tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38638312024-03-14T07:18:39.482+00:00Stooshie's BlogAndrew Wilson's BlogStooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-70279795781631932112017-02-03T12:17:00.001+00:002017-02-03T12:17:33.446+00:00"Miracle" Mineral Solution (MMS) aka Bleach.This is my response to a question on "Miracle" Mineral Solution (MMS), or to give it it's scientific name, bleach, on the following video:<br />
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycUZN6kuUO8&lc=z13ywlchzsywzllky221f5aqvqqyxh4nx.1486097604746492<br />
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The video claims MMS cures "... Cancer, Aids, Diabetes, Malaria, The Common Cold, Herpes, Parkinsons, Arthritis ... Pretty much every disease that exists on this planet today and plagues humanity ..."<br />
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That's one whopping big claim, given that each of these diseases have completely different causes. Even cancer itself isn't one disease with one cause.<br />
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It saddens me that people hear a claim like that and aren't immediately skeptical.<br />
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Firstly, here is the comment:<br />
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"Andrew, how can you have so much faith in science? I am not against it all. I feel that science has done a lot of good. But I also know that there is corruption. There is pressure for publishing and so the easiest way is to confirm another discovery than it is to bring out a new one. The less publishing, the less grants and money. The more you publish going against established science, the more likely you will end up broke and homeless. This is why I do not have the faith in science that you do and so I will have an open mind and research some things on my own or give things a try when I've read enough reviews."<br />
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My reply:<br />
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I trust science because it works. We have dialysis machines, Space stations, LHC, Heart transplants, the internet and medications that demonstrably work.<br />
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Individual scientists may be corrupt. But they are generally caught (because we find out their ideas don't work and aren't repeatable).<br />
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That's what the scientific method is all about. An idea becomes a hypothesis. That is, it becomes an idea framed in such a way that you can attempt to prove it is wrong. You attempt to prove it is wrong through experiments (which are highly structured and follow certain guidlelines such as recording every piece of data before, during and after).<br />
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You then write a highly structured paper, showing your precise methods and equipment, how you measured your findings, chose your control groups (precisely so that others can repeat what you did). You paper is then reviewed by other scientists that work for scientific journals and if your methodology is correct and you don't appear not to have cheated then the paper is published in a journal.<br />
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But that is not the end by any means. Once published. The entire scientific community (in fact the entire population) is at liberty to read the paper and try the experiment for themselves and, in turn publish their results, or write review papers describing why they think the results are invalid, or do other experiments trying to disprove the findings of the first paper.<br />
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This process takes, literally, years. After all of this, if there is nothing that disproves the hypothesis, the idea become accepted. At this point, other papers are written based on the first paper, expanding on those ideas. At any point, these papers may find a flaw in the 1st paper. If this is the case, the 1st paper's ideas are re-examined and, if necessary, that entire field of science may have to be re thought, re structured or even dismissed altogether. This has sometimes happened in the past (phlogiston).<br />
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In the case of medication. The rules are even stricter. There are a long and stringent set of tests (that take years) that a drug must go through (by scientists not linked with the company). Testing how well it really works. Testing side effects, testing dosages, testing dosages for children, the different effects of the drug on different condition etc...<br />
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Not only are these tests stringent but they are changed all the time in light of any new evidence from previous trials.<br />
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It would be extraordinarily difficult to try and get a fraud through this process. Some have tried but they are generally caught.<br />
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The worst case of a drug causing problems was probably thalidomide, which did get through to the public, but only because it had never been intended as a drug for morning sickness. And it certainly wasn't fraud. As soon as the link to birth defects was confirmed, the drug was withdrawn. Immediately.<br />
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Do some drug companies try to bypass this? Of course. But they are found out because they end up not meeting the strict requirements involved in getting a drug to market.<br />
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"alternative" medicine, like this bleach concoction, never, ever has to meet these tests. Ever. And it's sold in old water bottles by some dodgy bloke on the internet.<br />
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And to address your point about publishing. Merely publishing is not enough to attract grants. Not even slightly. People start granting money to a scientist once his papers start being quoted in other papers. In other words, his papers appear to be effective. (See the Science Citation Index).<br />
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The most difficult thing about science is letting go of a much treasured idea for which there is no evidence, or more usually, for which the evidence is against.<br />
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Science is about looking at how the world works, not hoping the world works in a particular way, then trying to prove it. On the whole, scientists are generally trying to disprove ideas, including their own.<br />
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So you see, that's why I trust science. It is good to have an open mind, but not a mind so open that it just accepts claims at face value. If this bleach really is effective, why are it's producers not carrying out controlled experiments on it? Why are they not writing papers and submitting them to scientific journals. If they really thought it worked, they would be.Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-20488681686108181792016-10-13T15:48:00.002+01:002016-10-13T15:48:43.862+01:00Evidence for evolution<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Evidence?</span><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fact no verified fossil ever found is significantly out of place with the tree built from comparative genomics. Not a single one. And there are millions of fossils.</span><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fact that the rock layers which the fossils are found (dated by many different forms of radiometric dating) match the ages expected from the evolutionary tree.</span><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fact that radiometric dating works for every other field of science (including things like dating biblical documents).Although somehow, you seem to imagine it stops working when dating rocks.</span><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fact that no-one has ever come up with an event (even hypothetically) that could have changed the way radiometric dating works over time.</span><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fact that every other scientific field (from physics, to chemistry to geology and many others) completely tie in with the results of evolutionary biology.</span><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fact that we see replication, change and selection in front of us in every organism ever studied.</span><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fact that not one single person has ever found a mechanism that prevents 2 separated populations of the same species diverging genetically to the point they can no longer breed.</span><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fact that retroviruses (viral DNA inserted into other organism's DNA) exists in the same position of the DNA in many organisms. This demonstrates DNA in common with other organisms. The chances that the retoviruses injected their DNA into the exact same position in the DNA in so many organisms are like the chances of winning the lottery every week for years.</span><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fact that there are joined chromosomes in closely related species with the code for telomeres being right there in the middle of the joined chromosome.</span><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fact that very closely related species (such as the horse and the donkey) can have sterile offspring called mules and hinnys. This demonstrates divergence.</span><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">...</span><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I can go on if you like...</span><br style="background-color: #fafafa; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588); font-family: "Roboto Slab", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-10032409904824414982016-10-13T15:46:00.000+01:002016-10-13T15:46:56.977+01:009 Scientific Facts Prove the "Theory of Evolution" is False. Apparently!<br />
http://humansarefree.com/2013/12/9-scienctific-facts-prove-theory-of.html<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">The Theory of Evolution will never become a law of science</span>"<br />
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Theories don't become laws in science.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">because it is wrought with errors</span>"<br />
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Presumably we'll find out those errors in this article.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">still called a theory</span>"<br />
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Theories are the highest form of knowledge in science. They become theories because they have explanatory and predictive powers and have done so many times. Also, because they have never been disproven.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">they can never develop a cat by selectively breeding dogs</span>"<br />
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Evolution doesn't say they could. And if they did manage that it would disprove evolution.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Natural selection can never extend outside of the DNA limit</span>"<br />
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Natural selection can't but mutations do. That is, in fact, what a mutation is.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">New variations of the species are possible, but a new species has never been developed by science</span>"<br />
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They are. And they are observed in nature too. I think he may misunderstand what a "species" is here. I think he means it as equating to things with different names. So because Darwin's finches always remain birds, he thinks a bird is a species.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">the most modern laboratories are unable to produce a left-hand protein as found in humans</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span>"<br />
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That's simply untrue.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Evolutionist fail to admit that no species has ever been proven to have evolved in any way</span>"<br />
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That will be because species do evolve.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Evolution is simply pie-in-the-sky conjecture without scientific proof.</span>"<br />
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Science doesn't work in proofs.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">If natural selection were true, Eskimos would have fur to keep warm</span>"<br />
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He doesn't understand how slowly evolution happens or that it is undirected. However, in a way they have evolved to have fur. Like all humans, they have evolved intelligence and can catch other animals and use the fur from them.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">If natural selection were true, humans in the tropics would have silver, reflective skin</span>"<br />
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Same point as above. In addition, if he knows of a "silver, reflective" compound that isn't toxic to humans in quantities high enough to reflect light, let us know.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">If natural selection were true humans at northern latitudes would have black skin</span>"<br />
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Why? Black skin protects from harmful radiation but also prevents Vitamin D production. So is only useful in climates with lots of sun.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">They simply ignore the fact that dark-skinned Eskimos live north of the Arctic Circle.</span>"<br />
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I'm not sure there skin is as dark as you think it is but also, it's not the only reason for having darker skin.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">dark skin is more uncomfortable in the hot, sunny climate.</span>"<br />
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Is it? Where's the reference?<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Humans show no sign of natural selection based on the environment.</span>"<br />
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They absolutely do. And dark skin is one of them.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">New species cannot evolve by natural selection. Modern scientific discoveries are proving evolution to be impossible. No new scientific discoveries have been found to support the Theory of Evolution.</span>"<br />
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Simply a list of unsupported assertions with no references.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Life did not start with a bolt of lightning striking a pond of water as claimed by the main stream scientists.</span>"<br />
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Does he mean abiogenesis? I think he means abiogenesis. I'm not sure he understands abiogenesis.<br />
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Abiogenesis is a long, slow process. Life started over a long period of time. There was no point at which nothing was alive and then suddenly something was alive. "Life" is not that clear cut.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">What are the odds that a simple single cell organism could evolve given the complexity of more than 60,000 proteins of 100 different configurations all in the correct places? Never in eternity! Time does not make impossible things possible. (...)</span>"<br />
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He's half right. the likelihood of a modern, single celled organism suddenly appearing is vanishingly small (although not "impossible" as he claims). However, the modern single cell didn't just pop into existence, it evolved. The natural selection part of evolution allows each generation to "keep the sixes" from the past generation without keeping the duds.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">those members of a species that are a little stronger, a little larger, or run a little faster will live longer to procreate</span>"<br />
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It's not stronger, larger or faster. It's fitter. Fitter means better adapted to it's environment. That could mean smaller.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">wingless bird began to evolve a wing. Why this would occur is not answered by evolutionists. The wing stub did not make the bird more adaptable to his environment. The first wing stubs would be much too small for the bird to fly. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Why would a bird evolve wing stubs that are useless?</span>"<br />
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Ostrich, Penguin, Chicken.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Why would the bird continue for millions of generations to improve a wing stub that is useless?</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span>"<br />
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There is no direction in evolution.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">A bird with a useless wing is at a severe disadvantage</span>"<br />
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Compared to one with a wing? Yes. Not compared to it's siblings that don't. The one eyed man in the kingdom of the blind and all that.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">According to natural selection, the members of the bird species with the smallest useless wing would be the most adaptable</span>"<br />
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No. At the point they'd have a small wing, but a wing larger than the others who have no wing.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">We are then led to believe that some birds got tired of carrying around a worthless half-size wing, so they grew fingers on the end to help climb trees.</span>"<br />
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No "we" are not. Birds didn't "get tired" of carrying around wings.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Evolutionists say birds grew hollow bones for less weight in order to fly. How would a bird pass this long-term plan to the millions of generations in order to keep the lighter bone plan progressing?</span>"<br />
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There was no plan. Birds with lighter bones than their siblings would tend to be slightly more successful than those with slightly heavier bones. Over many generations, the entire population has slightly lighter bones. This continues over 1000s of generations and will keep happening as long as lighter wings give some organisms an advantage.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">The evolutionary concept of growing a wing over millions of generations violates the very foundation of evolution: the natural selection.</span>"<br />
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I've just shown you how natural selection is involved in the process.<br />
<br />
"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">We are told by evolutionists that a fish wiggled out of the sea onto dry land and became a land creature.</span>"<br />
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No we're not. Are you getting your information from cartoons?<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Whales keep swimming up onto the beach where they die. Do you think the whales are trying to expedite a multi-million generation plan to grow legs?</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span>"<br />
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No. No-one thinks that and evolution doesn't suggest that either. They beach because they get lost.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">The gills of the fish are made for extracting oxygen from water, not from air. He chokes and gasps before flipping back into the safety of the water.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span>"<br />
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Lungfish<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">One day he simply stays out on the land and never goes back into the water. Now he is a lizard.</span>"<br />
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Who is this "he"? Evolution doesn't happen in one generation.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Giant dinosaurs literally exploded onto the scene during the Triassic period. The fossil record (petrified bones found in the ground as at the Dinosaur National Park in Jensen, Utah, USA) shows no intermediate or transitional species. Where are the millions of years of fossils showing the transitional forms for dinosaurs? They do not not exist, because the dinosaurs did not evolve.</span>"<br />
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Firstly Every single creature, living or fossilised is transitional. Secondly, there are 1000s of dinosaur fossils.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">One day during the assembly of a skeleton for a museum display someone noticed the neck vertebrae were such that the neck could not be lifted higher than stretched horizontally in front of them. The natural selection theory was proven to be a big lie.</span>"<br />
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No, that shows the explanation for a long neck may be wrong. Not that evolution is wrong.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">The Cetiosaurus dinosaur was an undergrowth eater. The long neck actually placed the Cetiosaurus at a disadvantage in his environment</span>"<br />
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So you are saying god created the dinosaur with a disadvantage?<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Evolutionists will now claim the animal evolved a long neck because he had the advantage of eating from bushes on the other side of the river. This is typical logic of an evolutionist.</span>"<br />
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Yes. Everythng has to have an advantage, or at least be neutral, otherwise the extra energy expended on having a longer neck would put the this particular dinosaur at a disadvantage and it would be surpassed by others. And maybe that did happen.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">The evolutionist will claim that the presence of many individual species proves evolution.</span>"<br />
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I have never heard any specialist in evolution claim that. Evolution is the explanation for diversity, not the other way round.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Evolutionists line up the most promising choices to present a gradual progression from monkey to modern man. They simply fill in the big gaps with make-believe creatures to fit the picture.</span>"<br />
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Yet if you ask creationists to specify which are human and which are monkey, they can't agree.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">This procedure can be done with humans only</span>"<br />
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It's done with all sorts of species.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">The pictures are simply a grouping of individual species that does not prove evolution.</span>"<br />
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No, but genomics, and the dates of the skulls does strongly support evolution.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Charles Darwin admitted that fossils of the transitional links between species would have to be found in order to prove his "Theory of Evolution." Well, these transitional links have never been found. We only find individual species.</span>"<br />
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They have been found<br />
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<br />Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-39184522076501933332015-10-29T16:40:00.001+00:002015-10-30T12:34:09.421+00:00Masculinity?Reply to the following article in The Guardian.<br />
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[Edit: My comment was removed within 5 minutes]<br />
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<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/29/time-to-do-away-with-manhood">http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/29/time-to-do-away-with-manhood</a><br />
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I just wondered how this would read if I replaced words like "masculine" with "jewishness". It's so shocking I almost didn't post this.<br />
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It's really scary reading. I did a simple search and replace on this. Nothing more.<br />
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" ...<br />
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Jews are pretty terrible people. They commit significantly more violent crimes, robberies and assaults each year than non-jews do, according to the Department of Justice. They are more likely to show anger in the workplace and be rewarded for it while non-jews are affected negatively for the same behaviors. They even take up too much space on public transportation when “manspreading”. I could keep going.<br />
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Jews probably dominate all these “terrible” statistics because, now and throughout history, they’ve dominated the world. But that doesn’t give them a pass. They are still to blame even if they don’t know better, and it’s high time their dominant position – their entitled ignorance – was questioned and dismantled.<br />
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There is a “jewishness in crisis” trend story to match each one pondering whether non-jews can have it all. But jewishness isn’t in crisis; it is the crisis. Still, last week author and activist Kevin Powell published an essay at CNN where he announced, yet again, that jewishness is in society’s crosshairs, and recommended a way to fix it.<br />
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Powell, who recently released a memoir about his journey to jewishness, wrote about spending time on a college campus, working with jewish college students to find a resolution to the “endless” rape allegations there.<br />
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He asked a group of jews to name important non-jews in history, which they did, but when pressed on what those non-jews did, the jews really couldn’t respond. This lack of actually knowing non-jews’s lives led Powell to the conclusion that if these jews couldn’t connect or care to intimately know about non-jews’s lives, they weren’t able to respect them enough not to perpetrate violence against their bodies.<br />
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This led him to call for a re-education of jews. He argues that jews “actually [need to] learn about the contributions of non-jews and girls to every aspect of American society” as a tactic to stop the violence. That is, they need to learn that there is more to non-jews than a reproductive system.<br />
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Advertisement<br />
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This is theoretically a good next step to stopping the violence that is polluting not just college campuses but the entire world, but it’s very “us and them” rather than “we’re all human together”. It just lets jews be more educated about the non-jews they are perpetrating violence against.<br />
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Until jews en masse consider non-jews to be part of the same ecosystem, masculinity will continue to be primarily a rejection of everything non-jewish, the tool jews use to measure and gauge their own self-worth to other jews – the foundation of bro culture. And until then, when they feel that their masculinity is in jeopardy, when they don’t feel man enough, manly violence will seem like a reasonable way to react to their feelings.<br />
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“Violence is often the single most evident marker of jewishness,” sociologist Michael Kimmel wrote in his 1994 essay Jewishness as Anti-Semitism. “It is the willingness to fight, the desire to fight.”<br />
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He is correct. We see this violence from the bar fights over small issues to the violence that breaks out on streets when jews are denied by non-jews they catcall.<br />
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We’ve seen this recently with the high rate of reported convert murders in the US – the number sits at 22 so far this year according to the National Anti-Violence Project. Many times, my reporting has shown, these non-jews are murdered not for being converts, but because their jewish lovers fear being found out, fear their jewishness being called into question.<br />
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All of this was humorously explored in the viral hashtag #JewishnessSoFragile, which through humor showed how jews will respond so quickly, even violently, when they feel their jewishness is being questioned. Which seems to happen a lot.<br />
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Instead of constantly putting jewishness under perceived threat, we must rethink the concept entirely, and maybe – to be so daring – throw it out. Because we have centuries of war, of pillaging, of violence that show us that jewishness was never in crisis, but always was central to this mayhem. So we may need to just rebuild everything with the whole concept of jewishness excluded.<br />
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... "Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-61806915126057961102014-12-09T01:48:00.002+00:002014-12-09T03:49:59.029+00:0020 Questions to Ask Your Evolution Professor - Who Can’t Explain Intelligent Design<br />
This is a reply to a <a href="http://drrichswier.com/2014/12/06/philosophy-101-20-questions-ask-evolution-professor-cant-explain/" target="_blank">blog post by Dr. Richard Ruhling</a>.<br />
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I have answered the questions the the best of my ability. But here are a couple of notes.<br />
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Many of these questions are not questions that should be asked of an evolution professor as they are not questions about evolution. I have mentioned the field(s) of study under each question.<br />
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It is important to define what evolution is and what it is not.<br />
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It is the explanation for the diversity of life.<br />
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It is not the big bang. It is not accretion of the planets and it is not abiogenesis.<br />
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So here are the questions/<br />
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<b>How did we get such nicely rounded spheres from a Big Bang that should have given jagged rocks?</b><br />
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<i>Cosmology, not evolution.</i><br />
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The simple answer is gravity. Planets are not perfectly spherical for 2 reasons. 1. They are generally oblate spheroids. 2. They aren't perfectly smooth (think Everest and Mariana's Trench).<br />
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<b>How did all the planets come into orbit after such an explosion?</b><br />
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<i>Cosmology, not evolution</i><br />
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Again, the simple answer is gravity. I think you may be confusing the big bang and accretion.<br />
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The big bang is the idea that the universe came from a single point at some point in the past (around 14,5 Billion years). The motion of the galaxies tell us this in precisely the same way you can predict where a ball will land and catch it. The big bang made a prediction. That there should be background radiation in the universe. We looked. There is and you can see it in the static on your television set when it isn't tuned into a channel. N.B. The big bang was neither big, nor was it a bang.<br />
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Accretion is the formation of solar systems and their planets. Gravity is what causes the formation of the planets.The dust from an exploded star moves outwards from where the star exploded but the force from the explosion is taken over by the gravity of the dust left over.<br />
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<b>Why do the planets vary in distance from the sun so greatly, and still stay in orbit?</b><br />
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<i>Cosmology, not evolution.</i><br />
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Again the simple answer is gravity. Different sized planets,different speeds mean different orbits.<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPlbDEI63B4" target="_blank">Here's a short video explaining orbits</a>.<br />
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<b>With more than 100 moons for the planets (Jupiter having 63), how did they come to orbit planets if they didn’t explode from them, and what evidence would we have that our moon exploded from earth, or where did it come from? Can we see significance to its orbit giving us our months?</b><br />
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<i>Cosmolgy, not evolution.</i><br />
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I'm not entirely sure where you heard that moons "exploded from their planets". They are generally formed when 2 objects in orbit around the sun collide or when one object is captures by the gravity of the other.<br />
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<b>Isn’t it strange that these huge heavenly bodies don’t collide, and that we can set our time by them?</b><br />
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<i>Cosmology not evolution.</i><br />
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They do, That's how moons are sometimes formed. Comets crash into the planets on a fairly regular basis and we are bombarded by hundreds of meteorites every day. However, 2 objects in a stable orbit around each other will never collide until their speeds drops to a point where they will (which, given there's no friction in space, means millions of years at least).<br />
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<b>How did earth develop its rotation so that we have day and night, and don’t fry on one side or freeze on the other?</b><br />
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<i>Cosmology, not evolution.</i><br />
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Earth got it's rotation from the initial movement of the dust and gasses rotating in the solar system when it formed (see accretion above).<br />
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<b>Was it just chance that earth has all the ingredients necessary for life?</b><br />
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<i>Cosmology and chemistry, not evolution.</i><br />
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Given the number of planets in the universe (the estimated number is at least in the trillions) it's almost inevitable that some planets are going to contain what we call "life". It's quite likely that at least 1 other body in our solar system alone will have life of a basic form. (Mars and Europa are 2 possibilities).<br />
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<b>If we exploded off the sun, where did we get our atmosphere that was needed to support life?</b><br />
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<i>Cosmology and chemistry, not evolution.</i><br />
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We didn't "explode off the sun". A dying star exploded and over billions of years the chemical rich cloud from that explosion settled (again see accretion above) coalesced through gravity to form the sun and the planets.<br />
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<b>How would an explosion from the sun give us all the elements we see on the atomic chart?</b><br />
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<i>Cosmology and chemistry, not evolution.</i><br />
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Again, the simple answer is gravity. That's what suns do. It's how they work. It's called fusion. Gravity at the centre of a sun is so massive that elements like hydrogen fuse together to form helium and the larger elements.<br />
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<b>What would be the mathematical probability of an explosion in a junk yard giving us a jumbo jet? (That would be far easier than an explosion giving us any form of life)</b><br />
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<i>Probability, statistics, physics, chemistry and abiogenesis, not evolution.</i><br />
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The chances of an explosion in a junk yard forming a jumbo jet are so close to zero as to be practically impossible on the timescale of our universe. (Your analogy gives away your non-scientific sources).<br />
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Life doesn't form via one sudden explosion. Your jumbo jet analogy is a false one. Over billions of years, the earth settled to a stable orbit and relatively stable tectonic plates and atmosphere. The energy from the sun and other sources like lightning, volcanoes, earthquakes etc... allowed atoms to overcome the activation energies that normally prevent them from reacting with other chemicals. which led to the formation of more complex molecules.<br />
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<b>The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics says the energy systems tend to run down unless acted upon by an outside source. What is the Source that keeps our universe from becoming like a city dump?</b><br />
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<i>Cosmology and physics, not evolution.</i><br />
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The second law of thermodynamics refers to closed system, You are right that the universe is a closed system. However, their is nothing that prevents a decrease in entropy in local systems. The earth is a local system and has vast amounts of energy pumped into it from an external source. The sun.<br />
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<b>Darwin assumed that future discoveries would reveal “missing links” in the evolutionary chain, but after 150 years, we are still waiting. Where are the missing links, or could Darwin have been wrong?</b><br />
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<i>Finally, a question relating to evolution</i><br />
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I'm not entirely sure what you mean by the term "missing link". Missing between what and what? In biology, there is a term "transitional fossil" of which we have millions. That's because every fossil is transitional (as is every living organism). Life is a tree, not a chain.<br />
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There is no direct link between currently living organisms, so there will be no missing link. Currently living organisms are related to each other as cousins and not as descendants of one another.<br />
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<b>Living organisms have systems intricately complex and dependent on all parts to be functioning as a whole. Did they all evolve simultaneously?</b><br />
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<i>Good, another question about evolution.</i><br />
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The systems organisms have are currently interdependent but haven't always been. Complex systems come from simpler ones. They can't come from more complex ones as that would be begging the question.<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2alpk8PUd4" target="_blank">Here is evangelical christian and molecular biologist Ken Miller demonstrating that irreducible complexity (the argument you are using) is not a valid one and is nothing more than an argument from incredulity</a>.<br />
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<b>Wouldn’t primitive man have bled to death from a cut without the blood clotting mechanism with its cascade of reactions working from the beginning?</b><br />
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<i>Evolution.</i><br />
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Blood clotting factors evolved way before primitive man. All mammals have similar blood clotting factors and all vertebrates have some from of blood clotting systems. Some of them much simpler that for humans.<br />
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<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/leafwarbler/csu-fresno" target="_blank">Here is a presentation on the evolution of blood clotting</a>.<br />
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<b>Did mammals all evolve into male and female simultaneously so that after billions of years, they both arrived on the scene at the same time and could reproduce?</b><br />
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<i>Evolution.</i><br />
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Mammals didn't evolve into males and females. Male and female evolved long before even blood clotting did. It's not something I know a lot about but it happened when our ancestors were single-cellular or basic multi-cellular organisms.<br />
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<a href="http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=evolution+of+gender&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_vis=1" target="_blank">Here is a link to over 2 million scholarly articles on the topic</a>.<br />
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<b>With water so essential to life, how did earth get its vast supply if we exploded off the sun?</b><br />
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<i>Cosmology, not evolution.</i><br />
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Again, we didn't "explode off the sun". Most of the water from comets that collided with us (we're talking millions and millions of comets). You can get an idea from the moon just how many times we have been struck by such objects.<br />
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As the latest ESA Philae Lander mission to land on a comet has confirmed, comets are largely water.<br />
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<b>With atomic nuclei having protons of positive charge, what keeps them from repelling each other?</b><br />
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<i>Chemistry and nuclear physics, not evolution. </i><br />
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The strong nuclear force holds the nucleus of an atom together.<br />
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<b>Did everything in the universe come from nothing, or how did it all happen?</b><br />
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<i>Cosmology and philosophy, not evolution.</i><br />
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No-one knows. There is no way for anyone to know given the extent of human knowledge. What happened "before" the big bang is unknown and may be forever unknowable. "Before" might not even be a valid word in that context.<br />
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<b>Comparing tiny atoms with our gigantic solar systems, each with orbiting electrons or planets, it is not difficult to see similarity or design. Dare we say Intelligent Design?</b><br />
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<i>Nuclear physics,cosmology.</i><br />
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Despite the name, electrons don't orbit nucleus like planets orbit the sun. Electrons are a cloud of negative electrical charge. Our knowledge of the shape of that cloud is based on the probability of finding the electron at a particular point.<br />
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<b>If we tore 100 pages out of a book and scrambled them, wouldn’t the chance of our picking them up in order blind-folded be better than all of the above happening by chance?</b><br />
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<i>Probability.</i><br />
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Yes, the chances of picking up all the letters in the right order would be quite small. But the analogy is wrong.<br />
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Here's a better one. Imagine you had 100 dice. You can roll them as many times as you like. How many times would you have to roll them to get 100 sixes? A huge number of times, right? In fact about 6x6 ... 100 times. Which turns out to be a number with 77 zeros.<br />
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However, that analogy misses out natural selection. Imagine now, that you are allowed to roll the dice as many times as you want but after each roll you get to set aside any sixes that are rolled. That vastly reduces the odds. In fact, you can probably get 100 sixes in less than 100 rolls of the dice.<br />
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Each generation in evolution is not a brand new roll of the dice. Each generation works with what it has inherited from their parents plus a few variations. Those offspring most suited to the environment are more likely to survive to pass on their particular variations.<br />
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I hope these answers help.<br />
<br />Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-2312973771814247062014-09-19T18:21:00.000+01:002014-09-19T18:39:39.784+01:00Scottish politics have only just started to get interestingWe lost the vote, but the people my heart goes out to are those that voted no in a postal ballot and those voted no in the hope of keeping the status quo.<br />
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We who asked for a yes, voted yes, encouraged others to vote yes and did our best to make it happen. We managed to get 45% of the vote and on an 85% turnout. 10 years ago, even the idea of an independence referendum was almost unthinkable. We didn't get the majority, but that's politics and we live to fight another day. It was a political fight and we lost it.<br />
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Those who voted no at the ballot box, knowing that a no vote meant implementing "The Vow" and wanted that could vote no in the hope that is what they would get. They voted no and that, we hope, is what they will get.<br />
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Those who voted no by postal ballot or were looking for the status quo will, I fear, end up the worst of both worlds. Their vote was made effectively null and void when the party leaders suddenly put the vow on the table.<br />
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The position we are in now is the least stable position we could possibly be in.<br />
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Had it been a straight fight between independence or the status quo from the beginning a 55%/45% split either way would pretty much have put the issue to bed. We'd have either become an independent country or the country would have made it clear that it was no to independence and the whole idea of another referendum would be dead at least in any of our life times.<br />
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Had there been three options on the ballot paper from the start, then the decision would have also been a fairly clear one. Either independence, the status quo or devo max would have won.<br />
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The problem we have now is the that the implications of a no vote changed half way through making the no vote a completely unclear one. Some people would have voted no because they wanted the status quo, some people will have voted no because they wanted Ed Miliband's version of the vow and some people will have voted no because they wanted David Cameron's version of it.<br />
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It's messy. Really messy.<br />
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If the changes do not go through Westminster (and that includes more powers for England, Wales and Northern Ireland) then you have 45% of Scotland who voted yes along with another unknown percentage of people who went with "the vow" because they though it was the safer option,<br />
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It means the issue of independence has not been put to bed. A failure of Westminster to live up to it's word will leave a Scotland that has woken up and is now politically alive and who will be even more disillusioned with Westminster than they were before the referendum<br />
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We have the best interests of Scotland at heart. Now we wait and see if Westminster do too. If not, then unbelievably, there may well be another independence referendum in my life time. And all because Westminster panicked at the 11th hour.<br />
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Scottish politics have only just started to get interesting!Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-91541458068725841392014-08-03T00:08:00.000+01:002014-09-01T12:29:53.568+01:00Was I There?<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">I was asked "Was I there?" in a Youtube comment on the following video. He covered a lot more in the comment including C14 dating, observing the creation of stars and many others. It sounded like he was jumping from one piece of science to another because he had heard from someone they were areas of science that were in doubt. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"><b>Was I there?</b></span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">What a disingenouous question. You know I wasn't there. Perhaps you should use that inquisitive brain to ask "how do we know"?</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">We know in precisely the way we know you are related to your cousins from DNA alone. Or related to me for that matter.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">How do you think forensic science works? Forensic scientists were "never there" at the crime scene.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">That is how almost all science works. Not by direct observation but by observation of the effects.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">By the way, C14 dating isn't used for fossils or anything else that is evidence for evolution. You know why? Because the half life of C14 is only 5000 years. That means the ratio of C14 to C12 is too small to be able to measure accurately. Yes, C14 is in everything. We can measure it, but in older objects we can't measure it anywhere near accurately enough.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">The reason C14 is in the air is because it is created from the decay of N14. Living things take up the C14 but when they die, there is no longer any exchange of atoms with the environment (part of the definition of "life" is exchanging atoms with the environment).</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">Instead we use numerous other forms of radiometric dating (which have longer half lives) Such as K-Ar dating. Potassium has a half life of around 1 billion years. As do the others that are used.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">"We can measure and deduce many predictions all pf which repeatedly work and be tested...EVERY TIME....WITH ZERO SPECULATION."</span></blockquote>
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">No, we can't. Even Newtons laws are wrong for extreme speed or high gravity fields. Only until Einstein came along, could we explain this. We have to change the GPS satellites by 11 seconds every day to account for Newton's laws not being right.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">And, if new evidence comes along that Einstein's equations aren't quite right for some specific cases then science will update too.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">We can and do observe the formation of stars. The 2nd law of thermodynamics is not broken by evolution (the earth isn't a closed system).</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">The reason we don't see life "coming from pond scum", as you put it, is because life has already taken hold here. The original life forms were very delicate and any competition (such as bacteria/algae) that currently live in ponds would out-compete them.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">But, even given all that. Let's say you disproved evolution (your Nobel prize would be a certainty) You would be no closer to demonstrating that a "god did it".</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">If you have evidence that evolution is untrue then take that evidence, test your hypothesis and write a scientific paper on the topic</span>Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-78024918073154359952014-07-23T01:10:00.002+01:002016-01-06T17:16:24.689+00:00DenominationsThis was a response to a comment on a youtube video by someone that didn't believe there were many denominations of christianity or that all claimed to be biblical.<br />
<br />
Unitarians.<br />
Don't believe in the trinity. Don't believe man is born sinful. Prefer not to use words like "father" for god as that's a human term and we can't use human terms to describe such an ethereal concept.<br />
<br />
And they're a very common branch of christianity. They even marry atheist couples.<br />
<br />
http://www.unitarian.org.uk/docs/publications/1973_What_Do_Unitarians_Believe.shtml<br />
<br />
Church of Christ<br />
Believe in baptism of the dead and plural marriage (not practiced but the doctrine stands). They can give biblical reasons for all of these.<br />
<br />
Catholic & Orthodox vs protestant<br />
Catholic church teaches the bread and wine actually, in reality, become the body and blood (They mean really and truly change). Protestants believe its symbolic. This is no small matter. Millions have been killed over this issue.<br />
<br />
Plymouth Brethren<br />
Have no clergy whatsoever (which breaks the whole idea of the apostolic succession that catholics and many other protestant churches follow). But again, they point to the bible for their reasons.<br />
<br />
Pentecostalists<br />
Speak in tongues and believe that this is the spirit working through them (again because of references in the bible such as the spirit appearing to the disciples in the upper room). Many, many other denominations completely denounce this as evil and demonic and (yet again) use the bible for their references.<br />
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Affirmationists<br />
Believe that god is open to all. They don't condemn sin. Indeed, they welcome practicing LGBT people, for example. And, as ever, use the bible as the basis for their beliefs.<br />
<br />
<br />
Keep in mind that almost all denominations use phrases like "one true church" despite all the various beliefs<br />
<br />
<br />
Would you like me to go on? I can do this for ages.<br />
<br />
<br />
BTW, my number was wrong, it's 41,000 denominations of christianity. All of whom (by definition, and probably involving violence) believe different things that are fundamental enough to cause a new church.<br />
<br />
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations<br />
<br />
[EDIT]: I should add that there are other denominations that use revelation as their basis and the bible as a reference. Personal revelation is taken as more recent and accurate evidence for god rather then a second (that's being generous) hand translations of copies of translations of word of mouth tellings of some vague remembered person that saw something once.Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-8484800008440410942014-05-26T12:39:00.001+01:002014-05-26T12:39:08.615+01:00Farage, as in barrage and not as in garage, apparently.<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.31999969482422px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
So Farage (he pronunces it the French way for some weird, hypocritical reason) just said on radio 2 "We want our country back".</div>
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1. Who from?</div>
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2. You're showing your true colours now that you have garnered some protest votes (don't mistake them for real votes).</div>
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Scared, racist, fearful "little Britisher" who relies on mis-quoted statistics and funding from his rich donors to whip up fear in the ordinary hard-working people of this country (N.B. he is one of the elite and a professional politician like the rest of them).</div>
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He forgets the entire strength of Britain comes from our mongrel nature. We've been mongrel since the first people came to this piece of land.</div>
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I wrote the following short blog post after the Olympics thinking, naively it turns out, that perhaps Britain had turned a corner.</div>
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<a href="http://stooshie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/diversity-breeds-adaptability.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://stooshie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/diversity-breeds-adaptability.html</a></div>
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How fickle we appear to be as a nation.</div>
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Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-1751610565147952152014-02-07T19:40:00.003+00:002014-05-01T12:30:22.354+01:00Scottish Independence<br />
This is in reply to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Copson" target="_blank">Andrew Copson</a>, chief executive of The <a href="https://humanism.org.uk/" target="_blank">British Humanist Association</a> who wrote the following tweet about Scottish Independence.<br />
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
How can we best love-bomb Scotland? I genuinely want to get involved to ask them not to leave. Is there a way?<br />
— Andrew Copson (@andrewcopson) <a href="https://twitter.com/andrewcopson/statuses/431776819596234753">February 7, 2014</a></blockquote>
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<br />
I should nail my colours to the mast. I am pretty much pro-union, with a few things that may sway me the other way. I thought I should let Andrew know what those influences are and it might help to answer his question.<br />
<br />
<b>What is it that might tempt me towards Independence?</b><br />
<br />
Since <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybVHStNqksY" target="_blank">its opening</a>, the Scottish Parliament has been largely secular, certainly more so than Westminster. The four words on <a href="http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/visitandlearn/24496.aspx" target="_blank">the parliament's mace</a> are "Wisdom, Justice, Compassion and Integrity". No pledge to a god, no pledge to a monarch, no pledge to the head of a church. So far, despite some disagreements over policy, these 4 simple principles have held and long may that continue (in a devolved parliament at least). Scotland as a whole has been dogged by religious in-fighting but the intentions of the parliament are sound, I think.<br />
<br />
Secondly, I think Scotland has a slightly more humane (if shorter) record on human rights than the UK as a whole. See the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/aug/23/kenny-macaskill-decision-megrahi-release" target="_blank">release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi</a> and <span id="goog_1441190334"></span><a href="http://rt.com/news/uk-quit-human-rights-cameron-552/" target="_blank">Cameron's pledge to abandon the Human Rights Convention</a>. I suspect this stems from the founding of the parliament and the principles installed then (see above) and its history as a less imperial nation.<br />
<br />
Lastly, The debates in the Scottish Parliament seem to be more constructive with MSPs working together far more often and consulting with the public far more widely (along the lines of other European countries) rather than the "yaboo-sucks" impression that is conveyed from Westminster. The working hours are friendlier, the debates are more calmly executed and a more evidence-based approach seems to be taken.<br />
<br />
<b>What "love bombs" should we see from Andrew and others?</b><br />
<br />
We should remove the bishops from the house of lords and the unfair privileges that gives the church to veto bills and prevent them passing into law.<br />
<br />
We need to fight for more Human rights in Britain as a whole. The fact David Cameron felt comfortable suggesting that we leave the human rights convention behind is very telling. He must have felt he would have had enough support for it. Human rights are there for the difficult times when we need to apply them equally to people with whom perhaps we wouldn't want to pass the time of day.<br />
<br />
Fight to make debate in Westminster more co-operative. Make the working hours friendlier for women (and men) and make the whole democratic process more transparent. Make sure evidence is used when the government debates its laws and bows less to party politics with more un-whipped bills.<br />
<br />
And finally, give England a regional parliament! England, I suspect, has felt a little pushed aside by all the attention Scotland and the other nations have been getting. England has ahead of it the task of working out its own priorities (regardless of the outcome of the independence vote) and the terms England and Britain have, over centuries, become synonymous. England has a great cultural and scientific history. It needs to re-discover those things.<br />
<br />
One of my main reasons for wanting to keep the union, of course, is that I don't want family and friends who live in England to be stuck with a perpetual Tory government.<br />
<br />
I have met Andrew a couple of times at AHS and BHA events. He is completely passionate about human rights so my reply is aimed at all of us and not at him personally. We all still have a say in the UK parliament and it's up to everyone to fight for these things.<br />
<br />Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-6822765909494105672014-02-07T02:28:00.002+00:002014-05-01T12:31:55.163+01:00Ken Ham says Bill Nye is like Eve picking forbidden fruit.Oh dear! Has he not learned?<br />
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<script data-cfasync="false" src="https://1.rp-api.com/rjs/repost-article.js?3" type="text/javascript"></script><a class="rpuThumb" href="http://s.tt/1XrXK" rel="norewrite"><img src="//img.1.rp-api.com/thumb/10132073" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px;" /></a><a class="rpuTitle" href="http://s.tt/1XrXK" rel="norewrite"><strong>Creationist Ken Ham compares Bill Nye to Eve for offering fruit from ‘Tree of Knowledge’</strong></a> (via <a class="rpuHost" href="http://s.tt/1XrXK" rel="norewrite">Raw Story </a>)<br />
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In a video published Wednesday, Creation Museum founder Ken Ham compared Bill Nye “the Science Guy” to Eve in the Book of Genesis. “It really comes down to — here is the difference: We are saying that we start with the word of God who knows…
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Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-13558806577867968572013-12-22T16:49:00.002+00:002016-09-22T12:45:13.511+01:00A Question on Belief.I have found 4 books. They are by four different authors. Matthias, Marcus, Lucas and Johannes. All of them claim that they were abducted by aliens in the same incident back in the 90's in Germany.<br />
<br />
I can confirm to the best of my knowledge that the 4 men did actually write the books. I have written affidavits from all 4 of them and there exists original phone and bank records from the time that can demonstrate they were in the geographical location they say they were in the weeks before and after the incident and also sworn testimony from their families that said they were missing for the time the 4 men said they were abducted.<br />
<br />
The four books are written in the different styles of the authors, as you'd expect. They all appear to tell a similar story however they do vary in a lot of ways, some even missing out important points that would seem to be really important details in the story. Occasionally one will mention rather important details that the others fail to mention.<br />
<br />
I am sure as I can be that they wrote the books and the authors swear that they wrote a lot of it down at the time in diaries (to which I also have access), so they are not using what could be rather distorted memories but their original thoughts at the time.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, there is no alien body, alien spacecraft or burn marks/landing marks at the location to confirm their story. One or two other people claim they saw some lights at the time and place mentioned but they couldn't identify anything more than that. One quite well known academic, a Professor Joseph from the US, has said that that he had heard people mention these 4 men and the alien before but it wasn't something he was able to confirm for himself.<br />
<br />
So we have access to the proper original documents, both the books and the diaries in the handwriting of original authors. We know the books are by the claimed authors. We even have some vague references by others to the incident. But we have no physical evidence whatsoever of the incident.<br />
<br />
The question is, should I believe them and their extraordinary claims of alien abduction?<br />
<br />
Now lets take this lightly veiled story for what it is.<br />
<br />
This is, at best, the maximum amount of information we could possibly have about the 4 gospels, their writers and those around them. We don't have even this much. So if you don't accept the accounts of the abductees, why would you believe the stories from 2000 years ago?<br />
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<br />Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-79343891963447510782013-11-19T14:27:00.002+00:002013-11-19T17:02:10.769+00:00I am that from which I have come.I was sent a series of questions/comments by a creationist on the comments section of an article in The Telegraph on <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10445788/Oldest-signs-of-life-on-Earth-found.html" target="_blank">The Oldest Signs of Life on Earth Found</a>. I have supplied a selection of his relevant comments at the end, to which this is my response.<br />
<br />
-<br />
<br />
I am a product of my genes and of my experiences (in other words long term and short term environmental influences). The architecture of my brain reflects both of those and is a direct product of them.<br />
<br />
Remember the brain is nothing like a computer. It doesn't have hardware and software. The hardware *is* the software. The structure of the brain changes according to outside influence or what we would call learning (in it's widest sense).<br />
<br />
The atoms (which are constantly changing due to metabolism) that make up the neurons in my brain are also directly from the environment. Indeed, originally from the matter that accreted to make the solar system and the earth. That matter came from some long-dead star that exploded. Which, in turn, came from singularity (which has the rather inappropriate name of The Big Bang as it was neither big, nor did it make a bang).<br />
<br />
What happened "before" that? No-one knows (or, for the moment, can know). What we do know is that time, as a dimension of the space-time continuum, came into existence at the big bang so the word "before" is somewhat inappropriate too.<br />
<br />
So you see, "Andrew Wilson" came from the environment. I came directly from it as a product of it and will return to it. Indeed I am very temporary<br />
<br />
If you really want a far more poetic and beautiful answer than I can give then watch this 4 minute video from a fellow non-believer.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOXMjCnKwb4" target="_blank">We Are Going To Die</a>.<br />
<br />
If you think there is more to "Andrew Wilson" or indeed "Andy Preston" than the material things of the world from which we are made then it really is up to you to demonstrate it.<br />
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It matters not a bit to me if love is "just" neurons and hormones reacting to outside stimuli. If that's true then it's true (and the evidence suggests it is). It doesn't lessen the experience one jot. Indeed it heightens it.<br />
<br />
Here's another fellow unbeliever on that very topic.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIZhgLKSBaY" target="_blank">Ode to a Flower</a>.<br />
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I have no other answer for you. I follow the evidence.<br />
<br />
p.s. Colour-blind people can see rainbows and rainbows are a physical phenomenon that happen as a direct result of physical light interacting with physical water and air molecules.<br />
<br />
-<br />
<br />
His comments.<br />
<br />
"So Andrew, unless you know for sure and can tell me where Andrew Wilson came from, and how your self was made - and I don't mean just your outward name /parents/birth cert/education/ profession -"<br />
<br />
"then you are surely in a position, as we all are, of seeking knowledge about your existence rather in the manner of a person in a vast dark cavern, possessing only a thin beam pencil torch with which they can illuminate only a tiny area at a time - and quite unable to perceive the vastness unilluminated all around them.<br />
<br />
"It then behoves all of us surely, to be modest about our judgement of other seekers, and the manner in which we address their understanding."<br />
<br />
" ... asking someone for 'proof' of God /a creator is not unlike asking someone to 'prove' that - that vital component of human existence - of 'love' exists<br />
or you being a colour blind person, demanding that another 'proves' that a rainbow exists."<br />
<br />Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-29408419041334737942013-11-08T00:41:00.004+00:002013-11-08T00:57:29.199+00:00Breaking news from The Scottish Parliament<br />This was posted a few moments ago to the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/secularscotland">Facebook page of The Scottish Secular Society</a>. Thanks to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/john.hein.3154">John Hein</a>.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> ---<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> From: Scottish Parliament Tel 0131 348 6265<br /><br />UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 00.01 FRIDAY 8 NOVEMBER 2013<br /><br />8 November 2013 <br /><br />Marriage Bill supported by majority of Committee at Stage 1<br /><br />The general principles of the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill are supported by the majority of members on the Equal Opportunities Committee in its Stage 1 report published today.<br /><br />A minority of the Committee’s members do not support the Bill because they disagree in principle or because they are not convinced that the Bill currently has adequate protections in place.<br /><br />Committee Convener Margaret McCulloch MSP said:<br /><br />“All of us on the Committee recognise the validity, depth and sincerity of all views submitted to us on what has clearly been an emotive issue for all of our stakeholders.<br /><br />“While the majority of our Committee supports the general principles of this Bill, we wholeheartedly support the right of all members of the Scottish Parliament to vote on the Bill as a matter of conscience.â€<br /><br />The Committee has asked the Scottish Government for consideration on a number of issues including:<br /><br />* Stakeholders varying views on the approach taken in the Bill on protecting celebrants of faith and religious organisations’ freedom to conduct legally valid marriages in keeping with their doctrines.<br /><br />* An amendment raised by the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities to redefine non-civil marriages, to more prominently reflect the distinction between religious ceremonies and belief ceremonies.<br /><br />* An opinion expressed by the Humanist Society Scotland that the treatment in marriage law of the Church of Scotland affords it a privileged status.<br /><br />* The spousal consent to be removed from the gender-recognition process.<br /><br />Background<br />The Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill was introduced in the Parliament on 26 June 2013 and covers the following key matters relating to marriage law: the introduction of same-sex marriage; putting belief celebrants on the same footing as religious celebrants; the arrangements for authorising celebrants to solemnise opposite-sex and same-sex marriage; civil partnerships changing to marriage; the authorisation of Church of Scotland deacons to solemnise opposite-sex marriage and allowing civil marriage ceremonies in any place agreed between the couple and the registrar, other than religious premises.<br /><br />The Stage 1 debate on The Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill will take place in November.Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-87708055925504209472013-05-24T20:03:00.000+01:002013-05-24T20:06:57.803+01:00Scaremongering by UKIP<br />
<h5 class="uiStreamMessage userContentWrapper" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="messageBody" style="color: #333333; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.38;">I've seen <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=349748028479610&set=a.235968756524205.54873.100003332467966&type=1&theater" target="_blank">this article about muslims</a> doing the rounds on Facebook and other social media. It's typical UKIP propganda and scaremongering. Peaceful Muslims have as much control over the radicals than the old lady that sits next to you in church does over groups like The Westboro Baptist church or "christians" that bomb abortion clinics.<br /><br />The section: "Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.", Is doing nothing more than trying do demonise ordinary muslims and is also a straight out lie. The fanatics do not "own" us and our laws deal with the extremists. As for language like "end of the world", the less said the better.<br /><br />The fact that the article ends: "anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand", is nothi<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">ng more than a way of trying to shut up opposing views.<br /><br />Including the picture of Abu Hamza is just cynical. He has gone through due process, has been extradited to the U.S. and awaiting trial. He is no longer a threat to the UK. Our current laws deal with these people already.<br /><br />Do not vote UKIP even if you are tempted by the events of the last few days. They are a racist organisation and are not interested in any kind of human rights.<br /><br />The last few days have been scary but the 2 people who perpetrated the atrocity in Woolwich are extremists. We should be able to understand that the majority of muslims in this country run businesses, own shops, drive buses, practice medicine, work as dustmen, have children at school and live what we would easily recognise as a British life.<br /><br />I can't imagine what the family of Lee Rigby must be going through. My brother is a soldier and my mind shivers at the thought.<br /><br />Campaigns (rather opportunistic ones) like this one by UKIP and the violent demonstrations by EDL only serve to heighten fear when we should be trying to find peaceful a way around it.</span></span></h5>
Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-18919897405609106382013-02-12T17:17:00.001+00:002013-02-12T17:33:59.641+00:00How would we measure objective morality?<br />
There is a question at the end of this, so be patient. Thank you. :-)<br />
<br />
Here are 3 basic assumptions about the world:<br />
<br />
1. There is some kind of objective material reality we can observe/measure beyond our minds (lets assume for the sake of argument we're not just a brain in a jar somewhere).<br />
2. Our senses aren't 100% reliable (given things like the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0" target="_blank">McGurk Effect</a> and Optical illusions etc...)<br />
3. Our senses aren't 0% reliable (given that we can pretty safely assume, when on earth, that when we let go of an object it will drop like the last time we let go of an object).<br />
<br />
Given these assumptions, humans have developed the scientific method to try and get close to the truth about the material world around us.<br />
<br />
The scientific method involves a number of things<br />
<br />
A. Coming up with an idea about how something in the world might work (hypothesis).<br />
B. Creating some way (experiment/survey etc...) of checking that hypothesis is true/false (falsifiability).<br />
C. Running the experiment a number of times and opening our methodology to others to allow them to carry out the experiment as well (repeatability).<br />
D. Publishing our methodolgy, assumptions, results and conclusions to allow others to check them (peer review).<br />
<br />
It's the best system that humans have come up for to try and measure how material reality works. It may not be perfect but it has given us the space station, smart phones, antibiotics and anaesthetics.<br />
<br />
<b>If, as some people suggest, morality is objective and exists outside of the human mind and that our senses aren't 100% reliable, what methodology would people use to try and get close to an understanding of what objective morality is and getting a general agreement on it?</b><br />
<br />
If anyone has an answer to this, I'd be interested to read it in the comments.<br />
<br />Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-33597871200992839012013-02-05T21:08:00.003+00:002013-02-05T21:12:17.427+00:00Commons Backs Gay Marriage Bill.<br />
At last!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21346220" target="_blank">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21346220</a><br />
<br />
Never ever take your morality from an outside agency. If you do that, you have given up your own ability to assess right and wrong for yourself and thus have no way of assessing whether that outside agency itself is right or wrong.<br />
<br />
Morality is about consequences of our actions and not about obedience to a set of rules.<br />
<br />
Gay people in love getting married and having all the rights like next of kin that go with marriage has absolutely no effect on anyone else's marriage whatsoever. Marriage is between us, our partner, children (and god, if you believe in it) and no-one else.<br />
<br />
We live in a largely secular nation. Yes, many people go to church but the church, thankfully, no longer has a monopoly on telling us what our morality is supposed to be. We are a far more enlightened as a species than we ever were. No, we don't know everything but we know far more about the world than the people from biblical times ever did.<br />
<br />
I'm so glad that sanity has reigned and that society is slowly, inch by inch, moving forward to a more equal society.<br />
<br />
<br />Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-49309400562620242302013-01-31T01:38:00.001+00:002013-01-31T01:38:02.284+00:00Solipsism?<br />
I was involved in a discussion with a theist recently on an "<a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/335011066613318/">Atheists vs Theists</a>" facebook page he had created. He came up with the idea the line "Reasoning goes on in minds and only goes on in minds hence is subjective". This is solipsism, which is, basically the idea that the only thing we can say is 100% true is "I think therefore I am" and everything else is subjective and therefore not 100% reliable.<br />
<br />
This is my answer to him.<br />
<br />
If, as you say all reasoning is subjective, you are basically a solipsist which is, at best, irrelevant. Also, if you are claiming that all reasoning is subjective, then you can't reason your way to god either.<br />
<br />
This is where science comes in. It confirms something that someone has reasoned could be true by testing falsifiable hypotheses. It then allows others to try repeat those tests and by using open methodology so that others can review the evidence and how it was found.<br />
<br />
It is the only way we can spiral in or home in on the truth.<br />
<br />
Now, when you can create a falsifiable hypothesis for god, test it, allow others to repeat that and have an open methodology that allows for peer review, and after that the evidence for god is plain and unambiguous, then maybe I'll believe that there is a god.<br />
<br />
Any comments welcome.<br />
Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-46873928021433164732012-11-23T22:17:00.000+00:002014-01-14T15:01:58.412+00:00Thatcher: A Pre-ObituaryI reposted this after the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/jul/16/margaret-thatcher-day-not-vote-winner" target="_blank">Thatcher Day fiasco</a>. (Sign the <a href="http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/52411" target="_blank">petition against it</a>).<br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />
She isn't dead yet but this is in anticipation of all the praise the Iron Lady will receive when that blessed release finally does come.<br />
<br />
I may be wrong, but I suspect even the worst of the official obituaries will be along the lines of the "well, I didn't agree with her politics but she was a great politician/she got things done" kind of sycophantic drivel that opposition politicians will come out with. I don't particularly care for a politician that simply "get things done". It has to be the right things. Things in which the consequences for everyone are at the very least taken into account.<br />
<br />
Bollocks to those obituaries I say, but I can only hope people writing them remain true to the way they felt when she did hold power. The <a href="http://uk.news.yahoo.com/on-this-day-margaret-thatcher-free-school-milk-1971-protests-124948608.html#4oSAlry" target="_blank">Milk Snatcher</a> (as she was sometimes known) was almost certainly the worst thing to happen to this country since that other crazed daemon, Oliver Cromwell.<br />
<br />
Mrs. Thatcher got us all caught up with creating yet more "record" profits for worldwide corporations that exist purely for their bottom lines. Yes, these corporations made some people rich but it wasn't the ones working ridiculous shifts.<br />
<br />
And to do what? To stuff the faces of people who apparently have the desperate need for a burger at 1 in the morning. The belief that they need a burger is most probably fed by advertising and the alcohol they just consumed in a pub chain owned by another large corporation. A burger produced in what amounts to a factory in which animals go in one end and meat comes out the other, mirroring perfectly the consuming process by which meat goes in one end and ... well, you get the picture.<br />
<br />
Of course, Mrs. Thatcher didn't introduce global corporates into Britain. That was happening anyway. But she taught people to love the mentality that the bottom line is what matters; that growth is what counts; that a bigger profit this year than last year is the only thing to aim for. Of course, what far more experienced people were telling her was that growth and inflation aren't really that different, especially if that growth isn't based on real commodities but on "added value". All added value means is I'm going to charge you an extortionate amount for this sandwich, but I'll smile when I'm handing it to you. The recent economic strife has taught us that rather harshly.<br />
<br />
Mrs. T Used all the means at her disposal both legal and illegal to get her way. She disguised soldiers as policemen during the miner's strike. That was wrong and she knew it. Had she brought the army out against the people that would have been the end of her political career. The fact she disguised them as policeman tells me she was willing to ride roughshod over democracy because she thought, wrongly as it has turns out, that manual labourers were no longer needed and that we somehow needed to become a "service economy".<br />
<br />
She was hypnotised by the utter nonsense idea, verging on a religion, known as <a href="http://nynerd.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/reaganomics.jpg">reaganomics</a>, that was circulating amongst decision makers at the time. It relies almost in it's entirety on something called trickle-down economics which suggests that if you reward the high earners in society by lowering their tax bills that, as if by magic, the extra money in the economy would find it's way into the pockets of the poor. Of course this is nonsense. The rich don't spend much more money on everyday things than anyone else, <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/08/01/157664524/how-the-poor-the-middle-class-and-the-rich-spend-their-money">as it turns out</a>. It also is completely amoral. It doesn't take any account of how the rich make that money. The fact they made it by reducing other's wages arguably had the reverse effect. Sadly the U.S. Still seems to enamoured of this idea.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/08/article-2305755-192CDEDF000005DC-297_634x441.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/08/article-2305755-192CDEDF000005DC-297_634x441.jpg" width="320" /></a>And it wasn't just reaganomics that hypnotised her but the man Reagan himself. She worshipped him, as the notorious hand on coffin incident demonstrated. Yes, it was partly for show, but why did she have to show herself to be that close to Reagan in the first place? Her Infatuation with Reagan brought Britain into an embrace with the US which caused us to ignore relationships with other countries with whom we had much more in common. Firstly Europe. Imagine a Europe that had the full bodied support of a strong nation like the UK and the reputation of the pound behind it. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the commonwealth. Imagine, in this Information Age, where distance is almost meaningless to many businesses if we had put the same amount of energy into our relationship with Australia with it's healthy economy and all the tie-ins to all the other emerging pacific nations that would have given us.<br />
<br />
It's not that we shouldn't have a relationship with the U.S.A. A relatively young nation like the States needs the tempered hand of a more mature nation that has been where it now is. During the Thatcher years our foreign policy consisted almost entirely of our relationship with America and the Falkland incident. She Insisted on calling it a war but that was politically motivated hyperbole.<br />
<br />
She Is not entirely to blame, of course. Blair entrenched the entire Thatcher economic model. Indeed, I could even say Thatcher was up-front about her economic goals. Blair smuggled the politics of the Iron Lady back into the country in a nice looking suit. An expensive Armani suit at that.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, Mrs T used our diversity against us. She played north against south, rich against poor, Scottish against English and her peak capped skeletal henchman Tebbit was even ocassionally wheeled out to play the race card. Tebbit (he's not dead yet either) was a particularly nasty piece of work that the Tory party seemed to have hanging like barnacles on it's putrifying underbelly during the 80s. I have a particularly horrible recollection of him tearing apart a woman from a homeless charity telling her "the homeless should look after themselves". There, sadly, doesn't appear to be a clip of it anywhere on the internet.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/covtelegraph/mar2008/3/0/04C8F09D-DEA4-E558-8C2627419F6A2265.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Milk Snatcher" border="0" height="235" src="http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/covtelegraph/mar2008/3/0/04C8F09D-DEA4-E558-8C2627419F6A2265.jpg" title="Milk Snatcher" width="320" /></a></div>
Most significantly she set back women's rights by a generation. Being one of the first nations on earth to have a female leader should have been a fantastic moment for a country like the UK and the world as a whole. Instead we got this person who had all the bad elements of the male leaders that already existed with none of the good qualities that the best male leaders do have. She also had none of the qualities that a good female leader could have brought to the table. An ability to listen, an ability not to be driven by her penis (Thatcher was, of course) and an ability to fight for the optimal compromise in a situation rather than try to dominate.<br />
<br />
Under her leadership this country lost it's way. Under her leadership the army was brought out against it's own people. The unions could have easily been sorted out with compromises but she felt she had to make a point. Under her leadership we saw the race riots, some of the worst in-fighting between Britons since the civil war. Under her leadership we saw billions of pounds spent on a "war" defending around 300 people who, for a 10th of the price could have be repatriated and given a house and a large trust fund each. Under her leadership the number of people for whom there was no work rose to 3 million, that's 3 million people who wanted to work but weren't able to. Under her leadership the seeds of our current economic failure were sown. How demoralising.<br />
<br />
So no, don't believe any of the snivelling obituaries that will be out there. They are written by the very, very small number of people who had something to gain from riding on her coat tails.<br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />
After the opening ceremony of the London Olympics I felt that the genius Danny Boyle managed to sum up what Britain really could be like. We are indeed a mongrel nation. <a href="http://stooshie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/diversity-breeds-adaptability.html">See my short blog post on the subject</a>.<br />
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Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-22994155355558990672012-11-07T00:03:00.001+00:002012-11-07T00:03:20.258+00:00Obama vs Romney<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Kinnock">Neil Kinnock</a>, leader of the British Labour party during the 80s and 90s once made a speech about the the Tori leader <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher">Margaret Thatcher</a>. This is widely regarded as his best speech and the following is possibly his most memorable quote ever. As it happens, Mrs Thatcher did win the election and his predictions started to come true.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday, I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. I warn you not to get old."</blockquote>
In my personal opinion Obama would be perfectly able to use that line with regards to Romney and the US election tonight.Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-88714532820820095562012-09-10T13:53:00.002+01:002012-09-10T13:53:19.707+01:00Equality of opportunity in the wider world.<div>
This is my reply to another blog post by Crommunist entitled "Finding the faults" and located here: <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/crommunist/2012/09/10/finding-the-faults">http://freethoughtblogs.com/crommunist/2012/09/10/finding-the-faults</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
" ... I find this supposed ‘unity’ of the atheist cause to be nothing more than ridiculous wishful thinking. ... ".<br />
<br />
Those us against Atheism Plus are, in fact, saying the opposite. Atheism has always been non-unified. The only thing any of us can guarantee to have in common is that we don't see enough evidence for gods or the supernatural.<br />
<br />
Many atheists are completely for the aims of Atheism Plus (as am I), as long as you are fighting for equality of opportunity, but it is precisely because Atheism Plus are trying to create a unified group that we are against it.<br />
<br />
I happily stand with christians/muslims etc... who are against racism/misogyny etc... In fact, I'd rather spend my time fighting these things in public with anyone who stands with me on these things rather than be a member of a group that claims inclusivity, but you can only be an atheist to join, even if you agree with all of our aims.<br />
<br />
The issue of equality of opportunity for everyone is so important that having a specifically atheist group that is pro social justice is divisive (not to the atheist community, we are only a group in the loosest population dynamics sense) but to the wider community fighting for social justice.<br />
Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-2605742870222432172012-09-01T19:28:00.000+01:002012-09-01T19:46:43.742+01:00Reply to Crommunist Manifesto on Atheism Plus<br />
This was my reply to Crommunist Manifesto's blog post on Freethought Blogs.<br />
<br />
His original post: <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/crommunist/2012/08/22/atheism-plus-sounds-awesome">http://freethoughtblogs.com/crommunist/2012/08/22/atheism-plus-sounds-awesome</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">When it comes to feminism, I am perfectly happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with any christian (or muslim, or hindhu…) if they share my views that men and women should be treated equally.</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">When it comes to racism, I am perfectly happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with any christian (or muslim, or hindhu…) if they share my views that all races should be treated equally.</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">When it comes to sexuality, I am perfectly happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with any christian (or muslim, or hindhu…) if they share my views that people of all sexual orientation should be treated equally.</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">When it comes to church/state separation, I am perfectly happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with any christian (or muslim, or hindhu…) if they share my views that people of any religion or none should given any preference by the state.</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">See a pattern?</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">There are also atheists who don’t share my views on these things and I am perfectly happy to discuss with them our differences of opinion.</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">I am perfectly happy if humanism is not entirely atheistic. There is nothing about atheism that necessarily leads to any particular political viewpoint. There is also nothing about humanism that means it has to be entirely atheistic.</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">But that’s fine. I fight each issue on it’s own merits. Creating specific clubs that exactly match my viewpoint is not something I want to be part of. In fact, the opposite is true. I want to be challenged on my views.</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">I thought, perhaps naively, that when I started to meet other atheists and skeptics that having my views challenged would be the norm. In fact I was rather excited by it.</span><br />
<br style="color: #b6d7a8;" /><span style="color: #b6d7a8;">I hope that is still the case.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I thought I should post my reply as a blog post as it kind of sums up my views on Atheism Plus.<br />
<br />Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-12825431898169036862012-08-30T20:31:00.000+01:002012-08-30T20:40:38.528+01:00A tribute<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars", "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few", "I have a dream".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">"One small step for man ... One giant leap for mankind".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">To be a military test pilot is probably the most challenging, thrilling and frightening job in the world. You must have the experience of a forty year old combined with the physical strength and mental dexterity of youth. You need to be brave enough to take calculated and sometimes uncalculated risks. You must have the ability to come up with novel solutions to problems in split seconds in life threatening situations and have the fortitude to say, "go for it".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Only the best test pilots, at their peak fitness are ever considered when deciding who should become an astronaut. To be chosen to be the commander of a lunar lander you must also have the utmost respect from, and for, the team of which you are in charge.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">To be the first of them and to be chosen to be the human being that will place their foot on a surface not of this world, you must be someone who has the respect of an entire nation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">To do all that, and to land with one minute of fuel to spare, then come up with one of the most memorable lines in human history takes an exceptional human being. Only a few of which come along in a generation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">That man was Neil Armstrong.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">1930 - 2012</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/62043main_Footprint_on_moon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/62043main_Footprint_on_moon.jpg" /></a></div>
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Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-58862835884064495562012-08-13T00:38:00.002+01:002012-08-13T00:47:49.337+01:00Diversity breeds Adaptability<br />
10,000 years ago small tribes of people crossed the land that is now covered by water and that we have called the English Channel. Ever since then, we have absorbed so many cultures.<br />
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The Flemish, The Celts, the Romans, the Vikings, the French, the Dutch, the Jewish, the Caribbeans, the Indians, the Pakistanis, the Polish and so many more.<br />
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A mongrel nation makes for a healthier nation. A more diverse nation. A nation that not only copes with the world, but adapts to it and makes the best of what is thrown at it.<br />
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If we can take anything from the last two weeks, perhaps it has shown us we had, just maybe, forgotten that.Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3863831.post-46076099605686193042012-05-29T11:38:00.001+01:002012-05-29T11:38:31.021+01:00Pastor Charles Worley - working the figuresSo, this man, if such a moniker can be used for someone with such inhuman standards on how to treat others, has said all the lesbians and gays and should be rounded up and put into separate "pens" and left there until they die. (He did say he would feed them, although that's un-biblical, as he is showing mercy).
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In case you missed it:<br />
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I thought I would do some stats on the things he said, so here goes:<br />
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Here is my basic assumptions.<br />
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<ul>
<li>He said 50-100km so I'll assume 100 to be generous</li>
<li>He made a vague circular motion when he said it so I'll assume a circle</li>
<li>He suggested a separate "pen" for gays and lesbians, so I've calculated for just one population (but the calculation is the same for both populations).</li>
<li>I have assumed 1% of the female U.S. population are lesbians, although it is almost certainly much larger (which just makes the figures even more inhuman).</li>
<li>I have taken the poulation of the U.S. from google to be around 312M </li>
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It turns out that the "lesbian density" (good grief!) would be 2000 lesbians (or gays) per square kilometre! That's half a square metre per lesbian.<br />
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Given that the absolute minimum recommended for free range chickens is 2 square metres per chicken, that gives you an idea of just how inhuman this man's ideas are.<br />
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I know doing these calculations seems ridiculous, but you can bet that any leader of a nation that has concentration camps does precisely these same calcuations with the added inhumanity of a cost/benefit analysis.<br />
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Quite apart from the fact that most gays and lesbians come from heterosexual parents and there would always be new gay and lesbians born anyway.Stooshiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541609914500686900noreply@blogger.com0