Comments on Ambassador Watch: Evolved we have

Priests...dread the advance of science as witches ...

2009-02-22T18:29:00.000+13:00

Priests...dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Correa de Serra, April 11, 1820

"I've always had a chuckle over that, because of t...

2009-02-22T18:13:00.000+13:00

"I've always had a chuckle over that, because of the stupidity of trying to extrapolate sexual freedom from a fossil record in earth strata."

You couldn't be closer to the truth! The men who discovered the fossil strata in the 19th century, who, despite being Christians, were closet homosexuals. Darwin, too, was a closet homosexual. They all figured the only way they could indulge in their deviant sexual lusts was to somehow escape the condemnation of heaven. Darwin and others met in secret in San Francisco in 1875 and for a week (of hot anal sex and oysters on the half shell) they deliberated. Here is a portion of the actual notes:

Darwin: "Gentleman, how do we live our wanton lifestyles yet escape the condemnation of Almighty God??"

Huxley: "I know! We convince people that the account of Genesis isn't true!"

Darwin: "Bloddy hell! That's Brillant, love!"

And thus evolution was born. Unfortunately, they did not realize that changing public opinion about God wouldn't change the actual existence or condemnation of God. It just made them feel alot better, and made hooking up alot easier.

The hard part was coming up with the actual theory. But, in the end, a friend of Darwin, high on opium, said,

"Hey, dude- wouldn't it be cool if like, uh, animals, like, transformed into other animals?"

Darwin cried aloud, and they made love. Natural selection was conceived.

So, Jack, you couldn't be more right!

Paul Ray

SmilinJackSprat, in response to your quotations fr...

2009-02-22T14:51:00.000+13:00

SmilinJackSprat, in response to your quotations from Julian Huxley, according to your citation the two quotations are separated by **four pages** (pp. 69, 73). There is nothing internal to the quotations to indicate they have anything to do with one another. Without having the book at hand to check I cannot say for sure, but I strongly suspect you have either misread or misunderstood Huxley's sense, since the sense you claim is so odd and unsupported by anything else known to come from Julian Huxley.

Corky, I couldn't disagree with you more, but I ta...

2009-02-22T12:42:00.000+13:00

Corky, I couldn't disagree with you more, but I take pride in your fierce resolve to think for yourself, and in Gavin's willingness to publish all of us.

Thomas Jefferson said, "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." ... in a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800.

Samuel Adams expressed a similar feeling without reference to Deity. "It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." -- Samuel Adams

I know you wouldn't say it my way, Corky, but may God speed honest men and women who listen to all, but do their own thinking and come to their own conclusions.

Quotes from "http://freedomkeys.com/vigil.htm"

Anon 4:19 tells me, "SmilinJackSprat, you could no...

2009-02-22T12:19:00.000+13:00

Anon 4:19 tells me, "SmilinJackSprat, you could not possibly have read Julian Huxley writing what you say you read, because such a quotation from Julian Huxley does not exist. That alleged quotation from Julian Huxley is an "urban legend" which, however much quoted and repeated, including in Church of God literature and old Plain Truth articles, is just completely bogus and spurious."

Here's some material I found in Julian Huxley years ago. The first line needs more text to fix context, but I think you'll catch the drift. I no longer have the book at my fingertips, only a couple quotes, with a reference if you'd like to dig a little deeper.

"Why is [casual] sex both an inspiring blessing and primal curse, inflicting guilt as well as joy? ... I thought of my grandfather defending Darwin against Bishop Wilberforce, of the slow acceptance of Darwin’s views in face of religious prejudice, and realized more fully than ever that Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection had emerged as one of the great liberating concepts of science, freeing man from cramping myths and dogma, achieving for life the same sort of illuminating synthesis that Newton had provided for inanimate nature. I resolved that all my scientific studies would be undertaken in a Darwinian spirit and that my major work would be concerned with evolution, in nature and in man" (Julian Huxley. Memories, Vol. 1, pp. 69, 73).

I've been cogitating this thread quite intently. ...

2009-02-22T10:12:00.000+13:00

I've been cogitating this thread quite intently. I believe that it's just awesome, the way in which God is so powerfully using Paul Ray to describe for us His creative methodology! If you couple this with Smilin' Jack's dissertations lamenting some of the poor translations of the Torah, a pattern begins to emerge. Both are demonstrating that the "poof!" and "fantazma!" people, or "kreatards" as Paul calls them, are really doing God a disservice, by making His design and creation process appear to be both simplistic and ridiculous!

Kreatards make analytical or objective thinking people mock.

Let's face it! There are people out there who are actually teaching that Genesis 1 was not unlike an episode of "Bewitched", with God being the equivalent of Samantha twitching her nose and suddenly Adam and Eve appearing. Is it any wonder that educated or intelligent people would have some misgivings about this? The problem we have today is not so much with the concept of creation, as it is with the description with which the bronze age primitives have left us, and/or the imprecision of our modern languages in capturing the full intent and meaning of the original Hebrew. Remember, Hebrew became a dead language for hundreds of years, and was not resurrected until the late nineteenth century!

Pay attention to what Paul Ray is describing, people! It will give you a much deeper understanding for and appreciation of God!

BB

"Apparent coincidence is God's way of maintaining anonymity."

"In one or two of them he said he worked diligentl...

2009-02-22T09:14:00.000+13:00

"In one or two of them he said he worked diligently on evolutionary theory in order to rid us of guilt for having sex with so many pleasant partners. He and his partners loved the sex, but with that pesky Bible around they always felt guilty after doing the deed."

Good point, if the fossil record were filled with hundreds of examples of evolution between species it would definitively prove evolution; and folks could then feel free to fornicate!

An interesting society to contemplate...

If God (both the masculine and the feminine) were a myth there would be no moral law.

SmilinJackSprat said... What is the point here? Ar...

2009-02-22T06:07:00.000+13:00

SmilinJackSprat said...
What is the point here? Are we simply arguing what the fossil record means, scientifically? Are we marvelling at what must have been the processes through which the Creator brought everything and everyone into being? Are we dismissing God and Bible on evidence of evolution? Are we trying to create grounds on which we may finally dismiss accountability to heaven?

Speaking on my own behalf, I dismiss God and the Bible on the grounds of no proof of a God. On the grounds of no evidence what so ever of a God or angels or devil existence - none.

Evolution just answers one more mystery in the world that we didn't know the answer to before.

If a person wants to continue to blame lightning, thunder and rain on a god - that's their sickness, the rest of us know better. That big mystery about the weather was solved long ago but it took hundreds of years for Christians to accept it.

Geology came along and debunked the worldwide Noah flood story about 200 years ago - Christians are beginning to understand that one now though - too bad Jesus didn't, he thought it was literal.

The Bible was written by late bronze and early iron age men and it shows. But, for people who believe in talking snakes (and it didn't surprise Eve that the snake could talk) and in talking asses (and it didn't surprise Balaam that his ass could talk) then, what can one say about the willingness to believe fantasy?

And people imagine that they are "intelligent" . . . pfft!

SmilinJackSprat, you could not possibly have read ...

2009-02-22T04:19:00.000+13:00

SmilinJackSprat, you could not possibly have read Julian Huxley writing what you say you read, because such a quotation from Julian Huxley does not exist. That alleged quotation from Julian Huxley is an "urban legend" which, however much quoted and repeated, including in Church of God literature and old Plain Truth articles, is just completely bogus and spurious. You read the urban legend, and then mistakenly and secondarily incorporated it into your own personal memory.
In any case, the reasons approximately 100% of the world's biologists accepted evolution are widely available historically and have nothing--nothing--to do with these biologists' proclivity for sexual promiscuity. That is just creationist fabrication.

Oh Boy!, SJS, you really didn't make any friends w...

2009-02-22T03:41:00.000+13:00

Oh Boy!, SJS, you really didn't make any friends with that post!

SJS, I guess Huxley had a big decision to make to ...

2009-02-22T02:38:00.000+13:00

SJS, I guess Huxley had a big decision to make to appease his conscience, evolutionary theory, or religious hucksterism. Hmm.

What is the point here? Are we simply arguing wha...

2009-02-21T23:03:00.000+13:00

What is the point here? Are we simply arguing what the fossil record means, scientifically? Are we marvelling at what must have been the processes through which the Creator brought everything and everyone into being? Are we dismissing God and Bible on evidence of evolution? Are we trying to create grounds on which we may finally dismiss accountability to heaven?

I ask because years ago I went through several books by Julian Huxley. In one or two of them he said he worked diligently on evolutionary theory in order to rid us of guilt for having sex with so many pleasant partners. He and his partners loved the sex, but with that pesky Bible around they always felt guilty after doing the deed. I've always had a chuckle over that, because of the stupidity of trying to extrapolate sexual freedom from a fossil record in earth strata. God knows it's there, and I doubt it convinces Him that He doesn't exist. He's still the big Papi in the sky, and we're still beholden.

What's the real motivation here?

"Pathetically little evidence..."Oh, Boys and Girl...

2009-02-21T17:07:00.000+13:00

"Pathetically little evidence..."

Oh, Boys and Girls, did you notice something? Anon didn't even address the fossils themselves, just shifted tack and ridiculed the numbers of examples I gave. Hmmm.

Hopefully some of our more persistent Kreatards will actually try to refute the evidence, instead of ignoring it.
But please, try to do a bit more than scanning a Kreationist article.
Read the original published reports first. If you have trouble accessing them, I'll be more than willing to help you out.

Paul Ray

"Two examples of evolution between species? Is tha...

2009-02-21T17:02:00.000+13:00

"Two examples of evolution between species? Is that the best you can do for the past 150 years since Darwin?

Only two...

Pathetically little evidence."

Oh Zeus, please grant me patience.

Kreatard. Do you really think that there are only two transition fossils discovered in the last 150 years? You probably do. Before I actually started studying evolution, I also thought there were no transition fossils. My wife, after reading Why Evolution is True remarked that she was very surprised that there was so much evidence in support of evolution. It's no surprise- we all were all fed the same lies about evolution from ministers and top Kreatards, and had no evolution instruction in elementary, high school, or in college (that's right).

There are more than two transition fossils. In fact, this woefully primitive Wiki list contains 49:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils

This list, concentrating on fish/amphibian development, contains around 29.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1a.html#fish

This list, concentrating on amphibians/reptiles/birds/early mammals contains around 54:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1b.html

And on:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part2a.html

And on:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part2b.html

And on:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part2c.html

The last three lists looked to contain more than the first few lists. And these lists are most likely incomplete.

You didn't even bother to look, did you?? All it would have taken was a simple internet search.Of course not. You don't want to.

"That is exactly my point. There is NO CONCLUSIVE evidence of evolution between species."

Are you the anonymous Kreatard who was talking about evolution "within" species but not between? Is so, could you answer the questions that I asked? I'll repeat them:

How does evolution "within" species occur? What are the results? And what would be the effects of this "within" evolution on an organism over a period of say, 600 million years?

Paul Ray

Mel - another analogy from the Doctor:Early in the...

2009-02-21T16:29:00.000+13:00

Mel - another analogy from the Doctor:

Early in the series, the Doctor's companion notices the camouflage device wasn't working, which is why the TARDIS was always a police call box.

What worked in London in the 60s didn't suit other times and places. WWW is the technology, but it's still the KORE package.

And don't criticizeWhat you can't understand - ...

2009-02-21T15:41:00.000+13:00

And don't criticize
What you can't understand
- - - Robert Zimmerman

Study. Research. Good point, PR. Isn't our presence here a result of HWA's claim of doing intensive study to disprove the Sabbath, only to believe it? (As did the earlier COG leader, Gilbert Cranmer.)

But then, HWA said he studied to disprove evolution, and believed he did disprove it. But, taking his word for it, he did study it.

I keep my friends close, and my enemies closer.
- - - Montgomery Burns

"Two for example..."Two examples of evolution betw...

2009-02-21T14:46:00.000+13:00

"Two for example..."

Two examples of evolution between species? Is that the best you can do for the past 150 years since Darwin?

Only two...

Pathetically little evidence.

That is exactly my point. There is NO CONCLUSIVE evidence of evolution between species.

"It is a little odd that you would sign in as one ...

2009-02-21T14:45:00.000+13:00

"It is a little odd that you would sign in as one of the anonymous posters then leave a name at the end."

Why? You think there is something fishy going on?

The reason is an old habit- when you were required to sign in via Google to post, it always kicked me back and to post I would have to sign up again. So, when the Anon option came up, I used it and signed my name, not paying attention to the other options.

Paul Ray

To "Paul Ray"-It is a little odd that you would si...

2009-02-21T10:59:00.000+13:00

To "Paul Ray"-

It is a little odd that you would sign in as one of the anonymous posters then leave a name at the end.

Also, as a mild complaint, I wish I knew how many "anonymous" posters there are. But, then, no one knows the answer to that. But it's most confusing to read hardline, mindless parroting god talk from one anon. and reasoned, critical thinking from another.

My other gripe is about the lack of numbering of these posts. Other blogs allow it but I guess it was too big a problem for Google with all their billions.

Just some free ranting...

Anon.

"But no proof in the fossil record."I will make a ...

2009-02-21T10:30:00.000+13:00

"But no proof in the fossil record."

I will make a suggestion for all the Kreatards here. If you want to refute the theory of evolution, then for heaven's sake why don't you familiarize yourself with it? Why don't you actually study it? If you want to refute quantum physics, then wouldn't it be a wise move to understand what quantum physics is, and isn't??

My suggestion is to go to the library or bookstore and get a copy of either Donald Prothero's Evolution: What The Fossils Say And Why It Matters, or Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True. I've almost finished the former, and deep into the latter. Both are easy to understand.

If you were to read just one of these books, then you would be better prepared to "refute" evolution. And gaining knowledge is always a good thing.

But, I fear most of you simply won't do it. Because this isn't about science, or evidence, or truth. It's all about your religion.

Paul Ray

"'Not one change of species into another is on rec...

2009-02-21T09:56:00.000+13:00

"'Not one change of species into another is on record . . we cannot prove that a single species has been changed.'- Charles Darwin, My Life and Letters."

This book you are quoting from doesn't even exist.

And the book that it supposedly comes from does not contain the first part of the quote, only the second half.

"Darwin never wrote a book called "My Life and Letters".
_The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin_, and _More Letters of
Charles Darwin_ (two volumes each) were published in 1887 and 1902
respectively. (Charles Darwin died in 1882.) They were assembled
by his son Francis and A. C. Seward. Since they are of such wide
interest, you can download all four volumes from Project Gutenberg.
I just did. One advantage of having electronic copies is that it
is rather trivial to use search software to find quotes.
Having had no luck with finding the entire quote, I just searched
for a couple of word pairs. Of the first half, I was unable to
find any trace. No pair of significant adjacent words from the
first have seem to be found in any of the four volumes. You are
free to try your own hand at it if you like. You'll find the second
half (inaccurately) quoted in volume 2 of "Life and Letters of
Charles Darwin", in a letter to G. Bentham, May 22, 1863."

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.agnosticism/msg/2da42a3658f5ba51

Kreatards love to quote mine. It's about all they have, since the majority of them refuse to address the actual evidence.

And as someone else pointed out, so what? Darwin had no transition fossil at the time, they were discovered soon after.

Paul Ray

"Would 'Paul Ray' please introduce (rather than si...

2009-02-21T08:25:00.000+13:00

"Would 'Paul Ray' please introduce (rather than signing) his pieces with his name rather than Anonymous."

No.

At least I do identify myself. I find it ironic, an anonymous poster asking if a poster could not only identify himself, but in a particular manner to his choosing.

Paul Ray

"There certainly is evidence that evolution occurs...

2009-02-21T08:21:00.000+13:00

"There certainly is evidence that evolution occurs within species.But there is no significant body of evidence that evolution creates significant new species."

How does evolution "within" species occur? What are the results? And what would be the effects of this "within" evolution on an organism over a period of say, 600 million years?

And you couldn't be more wrong- there is significant evidence for the evolution of one "species" into another. Two for example:

Fish to Amphibian:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik

Reptile to Bird:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinornithosaurus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microraptor

"It is in this area that evolution is a theory and not provable..."

Gravity is also a theory. No, it really is. It is only a theory.

"almost all of the missing links ar still missing."

Really? How many missing links are there, by the way? The problem with fossils is that they are so rare. It is estimated that out of all organisms thought to have existed, we have only 0.1% to 1% of their fossil forms.
But, all you really need are a couple to demonstrate that species can evolve into other species. And in fact, just one would do. And we have several.

Since you have repeated three typical mischaracterizations/misunderstandings used by Kreatards, I can only assume that you will view transition fossils in the same manner:

1) Hey, that's a new species! What weird looking creatures God has created! Amazing!

2)Hey, that's not an intermediate form! That's just a bird(or reptile) or a fish(or amphibian). And if they share common characteristics, so what? It proves nothing. Allah is great!

3)God just created these transitional forms to test our faith. Jehovah is great!

Paul Ray

tard: derisive suffix thought to have been origin...

2009-02-21T08:09:00.000+13:00

tard: derisive suffix thought to have been originated by a London Cockney who emigrated to Nacodoches, Texas to pursue graduate level studies in atheism. When used in combination with other common words or phrases, denotes a deep philosophical alliance with a specific school of thought, practiced to the state of intoxication or extreme fanaticism.
A more extreme form of the suffix "phile". See also fanatic.

Applications shared with me by a friend who is a Strong's Exhaustive Concorditard: Creatard, Anglo-Israelitard, gaytard, Ambassitard, COGlitard, HWAcacatard, Athitard, Agnostitard, Sabbitard, Weinlatard, Homoerotic Ergastitard, Hieronymous Woolvitard, Sardustard, Tardus Philadelphicus, Buddhatard, Anglotard, Afrotard, Greenhouse Gastard, Tetrohydrolcannabitard, Hoehtard, Petratard, Torahtard, Obamatard, Lembatard, Judeotard, Young Earthtard, Gappitard, Hari Krishnatard, Purple Hymnitard, Flatustard, Roditard, Unclean Meattard, Psychedellitard, Monica Lewinskitard, Autoerotitard, relativitard, secular humanitard, transvestitard, Elvistard, kung futard, retard, and finally, leotard.

Hope that helps.

BB

"....in a very short time period."How long is this...

2009-02-21T06:22:00.000+13:00

"....in a very short time period."

How long is this time period?

Paul Ray