agree with that.
However, Evolution predicts NOTHING. And it has never been testable.
In fact, the testable portions of Evolution have always shown Evolution to be weak, or false.
If Evolution was true, we should have Mules which can reproduce. But, we have no naturally occurring mutating species which are capable of reproducing.
NONE.
We do have chemically, an radiologically, induced mutations which have reproduced – they cannot truly live in nature. We are now using transgenic mutations to push that envelope as well. But, splicing genes (Genetically Mutated Organisms – GMO crops) is not showing the promises in nature we were promised anymore than the chemical and radiological experiments which preceded them.
Every time there is a failure, we are expected to forget the failure, as if we are living in a virtual 1984. The Disinformation committee is supposed to be able to erase our memory of the failure, and we are supposed to faithfully await the next revelation.
And this next revelation is supposed to prove Evolution is true. Finally.
“However, Evolution predicts NOTHING. And it has never been testable.”
Darwin predicted the existence of birds with separate digits before they were found, tektaliik was found by scientists who were specifically looking for a fossil with fish and amphibian characteristics in that specific region and geological period (where it must be if they evolved from prehistoric fish). Countless fossils have been predicted using evolution science, as well as predictions about DNA, embryology and other fields as well. Here’s another test/prediction:
Here’s some more from the same talk (the author is christian and the author of “finding darwin’s god”):
“In fact, the testable portions of Evolution have always shown Evolution to be weak, or false.”
You say it’s not testable and that it is testable and has been both weakly supported and falsified. Pick a side, lol.
“If Evolution was true, we should have Mules which can reproduce. But, we have no naturally occurring mutating species which are capable of reproducing. NONE.”
You are confusing mutation with hybridization. All species are “mutating species”, mutations are extremely common (maybe 100 mutations average per person/generation in humans). Hybridization is when two species that are closely related breed together, which only produces a sterile hybrid in cases where the two species are not closely enough related to produce fertile offspring. Whichever way you slice it your claim is not accurate.
“We do have chemically, an radiologically, induced mutations which have reproduced – they cannot truly live in nature.”
Google “mutation” and read up on them, mutations are not rare and happen all the time. They are responsible for not just major changes or birth defects but simple variations like differences in height, hair and eye color, family traits etc. The claim that no mutation has ever been passed on is like saying no one has ever had children.
As for 1984, you’re the one spouting dishonest, ideologically charged propaganda meant to keep people in the dark.
I got my definitions from sources like Richard Dawkins, google him and get back to me.
Ad hominem attacks do not work on me.
[Updated: Since you asked about references to your other ad hominem attacks I will point out my reference, I am referring to your claims that my beliefs are “dishonest, ideologically charged propaganda meant to keep people in the dark.” WOW. You attack my intent and my integrity, because you disagree with me? That is a pretty low road to take, in my humble opinion.]
I do not know how old the Earth is. There are conflicting theories out there.
The most commonly accepted number is about 13.7 BYA for the Big Bang cosmology.
But, like so many things, the Bang requires a falsification of Physics – Physics had to be suspended for the Bang to happen. Physics had to be suspended for ‘Expansion’ to happen. And ever since, the speed of light had to be suspended – the ‘outer’ Universe is about 84 billion light years across, and requires about 6 times the speed of light to get there …. here …. whatever.
🙂
Yes, I have studied. And when I can, I continue. Unfortunately, my body does not always let me do so.
Thank you again, you are keeping me thinking about the topic, which is more than I have done in a month or two.
Wayne
Dating the universe is a bit harder than dating something like a rock, though the properties of physics don’t technically prevent anything from going faster than the speed of light, they do and don’t under certain conditions. But yeah relativity and time dilation is mind-bending, but do you think the universe is a few thousand years old? There are stars that have already gone through their life cycle and galaxies that appear frozen mid-collision because the time it takes for them to interact is so vast given the distances involved, were they created that way?
I am not sure about the age of the Universe. I tend to think Creation happened between several hundred tya and many bya …. thousand years ago & billion years ago.
I do not believe they had to be created that way, but I am not sure Expansion explains better than being created in that state.
That is true, that is why it is called faith, belief, like a rabbit foot, supernatural. The fact remains that God is hardly as rediculous as the two possibilities of:
The universe started from nothing
And\Or
It had existed forever.
So I add a little spirituality to the mix so I dont go mad with nihilism and purposelessness
What do you think agnophilo? Are you still agno philo?
How do you define agno-philo? Without friend?
Exactly, it also felt to me like without love
I think no one knows how the universe began, but I don’t see how a creator that came from nothing or existed forever is more absurd than a universe that did. And I don’t know where the universe came from, no one does. So it’s not a matter of either/or. Your dichotomy is like saying “either lightning came from thor or it just came from nothing”. Or we don’t currently know where lightning comes from. I’m going with option C.
And I don’t see why we need a god to have a sense of purpose or meaning, anyone who can’t find something meaningful or purposeful in life isn’t looking or trying very hard. I can’t walk out my front door without tripping over five things that mean something to someone.
You commited logical fallacies such as ad hominem. Agno, let’s play a small game. Do you believe in justice or equality? Which do you think is more important?
Where did I say anything ad hominem? And it’s arrogant to ask me questions after blowing off my entire last response.
Tu quoque.
And if you look at the times of my responses, you will see I asked first, and if you read the whole thing, you will see that I neither slammed your response nor stopped you from validly responding monsieur Loveless.
And so that you can keep emotion out of this, imagine you are talking to an atheist and not to judge my argument as invalid just because I believe in something.
Evolution is a well observed fact of biology, faith is not applicable. Nor is there any conflict between evolution (description and explanation of how life changes and adapts, where new diseases come from etc) and a belief in a creator. Darwin believed in a creator so do many evolution scientists. The reason fundamentalists attack evolution and equate it with atheism is to try to make people think science is dangerous or toxic somehow, because it contradicts their narrow, literal interpretation of genesis, which in light of what we know about the history of life on earth is as one comedian put it, like “watching the flintstones as though it were a documentary”.
I see no reason a god could not have created life that can evolve, or created a universe that can produce life.
As far as jesus that’s a whole other can of worms.
Thank you for your comment. I guess you are a Barney Rubble fan?
I see no conflict of God creating the Heavens and the Earth and using Evolution.
However, the ‘Science’ you claim to be there is not there.
Starting with the Big Bang, there is a required ‘external’ force. They cannot identify the force.
So, Evolution requires the belief in Miracles. If I need to believe in the non-scientific miraculous, it is just as easy to believe in a 6-day Creation.
Wayne
“Thank you for your comment. I guess you are a Barney Rubble fan?”
Not especially, I think that cartoon was before my time, never got into it.
“I see no conflict of God creating the Heavens and the Earth and using Evolution.”
Alrighty.
“However, the ‘Science’ you claim to be there is not there.”
I am a huge science nerd and I can tell you evolution isn’t just supported by evidence, it’s widely considered one of the most well-supported ideas in all of science. Even the previous pope noted that it was not a “mere hypothesis” and said that the fact that so many different fields of science had converged on the same explanations (genetics, biology, taxonomy, zoology, paleontology etc) independently and based on different avenues of evidence and in a period when so much was learned about nature was very compelling.
“Starting with the Big Bang, there is a required ‘external’ force. They cannot identify the force.”
The big bang theory has nothing to do with evolution and it does not attempt to describe the beginning or the origins of the universe, but rather it describes what happened after, the expansion and cooling of the universe from a hot, dense state. And of course this isn’t hypothetical or past tense, it is observably happening right now.
“So, Evolution requires the belief in Miracles. If I need to believe in the non-scientific miraculous, it is just as easy to believe in a 6-day Creation.”
These are misconceptions about science, they have nothing to do with what is in actual science textbooks or what actual scientists have concluded. It’s like the “if we came from monkeys…” line. Evolution science has never said we came from monkeys, that’s a misconception. And by the way the big bang theory which is attacked as atheistic and hostile to belief in god – check out the “atheist” who proposed it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre
I always love it when it is ‘assumed’ I have never read or heard of the real ‘scientists’ behind the theories.
Wiki?
Harvard, on Cosmic Evolution: https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~ejchaisson/cosmic_evolution/docs/splash.html
Emory, on the miracle of life: http://www.emory.edu/evolution/schedule.html
And I could go on and on. There are major gaps in the ‘Theory of Evolution.’
I don’t understand what anything you posted has to do with anything I posted. And getting offended that I mentioned something fairly obscure because I am “assuming” you don’t know it just suggests you have a very fragile ego.
Thank you for your comment.
I am not offended, in fact, I almost expect to be given a weak answer. Why? Well weak answers are common, and more importantly.
A weak answer about Science is necessary to consider ‘Evolutionary Theory’ strong enough to build a ‘world view’ upon. A strong answer about Science and Evolution usually has a scientist, even Dawkins, backing up some and saying something like, “Well, I do not want to say that Evolution is 100% fact.”
Not only do I believe that, but my hypothesis has stood the test of time. For decades now, real Scientists have skirted around the supporting evidence, because the evidence changes.
What I believe has moved from just a fancy crazy set of words into the realm of Hypothesis.
It is necessary for people to believe, and have faith in, Evolution in order for them to believe in the new ‘world view.’
I shifted the goal post a little bit, and we may need to start a new thread on this.
🙂
Wayne
I didn’t give a “weak” answer, you didn’t give anything for me to reply to. You gave me links that I have no idea why you even posted them. As for evolution requiring faith or not being based on evidence, these are common talking points but I’ve never met a creationist yet who could tell me what about evolution specifically is unsupported or requires faith without either a) giving an example of something that is extremely testable and well supported or b) describing an evolutionary idea that isn’t actually anything to do with evolution, ie “we came from monkeys” or “a dog should give birth to a cat” or some other nonsense that has nothing to do with any scientific theory.
So how about you give an example of something that is supposedly unsupported and if I can’t support it I will admit evolution is not well established and is not scientific, and if you can’t give an example of something that is unsupported you will admit that evolution is well supported and is scientific. Deal?
The links showed that there are areas of Evolution requiring faith.
Test the Big Bang – I dare you.
Test cell wall creation – yes, I know they are trying.
Test DNA creation from chemical -non-biological sources – yes, they tried and failed.
And the list goes on. And on. There are several dozen points in Creation, called Evolution, which require ‘faith,’ not ‘Science.’
“The links showed that there are areas of Evolution requiring faith.”
I didn’t see anything to do with that.
“Test the Big Bang – I dare you.”
The big bang theory predicted both the existence of cosmic background radiation and the redshift of galaxies before they were discovered, both are tests of the theory, as are particle accelerator experiments that produce exotic particles from the early universe and give us insight into the distant past, but what you don’t realize is that the big bang is happening right now, it’s not hypothetical. It’s simply an extrapolation based on the universe’s current expansion and state to an earlier state. And no it makes no claims about the origins of the universe/matter.
“Test cell wall creation – yes, I know they are trying.”
Do you mean the evolution of the first cell walls or cell wall formation in life today? The fossil record doesn’t go back that far, and evolution is valid science even if the first cell or cells were created, as darwin believed.
“Test DNA creation from chemical -non-biological sources – yes, they tried and failed.”
Even if DNA-based organisms were created, they evolved and are still evolving. The two ideas are not mutually exclusive.
“And the list goes on. And on. There are several dozen points in Creation, called Evolution, which require ‘faith,’ not ‘Science.’”
I think you are assuming evolution is a broad ideology that excludes any other ideas about origins, when it’s actually a test-based attempt to understand life regardless of it’s origins. And while yes we don’t understand everything about the history of life that no more negates the things we do know than what we don’t know about regular history negates what we do have evidence for.
The Big Bang DID NOT predict background radiation.
They FOUND background radiation, then they decided that the background radiation had to come FROM the Big Bang.
The list goes on, all you have to do is use old fashioned logic – what they no longer teach. My teacher was a rather interesting mix of agnostic, atheistic, and religious thought. He and I had some great conversations.
From wikipedia:
“After World War II, two distinct possibilities emerged. One was Fred Hoyle’s steady state model, whereby new matter would be created as the Universe seemed to expand. In this model the Universe is roughly the same at any point in time.[54] The other was Lemaître’s Big Bang theory, advocated and developed by George Gamow, who introduced big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN)[55] and whose associates, Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman, predicted the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB).[56]”
Like the experts write, much of that is incorrect: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00016-012-0088-7
That article refers to the prediction of the exact temperature of the background radiation which was based on the big bang theory and was a test of the theory regardless.
It does correlate, and it does exist, and it is claimed to prove the Big Bang.
But, at what rate would you expect temperature of an object to ‘cool’ while in space? And how would you measure that rate?
We’re talking about radiation, not matter. Light doesn’t “cool” in space. An x-ray doesn’t cool down into a radio wave, etc.
Theoretically, light does cool down, and it will stop moving.
Everything does.
Theoretically.
Well, that is all we can actually discuss outside of our Solar System.
Right?
If light from the furthest galaxies hasn’t even slowed down by the time it gets to us I can’t imagine it ever will. Or if it does it will be so far into the future it would be measured in some insane unit of measurement that is vastly beyond anything that will ever matter to anyone.
I understand. And I agree.
But, we agree to disagree with Science when we write this.
Redshift was the outgrowth of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity …. again, before Big Bang was much of a theory. Much less a Theory.
From wikipedia:
“In 1929, Edwin Hubble discovered that the distances to far away galaxies were strongly correlated with their redshifts—an idea originally suggested by Lemaître in 1927.”
Not what I remember being taught in Science classes.
But, I might be wrong, I can admit that. But, I am not certain wiki is a valid source to convince me of that.
Wayne
Wikipedia cites sources.
Wiki is not a credible source, being an expert in areas, I used to edit wiki articles. Most wiki sources are quoted out of context.
I only use wiki for quick definitions.
As I said, they cite sources. Wikipedia itself is not the source.
I used to edit wiki. A ‘bio-weapons’ scientist changed what I had written, ‘because you do not have the education I have.’
I gave him sources, and he vaguely apologized.
I use wiki only for quick definitions. Seldom is a quick definition a true source.
So, can you give me a real source?
I don’t know what you consider a “real source” but this one seems pretty detailed:
http://www.decodedscience.com/georges-lemaitre-discovered-the-expansion-of-the-universe/5588
(first google hit for his name and “redshift”)
Better than wiki.
But, it misdefines redshift. It means objects are moving away from each other. There is a red shift in car headlights.
Red shift does not prove ‘expansion.’ The term expansion they are using in this article is normal speed. In Cosmology, ‘expansion’ is a catastrophic term. It is sometimes called ‘inflation.’
We can see ‘results’ of the expansion (Universe is huge), but we no longer see actual expansion.
No.
Evolution is compatible with Creation if one assumes ID (Intelligent Design). I believe in an intelligent Creator, not in ID or Evolution.
But, knowing something does not mean it proves or disproves Evolution. Knowledge is a direct application of our Epistemology, not the other way around.
You don’t believe in an intelligent designer but you believe in an intelligent creator? What, in your mind, is the difference?
Good question.
ID uses Evolution as the mechanism, I am not certain Evolution was the mechanism.
It might be, but every testable point in Evolution that has been ‘tested’ has been falsified. All the remaining ‘tests’ are educated guesses.
Failure listed as progress makes me uncomfortable. How do you feel about so many failures considered progress?
Wayne
What tests has evolution failed? And many successful predictions have been made, many even straight from darwin. Do you believe that virtually all christian scientists accept something that has been falsified at every turn? Why should they?
In reverse, I know many Christian Scientists who believe like I do. And many more believe much closer to what I believe than they do to ‘Cosmic Evolution.’
What fields are they in?
Varied.
I have one personal friend who is a professor of Physics, if I remember his field correctly.
I also have 2 books with over 60 scientists from all different fields.
They were willing to place their names, reputations, and jobs on the line to be included.
Most ‘Christian’ scientists end up being fired or demoted over time.
No, the vast, overwhelming majority of christian scientists have not been fired or demoted, what you mean by “christian” scientists is pseudo-scientists who happen to be christian. People who substitute their religious views for science and try to bypass the scientific process for the purpose of evangelism. It is not taboo to take any position in science, it is very taboo to take a position you can’t justify scientifically.
Attacking the person because you disagree with him is bad logic, and bad argument.
What if I said only ‘pseudo-scientists’ support your position? Same logic, and same validity? Correct?
Who am I attacking? And I didn’t say only pseudo-scientists support your position, I said scientists generally get fired for engaging in pseudo-science, not disagreeing with accepted scientific principles which is what every great scientist has done. Christian scientists are allowed to be christian all they want, they’re just not allowed to call something science unless they have some actual data or experiment or something to show for it. This is not something that applies specifically to christians or christianity, it applies to all scientists about everything. There is a strain of evangelism that seeks to rally christians together by promoting these us vs the world dynamics and promote the idea that christians are a persecuted minority (when in the US they are a persecuting majority). This form of evangelism takes every instance of any rule or principle applying to christians as well as everyone else and acts as though christians are being singled out. You can’t promote one religious view over another with public funds? Christians are being singled out for persecution! You can’t force any religious view (including atheism) on kids in public school? Christians are being persecuted! We are even told that catholic organizations having to have health insurance which may cover condoms in exchange for accepting billions of dollars in subsidies is a violation of their rights.
But I digress…
Yet, atheism is promoted over Christianity with Government, not just public money, Federal Government money.
And atheistic Science is promoted over Christian Science all the time, using taxpayer dollars.
And Christians are fired all the time, demoted, and passed over for promotion, because the intelligentsia do not like anyone who disagrees and is Christian.
Sometimes they do not even like disagreement.
There is no such thing as “atheistic science”. Science is science. When you are dealing with observable reality and empirical tests there’s just the one universe, it does not adhere to any belief or ideology. And the idea of there being a god is not testable in either direction, neither atheism nor deism/theism is “science” (though theism entails other claims but I’m not talking about that right now, just the existence or non-existence of a deity). If a scientist tried to promote atheism as science and said science proved there is a god and we should teach atheism in science class you don’t think they would get a similar backlash? Evangelists like to equate science with atheism but if you shipped every atheist scientist in america to an island somewhere it wouldn’t change the scientific consensus one iota.
There was Science before the Atheists took over. And it is ironic how quickly modernity and post modernity exclude their faith from their practice of Science and their practice of Religion. Just as they do so with the Founders, Framers, and Pilgrims.
Dawkins, Coyne, and others disagree with you and say science proves there is no god. And then when specifically asked, they back up and say something similar to what you are saying …. so, most people get mixed signals.
Hense, I am not fond of the way Science is taught.
Quote them. And there is a big difference between atheism in the science classroom and a scientist who happens to be an atheist espousing their philosophical views. Just as christian scientists who talk about god are not peddling pseudoscience as long as they make no pretense that faith and science are the same thing (they’re not). I agree that science used to operate within a sort of broad theistic framework, but that framework was abandoned because it was debunked. You can’t exactly continue to believe the “laws” of the universe are immutable rules set in place by god once you find out many of them are not actually immutable and are actually illusory.
No it was not ‘debunked.’ People have moved away from it. correlation does not indicate causation ….
🙂
That the “laws” of nature are immutable has definitely been debunked. And the post hoc fallacy isn’t applicable here. And quote dawkins etc saying science proves there is no god. I do not believe they hold this view.
Show me how, when, and were God was debunked?
Prove God has been disproven?
Distracting the conversation from what you wrote? Well, I am not distracted. You wrote that God has been ‘debunked.’
Prove it.
I said no such thing.
[quote] I agree that science used to operate within a sort of [b]broad theistic framework, but that framework was abandoned because it was debunked[/b]. You can’t exactly continue to believe the “laws” of the universe are immutable rules set in place by god once you find out many of them are not actually immutable and are actually illusory. [/quote]
I was not saying that theism was debunked, I was saying the assumptions/framework early science used was debunked, namely that the properties of physics were immutable laws handed down by god. We later found out many of them are not immutable which is why they are now often referred to as principles of physics because they are universally true in principle.
I do not know of any laws of nature which have been debunked.
In fact, few laws have been ‘modified.’ Unlike Evolution which is revised at least yearly.
Newton’s laws of motion break down at near light speeds for instance.
What you are saying is logically equivalent to: Since the speed of sound changes with temperature, the speed of sound does not exist. Yet, we can test for it, and see the behavior consistently. It is a law of nature.
The point being that “laws” are man-made descriptions of perceived constants, not edicts handed down by god. Even if such things did exist our “laws” are not them.
And no. the Catholic Church does NOT get Federal Subsidies.
Catholics Subsidize the Federal Government by paying taxes, and those taxes are spent on anti-Catholic propaganda, anti-Catholic religion, and even on abortion.
And I am not Catholic, and I think it is sick of the government to spend money like that. If someone wants to subsidize abortion, it must be out of their money, not my money.
I hope you can understand how offensive that is.
The claim that tax dollars are spent to fund abortions is a very common and very old lie. While yes the government does fund planned parenthood it funds other programs of theirs (they provide healthcare for mothers who want to keep their babies too you know, as well as cancer screenings and many other things, abortion is a tiny percentage of what they actually do). There is a rider that is attached to basically every law having to do with healthcare requiring zero dollars of the money to be spent on abortion. The only time an abortion is ever paid for is in rare instances where it is part of an emergency, life-saving procedure, and americans are overwhelmingly in favor of abortion being legal in those instances.
And I said catholic organizations (which are subsidized), not the catholic church which actually is also subsidized by tax exemption. As for anti-catholic propaganda and religion being subsidized, could you be more specific? I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Negative, Planned Parenthood uses the government dollars to support their overall program.
And they use the overall program to advertise to potential abortion clients.
There are no firewalls to protect US from the abuses being made.
And religious charities get face time for their religion by helping the poor, which they do with public funds.
That is recent.
Historically, the poor were helped by the church(es). And people were thankful, and it cost a lot less.
Now we (US) spend almost 1.2 trillion per year on welfare. We spend so much on welfare, we hide the money in at least 12 different programs.
Ironically, they take 400 to 600 billion ‘from grandma’ to give to the welfare recipients. Talk about starving grandma ….
Historically the poor had a third of the life expectancy they do today. And so many people are on welfare today not because it is somehow contagious, but because wages have been kept lowered invisibly through inflation so that now store managers make what was minimum wage in the early 70’s and their subordinates make a little more than half of “minimum” wage. If it had been increased to keep up with inflation since 1973 the minimum wage would be 17 dollars an hour.
I won’t disagree in theory. But, wages have nothing to do with the fact that Government does not have an historic right to take the care of the poor from God.
Or, to redefine ‘marriage.’
But, the politicians do take from God.
Yeah, how dare the government redefine marriage as being a financial agreement between a woman’s father and a total stranger. An outrage I say! Plus they think they can redefine “slavery”, which is even worse! I say we need to get back to the way of life laid out in scripture, down with modern society!
I agree, down with modern society. Now we are getting somewhere.
Maybe we could go back to a gentler America. Before the elite brought in slavery?
What, live like the native americans?
That side of my family, and the only ‘white’ immigrants to come to America legally, the Mayflower, and the few other legal immigrants that came and made treaties.
Since the treaties were broken, there have been no legal immigrants.
I doubt early america was “gentler”.
Than now? 1 in 7 men are sexually assaulted in college and military, it is worse for women. There are FEW periods in history that extreme. The black plague in Europe is one of the few.
Yeah I’m sure women had it so easy back when they were bought and sold as cattle and couldn’t vote.
Churches, and Christians are not tax exempt.
Welfare recipients are ….
When I pay taxes, they are significantly higher than what Jesus endorsed, so contrary to my Christian faith, I am taxed at a much higher rate than my Religion would endorse.
That takes money away from our Churches, and that is a much higher tax (about 50%) than what other people pay in taxes.
“Churches, and Christians are not tax exempt.”
Churches are tax exempt. And why should christians be tax exempt?
“Welfare recipients are ….”
Yeah, the IRS has no use for the lint in peoples’ pockets. And if you’re receiving food stamps should the government take back some of it’s own money? What would be the point of that? It would just cost more money to transfer it twice which would translate into higher taxes.
“When I pay taxes, they are significantly higher than what Jesus endorsed,”
Jesus said render unto cesar what is cesar’s and unto god what is god, and told people not to store up treasure on earth but in heaven. Nowhere that I can recall did he endorse a particular tax rate. Tithing was ten percent but a) you are not a levite and b) in most scripture tithing was storing food as a hedge against starvation and a tithe was a portion of your crop. We do not live in an agrarian society and this is not applicable. But even if it were the portion of taxes spent on feeding the poor are negligible. Either way if you live in the US you live a far more comfortable and amazing life than probably anyone did in biblical times.
“so contrary to my Christian faith, I am taxed at a much higher rate than my Religion would endorse.”
And you get clean drinking water, you get to live in a nation where everyone can read and write, you get to live somewhere with health regulations so plagues are non-existent and building codes so earthquakes don’t make all the buildings fall down. You get to live in a country where research is publicly funded so most ailments are treatable and we can do things like have this conversation on magic boxes that send our thoughts invisibly through the air and take them thousands of miles away at the speed of light. We live in a nation where we are so bombarded with modern miracles that we become bored by them and you’re complaining that you have to pay taxes.
“That takes money away from our Churches, and that is a much higher tax (about 50%) than what other people pay in taxes.”
I don’t know what you mean by this grammatically.
“Jesus said render unto cesar what is cesar’s and unto god what is [G]od’s”.
When Jesus said that, the tax rate was less than 5% …. And they got water, healthcare, welfare food, welfare checks, paved roads, sewers, a big Army, a huge Navy, about all they did not have were cell phones and airplanes ….
Wait! Al Gore invented those.
I get to live in a country which denies what my family has done for them, they lie, and cheat my family of our rightful heritage …. That is too high a price to pay no matter the cost.
I would rather my family had lived, than for them to have died, so that their lives were wasted ….
“When Jesus said that, the tax rate was less than 5%”
And the life expectancy was about half of what it is today.
“…. And they got water,”
Which had to be fermented to make it somewhat safe to drink.
“healthcare,”
Yeah, MRI machines and everything.
“welfare food, welfare checks,”
I’m sure no one went hungry.
“paved roads, sewers,”
The best outdoor plumbing and cobblestone money could buy.
“a big Army, a huge Navy,”
I’m sure nuclear submarines are about as expensive and hard to build as wooden ships.
“about all they did not have were cell phones and airplanes …. ”
And… basically any technology and medicine in use today.
Well.
Changing what Jesus told us to do is still wrong, and it goes against my Religion.
🙂
Again not what jesus actually said.
Close enough.
And since Government is not supposed to push its religion under any conditions, we should get Government out of Religion.
No, it’s your opinion not god’s opinion. And I agree we should get government out of religion, and religion our of government.
Government out of Religion. That is Constitutional.
Religion out of Government is not what Washington and other Founders founded America for.
“I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction. To this consideration we ought to ascribe the absence of any regulation, respecting religion, from the Magna-Charta of our country.”
– George Washington
Thomas jefferson said that “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical” and the phrase “wall of separation of church and state” comes from his writings.
Benjamin franklin said:
“When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, ’tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”
Etc, etc.
George – [b]It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.[/b]
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/george_washington.html#LkhvsdVSSme751ZY.99
http://www.mountvernon.org/educational-resources/encyclopedia/spurious-quotations
Fake quote.
The Founders and Framers were all (but one) men of God. Different faiths, but servants. None of them thought America would go atheistic …. None.
Benjamin franklin, thomas jefferson and abraham lincoln all rejected the divinity of jesus and deism is much closer to atheism than it is to theism. And the point is not that they thought america would have an atheist majority, but that they did not want the government to promote one religious view over another.
I forgot to reply to the rest, al gore did actually contribute to the invention of the internet and I don’t know what you’re talking about with regards to your family, if we discussed it before I apologize it’s been awhile since I’ve gotten online.
The internet began in the early 1970’s …. Under DARPA.
Al was in college. And then he was in politics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_technology
[quote]During this time, Gore co-chaired the Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future with Newt Gingrich …. [/quote]
So, did Ginrich do the work, and Gore get the credit?
Gingrich can claim whatever credit he wants. I don’t know that he was necessarily as much of an advocate of the technology as gore, but then I don’t really care.
He was senior to Gore, was he not?
Gore was inventing the B52 when he was in diapers? Is that what is next?
I sense you are arguing against something I am not saying.
Gore was a junior congressman. He stood on the shoulders of greater men than he could ever be.
But, you give him the credit.
OK.
I simply said he was involved in the development of the technology. You act like I’m cheerleading for him or something.
Most people are so heavily taxed that they only give 5% of their income in tithes and offerings. Therefore the Church is working on about half of what it would historically operate upon.
That is a 50% tax rate.
This makes many assumptions about both people and modern culture.
But, it makes the fact that Government is overtaxing the people.
And taking the place of Family and Religion.
Again religious organizations and charities are funded by the federal government. One isn’t replacing the other. While yes the food stamp program limits starvation better than any church, isn’t that a good thing?
1.2 to 1.3 trillion Federal dollars are spent on poverty in US. Is that more efficient than the old way? I do not think so.
Most of the ‘religious’ organizations you are talking about were taken over by liberals years ago. And they are Christian in name only.
Red Cross, University of Chicago, Yale, Harvard, and the list goes on and on.
I doubt the validity of your statistic and the budget of the social security agency amounts to 7% of the GDP, less than a tithe in terms of our total resources. And I’m pretty sure it helps more people than churches have in the past.
As for only “liberal” religious organizations getting funding, the charitable ones get funding, it’s not anyone’s fault if they happen to be liberal.
Social Security is a SEPARATE tax. And another issue. Since it is a total add on to what the basic taxes are, it can be considered together or separately from the other taxes.
Aside from Social Security, most of which actually goes into pay checks, welfare is a HUGE WASTE OF MONEY.
I cannot find any real numbers. But, it would seem from what is available, number of dollars spent, number of recipients, and the claimed ‘money spent per recipient’ that we spend 9 dollars for every dollar going to the poor.
An extremely high overhead, don’t you think?
Find some numbers.
Didn’t I give you a link?
Yes, but after I gave that comment. Sorry.
PS: https://luvsiesous.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/why-cant-we-afford-to-feed-the-poor/
That guy has his head up his ass. I’ve been on welfare, nobody bought me an iphone. And the 10 to 1 statistic is bullshit, the overhead of the food stamp program is something like 3% of the total budget, which is so small it is about what the transaction fees for the food stamp cards alone would be if a company were doing it, not even counting the offices, paperwork, case workers and so on needed to run the program.
Tell this guy to stop listening to rush limbaugh and google this stuff instead.
I stood behind a woman paying for her food in food stamps, and she answered her iPhone.
That was when I decided welfare needs to be cut at least in half.
20k per person is spent, it is commonly claimed that 2k is what the recipient actually benefits from.
Even if it is 5 to 1, it is too much waste and ABUSE of my money.
Maybe instead of attacking people (ad hominem) you could open up your mind and look at the facts before you.
Lots of people have iphones because they are on family plans, ie their parents have money but they are struggling. Even more people keep their smart phone because it’s cheaper than paying for regular internet access and they need internet and phone for work. I am working through a temp agency right now and I need internet, phone and even have to send faxes on a regular basis just to get by. Not to mention public transportation and other related services to find the place they send me to. I can get by with a simple tracfone but that is only because I have a laptop and live right next to the library to use their wifi. But even then I would often be screwed without borrowing my roommate’s smartphone to get directions for work the next morning. You can get by with a map if you have a car, you can’t get by with it if you take the bus, you need internet access.
4 years ago, iPhones cost over $1,200 per year.
I now have iPhones myself, but that does not mean welfare should provide the poor with iPhones …. food? some shelter?
I can understand.
Computers? It is time to go to work and earn a living.
And these days you can’t get work without a phone number and most places you try to apply tell you to fill out an online application. Try to get your next job by mail, see how that works for you.
OK, that does not mean government needs to fund $1200 a year for people on welfare, just so they can have an iPhone.
Welfare should be no more than $100 per month for food.
Actually food stamps should vary by household size and the local cost of food – I moved from ohio to oregon a few months ago and it was much cheaper to buy food there than it is here. We had discount stores like aldi that were tailored specifically to poor people and were all about cutting corners to make the prices as low as possible so you can eat a meal for a dollar or two – here the best prices for almost everything costs at least 150% what it did there, sometimes 2 or 3 times as much. And as I said there is no government program buying people ipods, it just doesn’t exist. A person can be poor and happen to have an iphone but guess what, people with iphones lose their jobs or fall on hard times too People also get them as gifts, I always had a fairly recent computer growing up despite being dirt poor because my grandmother would send us her old work computer when she upgraded hers every few years. I have an ipod ($80 used) and a laptop (in 2007 the model sold for about 3k) and a digital camera ($150) that were all given to me as gifts. If I lost my job would I not be qualified for foodstamps in your opinion because I had these things? Should I be expected to sell them when replacing them later would potentially cost vastly more money? You might as well say people should sell their furniture before getting food stamps, when the same principle is true, it’s more expensive to replace it and guess what, people need someplace to sit and eat and sleep.
Have you ever been poor enough to need food stamps?
Yes, I have been denied assistance. I was too ‘rich’ and too ‘white.’
No. I am not asking you to sell your things to apply for assistance, but I am asking that assistance be about helping the impoverished, not the ‘working poor to afford more cigarettes and iPhones.’
We spend 1.2 to 1.3 trillion a year on welfare, and we take money from those who need it more to help those who need it less.
And I am against Democrats starving Grandma so they can buy votes from the ‘working poor.’
Are you for starving grandma?
Yes I actually went door to door advocating for starving grandmothers last year. Right after I voted for death panels and assassinated the easter bunny.
You were not racially discriminated against, you have just never actually been poor in your life. Maybe you should be sometime, it would be good for you. Especially as a christian.
I have been racially discriminated against.
I have gone to the food pantry, without a job.
You sure do judge me wrongly often.
How were you racially discriminated against?
WHICH time? Like most white men in America, I am often discriminated against.
The last time, an hispanic kid pulled up beside me, yelling, hitting his horn, flipping me off, and rubbing his baseball bat. Asking me if I wanted to be ‘effed’ up.
Luckily he sped away as I dialed 911. Police never showed up.
The time before that, I walked up to two young men working at a large electronics store. And old white woman was saying this as I walked up: “You young men need to fix all the problems by killing off all the white men. They are the problem.”
I turned to the two young men and apologized, “You should not have to suffer such abuse just because you work here.” They nodded in agreement as she tried to ‘explain.’
Then there was the time …. and the other time …. and of course the time I was held at gun point for driving while white …. over 2.5 hours …. that was an ordeal, but of course, I am not supposed to understand what that felt like, because “I am ‘white.'” The gun point episodes were about 30 to 45 minutes of the over 2.5 hours.
A hispanic person being a thug isn’t automatically racist because you’re white and crazy old people say crazy old people shit, everyone in america basically just nods and ignores them. As for being held at gunpoint I’m sure you’re similarly putting a spin on things. And again I asked how you were discriminated against by the welfare system as you claimed. Apparently I was right and you were simply lying because you are changing the subject.
How would you put a spin on being held at gun point?
I really need to read your answer.
I don’t think you are doing that, I suspect that being held at gunpoint is the spin itself.
You need to be held at gunpoint then.
Me? I called 9-11 and requested a supervisor to be sent out, he pulled his gun as I made the phone call.
And yes, I feared for my life. And for the life of my neighbor ‘Bruce’ who was walking his dog. The cop only grabbed his gun when he talked with ‘Bruce.’
I still have no idea what you’re talking about.
I was held at gunpoint, I have been attacked with a knife. I have lived more life than many.
But, I do not let the failings of others predict how I will behave.
Better?
I am sorry you had to experience those things, but the point was your claims about them, which required more information. I don’t really care anymore though.
Sorry about that.
But, I know I survived all of that for a purpose.
We each have a purpose, but I am afraid most of us never find our purpose.
Do we agree about that?
I think we make our purpose. I don’t think our lives are planned. If they were the planner would be unthinkably cruel.
Great comment, even if I disagree some.
I have met many Jews in Ukraine who do not think of the Nazi or Soviet Pogroms as cruel first, their first thought is about all of the people God saved.
So, to assign cruelty for much lesser events is rather harsh – IMHO.
Thank you again!
By that logic hitler wasn’t evil, because think of all the people he didn’t kill.
You are having a bad day, you need to walk back from the personal attacks.
wayne
There was no personal attack in this comment, and you need to stop stereotyping people you disagree with politically.
When you stoop to profane name calling and personal attacks, that is personal. Rise above the partisan politics you have lived with in the past, and help make a greater America for all, not just a few.
Facts are facts. If using facts is ‘stereotyping,’ then so be it. If my skin is ‘white,’ or ‘black,’ that is merely a fact. Not a negative stereotype, but a factual reality.
I appreciate it is difficult for you. And I appreciate your room mate helping you. And that is the way charity should be done.
You won’t tell your room mate, “You owe me, so I will take the iPhone from you.”
🙂
I am for Charity, not for economic enslavement.
I have no idea what you mean. I assume you’re equating taxes with stealing, but you seem to be mixing your metaphors/topics/arguments.
Agno,
Thank you for your comment, and I am praying for you to get a better new job.
I should have been clearer. When you use your room mate’s phone, you say thank you.
When people use welfare, they say, “I deserve this.”
Charity leads to thankfulness. Welfare leads to corruption.
Not all welfare is bad, and not all charity is good. But, for the most part, charity consumes 10% of the money given to the poor. And welfare consumes 60% to 80%.
So, why don’t we go back to a charity driven system? It would cut the cost of welfare by about $800Billion a year – about the deficit each year. Our deficit is because we are not being honest and using our money wisely – IMHO.
Wayne
“Agno, Thank you for your comment, and I am praying for you to get a better new job.”
I’m not complaining about my job, I don’t mind being poor or working hard so long as I can build toward something else.
“I should have been clearer. When you use your room mate’s phone, you say thank you. When people use welfare, they say, “I deserve this.”
They say that because they’re made to defend themselves by people like you. Speaking as someone who has been on food stamps there is an element of shame to it that doesn’t come from your nose being rubbed in it by conservatives, all by yourself you feel like a piece of shit for not being able to support your family or yourself, especially if you’re a guy. If you take someone who already feels bad, already has their own struggles and pains in life, and is probably at a low point in a number of ways and start calling them a moocher and a thief and all this crap then of course they’re going to say “no screw you I have this coming to me”. You attack anyone who is already in pain and they will get defensive. People are not emotionally suicidal, their instinct is to protect themselves from further emotional pain. You are like the husband who comes home and sees that the kids’ toys are laying all over and there’s dirty clothes in the hamper and thinks that bitching at the wife is going to fix the problem, when the problem isn’t the dirty clothes or the kids’ mess it’s the situation the wife is in where she is stressed out, depressed, isolated from other people she can interact with on any meaningful level and has zero external motivators whatsoever. Every husband who has any empathy knows that motivating yourself and being stuck with the kids is ten times harder to cope with than even the most strenuous job. Poor people fall into the same kind of rut because guess what, losing your job is hard and often comes with other things like health problems, losing your insurance, getting dumped, losing friends etc, it means a significant loss of self esteem and even when I do work I am busting my ass all day then on the weekends I often find myself slumping into depression because I work so hard physically at work I get endorphins from the exertion then when I sit around on the weekend and don’t get any I go into withdrawal and it’s like going on and off and on antidepressants all the time. Because that’s what endorphins are, they’re natural antidepressants. Add onto that that there are things about the welfare system that suck, like that people need to be assured that going off of welfare won’t ruin their lives, because people on welfare who are penniless and totally dependent on the state are afraid that if they get a job their benefits will stop before they have enough to make ends meet and they will become homeless, lose the job and be worse off than when they started. I understand that it’s a problem and this is just part of it, and I understand your frustration but bitching at people and vilifying them is not going to solve the problem, and pulling the rug out from under people who don’t have a lot of rug to begin with is only a solution if the only problem you acknowledge is the fact that you have to pay taxes. If we did away with all welfare programs as you propose you would make marginally more money at the expense of literally peoples’ lives. Not to mention what do you think millions of new starving and truly desperate people would do to the crime rate in america? To our culture? You don’t want to pay for poverty but we always pay for it one way or another. I’d rather pay for it in the way that causes the least misery.
“Charity leads to thankfulness. Welfare leads to corruption.”
I was on welfare, now I work harder than probably most americans and am self-learning C++ programs. Am I corrupted? Capitalism leads to all kinds of bad things too, should we limit the bad things or do away with capitalism?
“Not all welfare is bad, and not all charity is good. But, for the most part, charity consumes 10% of the money given to the poor. And welfare consumes 60% to 80%.”
You have given statistics to try to justify these claims and they have over and over again been inaccurate. I think I forgot to reply to one of those comments before, I had to leave after I read it (library wifi). As I said I googled the cost of the food stamp program, the overhead is almost miraculously small, and is much smaller than the cost of similar private enterprises like credit card companies that are logistically almost identical.
“So, why don’t we go back to a charity driven system?”
And fund it how?
“It would cut the cost of welfare by about $800Billion a year – about the deficit each year.”
Why don’t we go back to pointy sticks and get rid of the military, that would get rid of the deficit too.
“Our deficit is because we are not being honest and using our money wisely – IMHO.”
I agree there, but I don’t think that all government is unwise or evil. For instance countries with universal government health insurance invariably spend about half per capita what we do on healthcare. Other countries’ public schools perform much better and for a fraction of the cost of ours. Just because our government sucks doesn’t mean all government sucks because it’s government. The government put a man on the moon. Government is only as good or efficient or un-corrupt as the people making it up, the same as charities and businesses.
Interesting comment, thank you.
Your feeling like a POS is not a reason to attack me personally.
If you want, I can rub your nose in it, but I chose not to.
I have been down and out, and government refused to help me. So, I got the bad feelings you got, and I got no money to help out.
I guess I should have been a liberal, then they would have paid me to remain poor.
Right? That is what you are implying isn’t it? Help those who keep the rich elite liberals in power, and trod down on those who believe in traditional work hard values?
Wayne
Nowhere did I attack you personally. And how can you both complain about and lobby against welfare spending while complaining that you didn’t get any? How can you say you’ve been so poor you desperately needed help but still weren’t poor enough to qualify for welfare while simultaneously saying that people who do qualify for welfare aren’t poor and are just getting a handout so they can afford more luxuries? These are completely conflicting views and facts.
I did not say I was not poor enough to qualify, you continue to judge me by a different standard.
I said I was turned away, my ‘wealth’ status was not even discussed.
My education status, and my ‘ability’ to find a job was discussed.
Ironic, how would that have been different if I was black?
Wayne
You continue to say that my experience is not valid, because I am ‘white.’ Admittedly you do not use the ‘white’ word, but you have stated I have not been racially discriminated against, as if being discriminated against is the standard for receiving benefits, I have been told many times that I have been turned down for benefits because I am white.
As for the personal attack: here is one: They say that because they’re made to defend themselves by people like you.
Maybe you do not perceive what you write, maybe you do and just feel that I should put up with it, because I am ‘white.’
What I have noticed throughout life, few people discriminate on the basis of color. Some do, but few do. Almost all people discriminate based upon different political views.
I am a survivor. And I thank God he has taken good care of me.
Wayne
“You continue to say that my experience is not valid, because I am ‘white.’ Admittedly you do not use the ‘white’ word,”
I don’t even need to argue against you, you do it for me.
“but you have stated I have not been racially discriminated against,”
I don’t believe you when you claim you have.
“as if being discriminated against is the standard for receiving benefits,”
What? I don’t know how you got that from anything I said.
“I have been told many times that I have been turned down for benefits because I am white.”
So record them saying it and sue the government for 100 million dollars. You’ll probably win. Or were you told that you were denied benefits by a friend, relative or perhaps a pundit and not the actual people denying you benefits? If so you are inventing a fiction.
Actually, you need to look up the word ‘standing.’
Without understanding our legal system, you are involved in a fiction.
Are you not?
The only way you would not have standing is if you are lying.
You really do not know our ‘legal system.’
“As for the personal attack: here is one: They say that because they’re made to defend themselves by people like you.”
They are. I didn’t mean “white people”, I meant people who sneer at and condescend to and vilify them.
“Maybe you do not perceive what you write, maybe you do and just feel that I should put up with it, because I am ‘white.’”
I just figured it out – you think I’m not white. I am. And I think you should put up with it because criticizing someone for bad behavior is not a “personal attack”. I did not call you names or make a generalization about a group you are in.
“What I have noticed throughout life, few people discriminate on the basis of color. Some do, but few do. Almost all people discriminate based upon different political views.”
No just the fox news/msnbc crowd.
“I am a survivor. And I thank God he has taken good care of me. Wayne”
So you complain about how hard you have it, then turn around and praise god for your lot in life? Whatever dude.
Read my previous answer about the ‘white woman.’
Just because you are white does not mean you are not prejudiced against white men …. Just as in this comment, you say that your personal attack was ok, because “[you] didn’t mean “white people”, I meant people who sneer …. ”
Again you justify by saying you are not prejudiced, but you claim you can see me ‘sneer’ through a keyboard …. That is funny.
Yes, you have made repeated personal attacks, like I just mentioned.
Maybe you really do want me to describe you in the same manner? Maybe that is the language you have grown up thinking is loving and kind.
I was taught that putting other people down to make myself feel good was wrong. But, you continue to attribute that feeling to me as if you believe that is a standard for everyone.
Prejudice means to pre-judge someone, not to judge them based on their words and the contents of their character. And while yes I was a bit hyperbolic you are condescending to and attacking and vilifying people on welfare, saying that they are lazy and greedy and responsible for all of society’s problems. It’s not exactly whacky to describe this as sneering at them.
Actually, you have said that, I have never said they are all of our problems.
But, consumption of resources someone else worked for is a HUGE TAX upon the production capabilities of the economy.
It is like towing a trailer and riding the brake in your truck and wondering why you are not getting good gas mileage.
Which wouldn’t hurt the economy one bit because you’re still buying gas. Food stamps don’t hurt the economy, the fact that the money is coming from taxes doesn’t change the fact that it’s used to buy goods and services.
Welfare hurts the economy.
Saying otherwise indicates you do not understand supply and demand economy.
Maybe you would prefer communism? At least there, welfare recipients WOULD work. They had NO free lunch.
Making people work for food instead of pay isn’t communism, it’s slavery. And as I said there is no net loss, you act as though the money is being burned or shot to the moon.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomassowe381910.html
That’s awfully cynical.
Maybe it is.
But, so is welfare. Economic enslavement of people ….
Don’t you think?
Slavery is forcing someone to work for food, not giving them free food so they don’t starve. Again you are blaming the bandage on the wound as if it were the wound itself, or the cause of the wound. The gradual lowering of the minimum wage by inflation and credit cards enslave people, feeding them doesn’t.
The lowering of minimum wage did NOT place anyone on welfare.
Again, you keep diagnosing cancer while your patient is bleeding to death.
Allowing people to not work is the problem, I meet entirely too many people working at WalMart – NOT ON WELFARE – who are tired of ringing up people on food stamps driving nicer cars, answering nice cell phones, eating steaks and drinking wine.
While the person working cannot afford all of that. That is
SLAVERY.
“The lowering of minimum wage did NOT place anyone on welfare.”
Yeah poor people being twice as poor, how could that possibly result in more people being on welfare?
“Again, you keep diagnosing cancer while your patient is bleeding to death.”
We’re both commenting on a blog site, neither of us is saving the world here. Get over yourself.
“Allowing people to not work is the problem, I meet entirely too many people working at WalMart – NOT ON WELFARE – who are tired of ringing up people on food stamps driving nicer cars, answering nice cell phones, eating steaks and drinking wine. While the person working cannot afford all of that.”
If you think people with no money or jobs can afford more and better things than people who work full-time by the magic of food stamps you are insane. Either they are working and have food stamps (which most people on welfare actually do work) or maybe they lost their job and didn’t immediately sell their car before worrying about how they were going to eat. Maybe they need their car to get to work or for their work. You can’t judge people from the outside, you might as well stereotype people for the color of their skin for all you’re likely to be accurate.
“That is SLAVERY.”
Slavery is forcing someone to work without pay, not giving poor people food.
You need to discuss this with some of the checkers at your local WalMart.
They agree with me, not with you. Maybe 10% think that welfare has not gone crazy.
Slavery is making someone work without pay, that is not what I want, or recommend.
I have suggested that we have people work for their benefits when they are hungry ….
Why do you think work is such a bad word?
wayne
“You need to discuss this with some of the checkers at your local WalMart.”
You mean the store where people buy things at the cheapest possibly prices? Yeah, that’s where poor people shop – big shocker. According to you they’re buying diamond tiaras at tiffany’s and living the good life. That you use walmart as an example just shows the inverse is actually true. And I don’t care what some clerk in some store thinks about someone they don’t even know. I’m sure they could pick black people out of a crowd that support their prejudices too.
“They agree with me, not with you. Maybe 10% think that welfare has not gone crazy.”
Okay, anonymous people supposedly agree with you at a rate you just made up. Good argument.
“Slavery is making someone work without pay, that is not what I want, or recommend.”
It actually is what you just recommended.
“I have suggested that we have people work for their benefits when they are hungry ….”
If you want someone to work pay them a wage, don’t give the slaves a shack and some supper at the end of the day. As someone who has been on welfare I can tell you not having control over your own life and not having money to spend how you wish is dehumanizing. An important part of enabling people is allowing them to make decisions, even if they make bad ones it gives them a sense of control over their own destiny which you need to succeed.
“Why do you think work is such a bad word?”
I don’t, as I have made abundantly clear. Why are you such a stereotypical [profane personal attack removed]?
You are a step from getting your self banned from my blog.
Cut out the lies and personal attacks, or I impose a ban.
Clean up the language, or your are gone.
When you stop attacking me personally I will stop attacking you personally. The only difference is my attacks are actually accurate, yours are spiteful stereotypes and personal digs.
Further, all I am asking is to give people the chance to earn their assistance …. everyone I know would rather work than not work.
You might be the exception to that.
But, continuing to borrow money from Social Security and Medicare to pay for WELFARE is STARVING GRANDMA.
And it is HURTING ME.
And it is BANKRUPTING the country.
🙂
Wow you’re a real [edited to remove profane personal attack]. For your information at my job last week I lifted 12,000 pounds in a single day, and that was just one part of my day (unloading 300 40 pound boxes). So take your bullshit stereotypes somewhere else.
You know about as much about me as all the other “welfare queens” you hate.
Oh, and I qualify for several forms of welfare but haven’t applied for any of it.
Wow.
You hate me that much?
I do not hate you, but if you cannot keep your hate in check, I will delete you from my blog ….
I do not hate people on welfare, I want to help them get off of welfare.
You want to keep them on it ….
Straighten up your attitude.
wayne
I said that I work very hard and used to be on welfare (when I was taking care of a disabled parent who is also a veteran from the time I was in my early teens btw) and you take that information and use it to repeatedly insult me and claim I am lazy and don’t want to work and just want to sit back and mooch off of people like you. You insult me, I insult you back. That’s how respect works, you get what respect you give to others.
You have been warned. I have NOT ATTACKED YOU, and you are not respect me, my argument, or yourself.
Now, to you present post – The choices you made were choices you made, you did not tell me about those choices before, but that does not matter.
You continue to paint me, and my position, in your head, and then you tilt at the windmills you think are me. Instead of going off on multipage arguments break them down into smaller pieces.
Paying people to not work is a drain upon the greater society. You act as if it is good, it was GOOD FOR YOU. That is different than good for everyone else. And that is consistent with what I have said.
And as I have said, if it was done through private charity, instead of government waste, it would cost US about $350 Billion per year instead of $1.3 Trillion. Was caring for your parent worth $1 Trillion per year for the rest of US?
For you, I expect the answer would be ‘yes.’ But, put your self in our shoes, not yours for a moment.
And quit trying to make this argument about you and I.
You cannot win that argument.
OK, all other countries that ‘get a decent return’ on their tax spending do so because they are under the American umbrella.
Without America experimenting more on Americans, other countries would not be able to support their single payer systems. Look up iatrogenesis.
I would be ok with pointy sticks, first let us reduce our welfare system, which, by the way, is the reason Obama’s Aunt gave for coming here – ‘you owe me.’
Giving back the money taken from the Social Security system would fix that system for decades, it would encourage people to work, there is nothing wrong with working.
BUT, the biggest problem in the whole US government system is the take over of government by the progressives who genuinely think America owes the world, because US is rich and they are not.
So, they gave away our jobs. About 8 trillion dollars a year, each and every year. If our government prioritized our people instead of the world, there would be no shortfall in tax revenue, and Americans would be about 20% to 35%% richer per family.
Taking from US to give to the world was a slick welfare gimmick. But, it is hurting US. Even though they claim it took 2 billion people out of poverty. But, it did place Americans into poverty. That and attacking the family, and removing fathers, has placed 50% of our children into poverty ….
In Ukraine, they cannot understand why we are doing this to ourselves, nor can they understand why it was so easy for the Boston Bomber family to come here on welfare, and Russians and Ukrainians have to wait in line to come here to work.
Nor, do I think all government is evil, but too much government lets too many evil people into positions of power – which they abuse, which was why when I needed help, I was usually refused assistance.
Wayne
“OK, all other countries that ‘get a decent return’ on their tax spending do so because they are under the American umbrella. Without America experimenting more on Americans, other countries would not be able to support their single payer systems. Look up iatrogenesis.”
That is a non-sequiter, and the experimentation is done for-profit, not by the government.
“I would be ok with pointy sticks, first let us reduce our welfare system, which, by the way, is the reason Obama’s Aunt gave for coming here – ‘you owe me.’”
You really need to change your sources of information, the words “you owe me” never left her lips, nor was the comment she gave that was construed as that about welfare, it was about citizenship. The hurricane of misinformation and bile that comes out of partisan media is disturbing, don’t get sucked into it.
“Giving back the money taken from the Social Security system would fix that system for decades,”
That is asinine, how would defunding a system entirely fix it?
“it would encourage people to work, there is nothing wrong with working.”
Work is already incentivised, since people who qualify for social security can collect half on top of their paycheck and work or collect full benefits – they make more money by working. That is of course only the people who actually can work. You seem to forget that a lot of people can’t or have trouble maintaining a work schedule which is why we have the system to begin with.
“BUT, the biggest problem in the whole US government system is the take over of government by the progressives who genuinely think America owes the world, because US is rich and they are not.”
20 countries give more in foreign aid than we do, and much of our foreign aid is in the form of weapons and bribes to dictators to promote our own economic interests. Our foreign policy is almost entirely selfish.
“So, they gave away our jobs. About 8 trillion dollars a year, each and every year.”
Yes, liberals gave away your jobs – not CEOs who moved them overseas. Did you hate mitt romney? He personally outsourced many jobs and moved companies overseas. He was the frigging poster child for “screw the working poor, I’ve got mine”, and was the republican nominee for president. So don’t talk to me about how outsourcing is just something liberals do. It’s something greedy corporate officers do, period. The way you slant is like me saying that adultery is something republicans do, or something black people do. It’s demonization and it’s hateful and most of all it’s utter bullshit.
“If our government prioritized our people instead of the world, there would be no shortfall in tax revenue, and Americans would be about 20% to 35%% richer per family.”
It doesn’t work that way, tax revenue scales up and we had problems before the recession when unemployment was low. It’s not simply a matter of not enough jobs, it’s a matter of the bar for paying your employees being dropped lower and lower to the point that half the country is working 40 hours a week and still slipping into poverty.
“Taking from US to give to the world was a slick welfare gimmick. But, it is hurting US. Even though they claim it took 2 billion people out of poverty. But, it did place Americans into poverty. That and attacking the family, and removing fathers, has placed 50% of our children into poverty ….”
I think cutting the minimum wage in half probably put more people in poverty than buying cheap chinese plastic crap. America has declined relatively speaking but we are still wealthier and still manufacture more than most countries in the world. We have declined but things would not be nearly as grim if we didn’t have other problems routinely go unaddressed.
“In Ukraine, they cannot understand why we are doing this to ourselves, nor can they understand why it was so easy for the Boston Bomber family to come here on welfare, and Russians and Ukrainians have to wait in line to come here to work.”
Do you honestly think some psychopath being on welfare is a valid indictment of welfare? If he went to private school would that mean private schools are bad? If he ate broccoli would it mean broccoli was bad for you? Seriously, you need to get more facts and logic in your media diet. This tabloid hate-as-entertaintment stuff is bad for you.
“Nor, do I think all government is evil, but too much government lets too many evil people into positions of power – which they abuse, which was why when I needed help, I was usually refused assistance. Wayne”
Yeah welfare office case workers rule the world.
Thank you for your comment(s). This will take a long time to answer.
Actually, I believe welfare is a valid indictment of the welfare system. Even FDR put people to work building roads, schools, courthouses, and many other monuments which still stand.
Welfare in America, and from America to other countries, has become an enabler of bad behaviors. People could not behave so badly if the US government did not enable them to do such bad behavior.
Wayne
Yeah, not starving or freezing in the winter is the root of all evil.
Odd answer to the obvious.
Just following your logic.
Cute, evasive, but still not answering.
It was a reductio ad absurdum.
At least you are honest.
Thanks!
I promised to respond more.
In my case, the iatrogenic injury was GOVERNMENT not private EXPERIMENTATION …. I do know what I am talking about, Veterans and soldiers are the first line of large scale clinical trials and training in the US.
Most doctors get very uncomfortable when you bring up this fact. But, doctors experiment upon our youngest and oldest veterans with impunity.
Wayne
Elaborate please, try not to speak in generalizations.
Uh, iatrogenesis is pretty specific. Medical mal-practice.
No, it isn’t.
Then you did not look up the word.
I know what it means, it tells me nothing about what you are saying.
And I don’t for a second think it’s 5 to 1. It might be that only a 5th is cash benefits but paying for someone’s surgery still helps them even if it doesn’t put money in their pocket.
The OVERHEAD cost is huge, you can deny that the government is paying their employees, but the AVERAGE government employee is paid over 100k per year.
It is at least 5 to 1. And I have read 10 to 1.
This shows a 2 to 1 on government waste – the government would not qualify as a charity. http://libertariananswers.com/is-private-charity-more-efficient-than-government-welfare/
It showed to over 4 to 1 disparities in some cases.
And it showed a 1 dollar consumed for every 3 dollars given to the poor by private charities. Definitely over 5 to 1 disparity between government and private spending.
And no. Most surgeries do NOT help.
I am a survivor of government medicine, so do not tell me I benefited from their gross mistakes. I live in pain.
http://thewordpressghost.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/what-is-the-welfare-burden-costing-us/
Why wiki when you can study?
This page should take you several hours to digest. Especially to see the links are in the same ball park.
Wayne
Didn’t take several hours.
Then you did not read much. Ironic, you want me to change my mind, but you do not even listen to facts.
Then how can you argue?
Without facts as basis for argumentation, you only have emotions. Emotional argumentation leads to anger and hate, not to concern, love and compassion.
Actually I’m just a quick reader.
Actually, I am a quick reader. With comprehension.
🙂
I have read two novels on a flight from Texas to NYC. 600 pages? 3 hours?
I really am a geek – I do have to slow down for Cosmic Evolution. It is too interesting to go faster.
Well, China has made a small fortune in manufacturing flying dinosaur fossils.
Peking Man and Piltdown just to name the more obvious.
[quote] But evolutionary theory has broadened and changed [/quote] from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=darwins-living-legacy.
Every time Evolutionary Theory changes, something was proven wrong.
I don’t see how peking man is a fraud, and it’s sad how creationists focus on the 2 or 3 genuine scientific frauds, claim a lot of real fossils are frauds, and ignore the literally trillions of genuine fossil finds. Imagine how easy it would be to find thousands of examples of religious fraud and hoaxes and debunked miracles and speaking in tongues and so on. They are so prevalent I could give you half a dozen examples from my own life, I wouldn’t even have to do research. You are probably thinking of a few right now. Is that valid evidence against the bible or christianity?.
As for theories changing, “evolution” is a broad umbrella for many ideas in biology from natural selection to common ancestry and many others, no experiment or observation has the scope to wipe out every aspect of it any more than it has the power to validate every aspect of it. And when an experiment or test or observation contradicts a theory (or part of it) you must discard the relevant part or parts and submit a new theory. So for instance if someone debunked common ancestry it would not necessarily disprove natural selection. So yes, earlier forms of the theory have been discarded and replaced with better theories. That’s what science does.
You are comparing apples to oranges.
People come alongside Christianity to use the power of Christianity to fool people.
People used trickery to try to prove evolution was true.
Both groups of people profited from what they did, but their motivations were very different.
So one person making a forgery means all scientists are liars? And how is it comparing apples to oranges, you are saying that fraud in science discredits everything that isn’t fraudulent in science (which is pretty much everything).
No. The facts say that this Theory is considered correct until proven wrong, even when we know it has a history of being wrong.
Would you bet on gambling odds like this?
I wouldn’t, would you really?
Wayne
No theory in science is considered proven until disproven, and again the broad strokes of evolution science have not been “proven wrong” at any point. Just as many ideas have been revolutionized in physics but at no point did physicists say “woops, we were wrong, chemicals aren’t made of atoms”.
Evolution is considered proven.
Because it’s been proven, not because it hasn’t been disproven (though of course that helps). The point is it’s not a “guilty until proven innocent” system.
No, it is a proven until proven wrong, again, and again, and again, till infinity.
And I object to that. That is not objective Science, that is subjective to the authorial intent of the writers publishing what we are to believe.
That is not a fair system.
How has the idea that life changes over time and was very different in the past been proven wrong?
That is real.
Speciation is not real.
Change over time results in sterile, non-reproducing ‘monsters,’ I believe that is one of the real terms. Speciation has not happened.
Google “observed instances of speciation”, ring species and ERVs just for starters. Or check out the wikipedia page on speciation that lists examples of each of the four known types of speciation.
There are no known examples. There are ‘claimed’ examples of speciation.
But, in order for there to be speciation, they must be able to reproduce.
And artificial manipulation requires intelligent design.
So your only response is that all of that is just fabrications? And again I don’t think you quite get the difference between speciation (the splitting of two populations of the same species into two distinct species) and hybridization.(the joining of two distinct populations that are still closely related enough to reproduce).
I think you are conflating the two. Hybrids are the slow separation of a species into distinct subgroups.
Historically that was done using natural methods. Now it is Genetic Modification. With forced Genetic Modification you do get Chimeras.
Speciation requires (in most definitions) reproducibility within the new species. We are not getting that, yet.
Look up the wikipedia page for hybrid, chimera and speciation and do some reading, you do not understand these concepts. Speciation is the splitting of one species into two, hybrids are two distinct species rejoining to produce a third animal. Most humans are hybrids between homo sapien and neanderthals.
And what causes sterile offspring is when two distant relatives that are no longer compatible try to reproduce, like horses and zebras. Horses can breed with horses and zebras can breed with zebras, but they (after millions of years of isolation from continental drift) can no longer reproduce with their cousins beyond producing sterile hybrids.
Thank you for your comments.
Not certain about your timeline, but we agree that they cannot reproduce.
We might be coming to agreement.
Wayne
Although they think they may be close in the labs.
What? How is that an answer to my question?
There are many speculators who think that their lab experiment is a valid representation of real world.
Correlation does not prove causation.
If you prove God exists, that does not prove he Created the Heavens and the Earth – Although it might convince some people.
I agree, but yahweh’s existence has not yet even been established.
Now we are getting somewhere …. 🙂
Interesting how the standard is “Make a prediction that is testable, and if prediction fails, the theory is proven wrong” becomes “only the Bible must be testable, Evolution is exempt from its own scientific standard.”
But, the same standard is used to ‘prove’ Genesis wrong, and to ‘prove’ the Bible is wrong.
Ironically, nothing has ever been proven wrong in the Bible.
There are differences in interpretation, there are differences in style. And in an absolute irony, the only truly difficult parts of the Bible to harmonize, are parts no one ever notices.
What in evolution is not testable? I can’t think of a single thing.
And the bible routinely contradicts itself, it collectively cannot be “true”.
I have read the Bible many times, and I find no contradictions in the Bible.
I have studied Liberal Theology, and I find that they produced many contradictions in their interpretations.
Liberal Theology is produced from the same education system which produces our Evolutionary Scientists, by the way.
I’m pretty sure they attend different classes. And genesis 1 and 2 give a different order of creation, I don’t see how you can explain that away by interpreting it differently. Here are many more examples of contradictions:
You take the Bible out of context, and it is easy to get a different meaning.
Genesis 1 is the more literal Creation, and Genesis 2 is the more Theological Creation.
I am being sued, I had to give a ‘deposition.’ Several times the opposing lawyer, and my lawyer, needed to clarify things I said, and things the opponent said.
Why? Because one answer in one context appears to contradict another answer in a different context.
Wayne
Okay. so how does “x was created on y day” not contradict “x was created on z day”?
You will need to give me a chapter and verse to compare with a chapter and verse.
I keep hearing that the ‘two accounts’ conflict. But, as many times as I have read these two chapters, I have never found these verses.
Whew! You are keeping me busy.
Thanks
Wayne
Read the order of creation in chapter 1 and 2. You don’t need me to give you chapter and verse for that.
I just re-read those chapters.
The first chapter is the overview, the second looks at man and man’s dominion over the plants and the animals.
I have often heard of a discrepancy, but have never seen, read, or heard where the discrepancy is in those two chapters.
All of those are merely interpretations. I can make lots of interpretations of Evolution and make Evolution look bad real quick.
But, forcing an interpretation upon a text that is a fallacy is just a red herring.
The sequence of events isn’t a matter of interpretation. In one version god creates adam and eve after the animals, in the other he creates adam, then the animals to keep adam company and then creates eve when that fails (very sexist implications).
I think you are confusing creation of the Universe with the creation of Eden.
Where is Eden?
The minds of men. And I don’t think I’m confusing the two.
God created. Then he created the Garden of Eden and populated Eden. Easy for me to understand. One is physical, the other is spiritual.
That makes no sense.
It is easy to understand makes perfect sense.
But, you do not want it to make sense, so you interpret in a manner which makes no sense.
🙂
Wayne
Thank you for keeping me busy.
Sorry, I got to these so late today. But, that is sometimes my strange life.
Wayne
As a PS,
Since Science changes so much and scientists have become used to a constantly changing environment, I have often wondered if Science is trying to make the Bible change so scientists would feel more comfortable?
And then I see liberal theology changing, and scientists are still not comfortable.
So, I think it is not about scientists wanting to live in their comfortable world ….
Yes, scientists are all members of the illuminati. Here’s your tinfoil hat, it will keep them from controlling your mind.
That is one way to punt.
But, I have worked with Scientists, Evolutionary ones. And some of their quirks would make your tin foil hat seem reasonable.
“How do you define agno-philo? Without friend?”
It’s short for agnostic philosopher, and taking issue with one’s position is not ad hominem.
Agnostic means you believe in God, you just are not sure who ‘god’ is.
That is why I went with ‘philo’ for friend.
No, agnostic means you do not believe the existence or non-existence of a god is knowable.
Not quite. Agnostic means ‘without knowledge of.’ Some people use it today to mean atheist. But, the historic meaning is someone who does not have a personal god, but does have a general belief in ‘gods.’ Someone who is without knowledge of a personal god.
Potato, potato.
And nearly all atheists are agnostic.
Actually, most atheists are actually agnostic. They believe their could be a god, but they do not have a horse in the race, so they generally just call themselves atheists.
However, the new-atheists are firebrands. They tend to be former ‘believers.’ In the West, most are former Christians, some Mormons.
And they tend to be very antagonistic, to the point that many believe the First Amendment is not part of America, and they tend to believe all Colonists were not Christian.
I had a friend who used to be ‘a Fundamentalist Christian.’ Now he campaigns to make it illegal for a father to talk to his son about the Bible in any form.
Tragic.
“Actually, most atheists are actually agnostic.”
Agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive positions, you can believe it is unknowable whether there is a god and not believe in one. Positive atheism conflicts with agnosticism but very few atheists are positive atheists.
“However, the new-atheists are firebrands. They tend to be former ‘believers.’ In the West, most are former Christians, some Mormons.”
There is no “new” atheism, that is a label used to demean atheism as a social trend rather than a position that has been held by people for thousands of years.
“And they tend to be very antagonistic, to the point that many believe the First Amendment is not part of America, and they tend to believe all Colonists were not Christian.”
I have never heard anyone espouse those views in my life, and I have known a great deal of atheists and been a part of countless religion vs atheism type discussions.
“I had a friend who used to be ‘a Fundamentalist Christian.’ Now he campaigns to make it illegal for a father to talk to his son about the Bible in any form. Tragic.”
I agree with his sentiment, but I don’t think the government should be in the business of regulating beliefs. I do however believe indoctrination is a form of child abuse and is just as detrimental as binding a child’s feet. It can take years to recover from it and most never do, regardless of the belief system they are indoctrinated into.
There is a problem when we do not use terminology in its accepted definition. Semantic Range.
We do agree that indoctrinating children with Evolutionary Theory is abuse!
I know it abused me! And it took over a decade to recover from that abuse.
Thank you for pointing that out!
Wayne
One, people generally learn about evolution when they’re older (not a lot of info about taxonomy or genetics in a second grade science text), and in the US most never do. And second, telling kids they aren’t allowed to question something and that they’ll burn in hell forever if they do and drilling it into their head constantly is not the same thing as simply exposing them to a concept. And finally evolution is not a doctrine any more than hurricanes are a doctrine, they are both factual, observable parts of nature. I see no more harm in telling children life evolves and was very different in the past than there is in telling them the earth is round or the sky is blue.
Hurricanes can be experienced, Evolution cannot be experienced even in our laboratories. And ‘Scientists’ are trying very hard to force evolution to occur in our Labs.
The profit of being able to create the perfect human is HUGE.
And we were taught in history class that is all Hitler wanted to do, create the perfect humans.
Scary isn’t it?
A few things – 1, high school students perform evolution experiments, and evolution has been observed experimentally since the 1800s. And 2, hitler was making racist propaganda that went against every scientific principle known to man which was meant to promote racism and nationalism to justify his policies, unless you think systematic inbreeding is a good idea. And he wasn’t trying to make a perfect human, he was trying to “purify” god’s chosen people.
Hitler followed the very Evolutionary principle of eugenics.
Eugenics is the overarching reason behind GMO foods. We believe we can ‘make it better.’ Just like Hitler did. We tinker with genetics.
2. It is wrong for government to be encouraging children to practice evolution. It is against my Religion.
Eugenics is not an evolutionary principle first of all, and the only problem with eugenics is when it is forced by a government. If a couple has some gene that gives their kid a 1 in 3 chance of dying a horrible, painful death before the age of 5 and they decide to get a vasectomy or tubal ligation and adopt instead, that is eugenics. That is not evil or dangerous or bad (in fact it’s actually very positive and ethical). That’s not what hitler did, which as I said (and you ignored) was forced in-breeding which is insanely stupid and goes against every principle of not only evolution (where a more diverse gene pool gives natural selection more variation to select from and makes a population more adaptable) but even principles of animal husbandry that people have known about for thousands of years. It was not science, it was idiotic racist bullshit. And it was not darwinian, darwin’s writings were banned (and burned) by the nazis.
Now onto genetically modified foods – you think they’re bad, I think they’re good. Here is the inventor of just once genetically modified food that has saved over a billion lives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug
Should he not have done that?
Please give me an example of a genetically modified food that has killed a billion people. Or lets start smaller, give me an example of one that’s killed one person. I’ve yet to even get that from an anti-GMO person.
Btw monsanto trying to get a global monopoly frightens me more than GMOs.
First, Eugenics, progressivism, and Fascism, all came out of the same liberalism of the 1870’s to the 1930’s.
Second, GMO’s have not been shown to be good. And all of the data would seem to indicate that a lot more people are being made sick by our foods today than 50 years ago.
Something environmental is causing the increased sicknesses.
The only way to rule out GMO’s is to do extensive research. That is not being done.
And I know that when I am eating in Ukraine, I do not miss the ‘American food supply.’
Fascism is right wing, communism is left-wing. To call fascism liberal is as ridiculous as calling communism conservative. And yes, our food is killing us. But it’s much more to do with how it’s processed than the plant DNA. We add things to food to make it taste better, preserve it etc. And yes a great deal of research is being done on the subject.
Fascism is National Socialism, Communism is Marxist Socialism …. And it was very different from what proceeded it. Change from tradition is always liberal.
All government is socialism, all socialism is not communism in the sense of marxism. The nazis were violently opposed to communism which is partly why the church backed them, because communism was anti-religion.
The Church did not back the Nazis, some within the churches looked the other way for awhile, and then it was too late.
But, many took an active role in fighting the Nazi’s. Execute Bonhoeffer was Hitler’s last written order. By the way.
He gave the order a month before his death, they weren’t his last orders. But yeah I don’t think christians operate on a hive mind (though some strive for that sort of uniformity).
Last written order. I believe that to be correct.