If you put lipstick on a pig, it still oinks and probably still won’t be allowed into a nice 5-star eatery.
Why do I say that? Because of a google news hit I saw this evening….
From the website www.newsday.com – “Bush re-ignites evolution debate“… Sounds like the burning bush is at it again….
Ok right off, Bush has certainly shown himself to be one of the worst spoken and least intelligent presidents in quite some time. If his dad hadn’t been president, it is sure odds that he wouldn’t have been president either. He has been the speaker behind some of the stupidest comments I have ever heard such as
“If they pre-decease or die early, there’s an asset base to be able to pass on to a loved one.”
—George W. Bush, on Social Security money held in private accounts, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, March 30, 2005
or
“It’s a time of sorrow and sadness when we lose a loss of life.”
—George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Dec. 21, 2004
and most recently
“The best place for the facts to be done is by somebody who’s spending time investigating it.”
—George W. Bush, on the probe into how CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity was leaked, Washington D.C., July 18, 2005
Folks, this is the leader of the free world… one of the most powerful men in the world…. Doesn’t that scare you in the least?
Anyway, the article is about Bush pushing for Intelligent Design[1] to be taught in schools. This bothers me from several angles.
- Bush is a moron, I don’t want morons telling people what should be taught in school except by being an example of what needs to be corrected. This, IMO, is where Bush could be of assistance.
- Doesn’t Bush have other things he should be dealing with? Like figuring out how to straighten out the fact that American kids are sleeping in ditches in a foreign country or that all of our jobs seem to be leaving the country?
- Separation of church and state… HELLO! Government and religion are supposed to be separate. There is a great reason for this. We founded the country on that thought because we thought other countries were a bit screwed in the head about religion and were trying to force us to do religious based everything and people had no choice quite like what the ultra conservative right wing has been trying to do here. What country will people go to after this to escape religious persecution and control? I am thinking Canada. They seem to be a little more open minded. I don’t recall them getting their panties in a bunch when Janet slipped and showed nip. I.E. They seem to be adults over there in Canada and we seem to have spoiled teenagers who are sexually repressed and afraid to think on their own two feet especially if a nipple or cleavage is showing.
- Intelligent Design is simply a new word for creationism and tries to wrap scientific principal around it except that it still comes back to people not being able to accept that there isn’t a higher power directing everything. Get over it, grow up. The argument, “well it couldn’t have just happened so it must have had an intelligent design behind it” is not anywhere near the scientific method and methods of logic. For a fun read on this see this article. For a funny read, see this article. The whole assumption is that what we have now couldn’t possibly have occurred randomly. Well, read up on evolution, it isn’t saying things happened randomly, it indicates that the output from one generation is fed into the “machine” as the input for the next generation. There is constant live feedback. To put it another way, if your birth parents didn’t have kids, chances are you won’t either… Think about it.
- Evolution is pretty well proven people. The fun part is that it doesn’t try to answer the giant questions such as why are we here, how did this all start, how come Starbucks Hot Chocolate tastes like ass but you still have a hankering for it and have to go buy it again? People hell bent on, well believing in hell and heaven and creationism seem to miss that rather large point in the middle of it all even though it is quite obvious as soon as you really look into it. If you read a book on evolution, you will not find it starting out as Chapter One – The Big Bang. Evolution is not the opposite of creationism. It really isn’t.
There’s more… I could go on about this for some time, but as Douglas Adams said in The American Atheist
“I don’t accept the currently fashionable assertion that any view is automatically as worthy of respect as any equal and opposite view. My view is that the moon is made of rock. If someone says to me, ‘Well you haven’t been there, have you? You haven’t seen it for yourself, so my view that it is made of Norwegian beaver cheese is equally valid’ – then I can’t even be bothered to argue. There is such a thing as the burden of proof and in the case of God, as in the case of the composition of the moon, this has shifted radically. God used to be the best explanation we’d got, and we’ve now got vastly better ones. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining.”
If you like that, go get the Salmon of Doubt. It is a lot of great straight talk and intelligent thinking coupled with great humour, basically things written or said at public gatherings by Douglas in the years leading up to his death are all slapped together in this book. That is where I first saw that quote above from Douglas.
Ok, that is enough for one rant.
joe
[1] This is creationism with lipstick…
Anyone who is so sure of anything is fairly unscientific in principle, since the scientific method excludes nothing which has not been disproved. Since science admits it is not capable of determining whether or not God exists, any genuine scientifically-minded person will never posit such meaningless certuitude. My guess is that you’re just angry, and this is your chosen target. I think you do a disservice to science with your unsupported, opinionated comments. Almost every great thinker in science was a believer in God. Do you think they were morons, too?
God may be in question, but your being an ass is not.
Angry? Possibly. I don’t generally think so. I am usually, in fact, quite happy. But maybe I am angry and I just don’t realize it.
But anyway Brian Kastel, thanks for your response. I note you are from Tampa Bay.
—————-
Author : Brian Kastel (IP: 70.115.222.81 , 81-222.115-70.tampabay.res.rr.com)
[email deleted]
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You aren’t, by chance, Brian David Kastel are you? Born on 6-13-1968?
I would request that you delete that comment. For one thing, you state that my email address would never be displayed even though it is required to leave a comment. As for my full name and birthdate you have posted for all to see, what is your point in doing that? Are you planning to post my social security number and driver license, as well? Is your point that if someone pisses you off with an invited comment, you will become threatening and abusive? Is this any way to present yourself? C’mon, Joe. Don’t do it this way. This doesn’t have to be personal. Erase this comment and the one before it.
Well, how about that? You deleted the email. Thank you.
I hope you realize that I wrote that message under my real name because it is too easy to post opinions anonymously, but that I did not have to do so. I could have used one of my anonymous emails and personas, but I instead respected you enough to tell you my name.
Had I not been real with you intentionally, there would have been no way for you to locate that information, and you would not have had the opportunity to take the low road on this.
You said in “What makes Microsoft great…” (http://blog.joeware.net/2005/05/21/22/) that “Part of what makes me respect someone is accepting someone else’s opinion and standing up for their own opinion and being willing to debate the facts.” That is all I had hoped to do here with you, but you have not acted so idealistically in the real world. We can start over, Joe, and you can just erase all these messages since my original comment, and we can take it from there.
🙂
Brian,
There was nothing threatening or abusive about my comment nor was anything intended to be threatening or abusive. In fact, as you noticed, I have deleted the email address. I wasn’t aware that the software indicates it wouldn’t be displayed, I didn’t write the blog software, I just use it. I am always logged in so don’t see anything about email usage. Before responding I logged off and checked what it says and have complied with it, not that I actually had to, but because that is the way I am.
As for the rest, when someone who knows nothing about me tries to attack my character I try to ascertain who they are. This is to get a better handle of their character and possibly determine if there is some possible insight they have into me other than the immediately obvious. For instance maybe I worked with the person in some company or we shared a barber or maybe I ran over their dog in the road or something.
Overall, I have noticed that people who post flame type messages like yours tend to have other interesting posts. If they do, the “holier than thou” message they try to deliver one by one starts to fall down when you see the overall picture.
So I did the logical thing and googled the name you listed in the message, which anyone can do. This was in hopes to get a few hits that might give a better feel of your character outside of your rather abusive post.
Seconds after entering your name google presented info, including your email address. I simply was trying to verify if one of the hits was indeed concerning the person that had tried to express such moral indignation at my rather innocuous post. As that seems to be the case, I find myself less concerned, if possible, about your opinion of my character. Overall, total time spent on the whole thing was maybe 2-3 minutes. Maybe.
In response to your last comment, at no point was your message intended as the precursor to or an instigator of debate. It was, IMO, simply an attack on the character of someone whom you know nothing about who voiced an opinion that varied from yours. Possibly you felt you could chastise me and feel good about. I don’t know, I don’t care.
For future reference, personal attacks generally aren’t the best way to spawn debates. Had you wanted to start a debate, point out where the opinion I specifically stated was wrong, IYO, or point out facts that I had mentioned that were wrong. Also, don’t spout hopes such as “Almost every great thinker in science was a believer in God.”. I have an expectation that we would probably disagree on what makes a great thinker and many of the great thinkers that come to my mind right off either paid lip service to the church in order to live or were outright persecuted by the church for their thoughts/beliefs/work. Most of the folks I consider great thinkers who actually were vocal in a positive way about higher powers were certainly not Christians, but members of much older, much more open minded, and much less misogynistic organizations.
While it is true, you could have presented an anonymous alias for posting your opinions, but what is the statement that makes concerning your opinion of self. I don’t give bonus points in a debate to people for admitting to who they are. That would be like giving someone points on a test for writing their name at the top of the paper.
joe
Joe,
You fail to realize that my comment was in response to your own name-calling. Your original post left no room for anyone holding contrary opinions, and you were very clear in stating that anyone in that group was nothing but a moron. My original comment very succinctly told you why you were wrong, and you to this day have failed to address anything I wrote other than the angry bit and, now, the great thinker bit.
Secondly, I did not attack your character. Your anger is plain for everyone to see. And calling someone an ass is calling him or her foolish, nothing more. I am very specific in the words I use, and if you look up ass in a good unabridged dictionary, you’ll even find the expression, “making an ass of oneself.†When you deem half of the country to be nothing more than brainwashed morons incapable of rational thought because they disagree with you, then you are very specifically making an ass of yourself. I was doing a Google search on “comres.dll†when I found this message from someone who thinks he has the ultimate truth in his palms. You need to take responsibility for your own position, which is seething with bitterness and hostility towards the President, Christians, and everyone who allies with them. It is quite disingenuous of you to characterize your original harsh and insulting post as “innocuous.â€
As for debate, you need not instruct me. I am comfortable that my replies to you have been on the level. It is you who has abandoned debate in favor of personal smearing. I believe that you have done this because you would rather act in force than in reason. You don’t really want to discuss the original issue, because you still have not done so.
In closing, I want to thank you for your reply, but I will not continue to waste my time with this. I hope your attitudes work out for you. May you find peace.
Sincerely,
Brian Kastel
Hi Brian thanks for responding.
Interestingly enough, I think I have determined the issue here. You seem to be responding to what you read *into* my original post, not what I actually wrote.
As a quick example: I called one person a moron – George W. Bush. I specifically point out just a few of the existing supporting incidents as to why I feel justified in this opinion that Bush is a moron. Later I go on to say I don’t want morons “like” Bush telling schools what they should be teaching. Certainly, neither the aforementioned article nor Bush’s comments on Intelligent Creationism were the spark for my opinion that Bush is an idiot. Interestingly enough, my grandmother, who is ordained, agrees 100% with my opinion that Bush is a complete moron. I expect her opinion isn’t because he said he wanted Intelligent Creationism pushed into schools.
You seemingly translated what I wrote to be “joe thinks Bush is a moron because Bush believes in Intelligent Design. Since I, Brian, share a belief in Intelligent Design joe is calling me a moron too!”.
I don’t know you well enough to call you a moron. I can say though that you certainly aren’t building a very good case for yourself with your responses as they betray certain lackings, including basic logic fundamentals. About the only opinion I can honestly give about what I know about you right now is that you seem to have an issue with self-control and possibly with reading comprehension.
To wrap this up, if the folks pushing the teaching of creationism in schools are honestly interested in balanced teachings concerning evolution and creationism, they already have a forum. They can start in the churches. The Christians who are attempting to force the teaching of religious principals onto secular schools are not looking for balance and equality. Christians throughout history have shown by example that they do not want equality. Their track record is exceedingly poor in the area of establishing balance between their beliefs and the beliefs of others. I invite you to read up on the missionary expeditions, the crusades, the inquisition and other very obvious examples. The Christian church has been more of a good example of a cut throat business or empire than an organization promoting universal love and peace. It has done more for tearing countries and peoples apart than bringing them together.
It is completely my opinion, but I expect a world without organized religion would be a far more peaceful and happy place than what we currently enjoy. Right now, organized religion simply seems to be a mechanism used to point at different people and say they are different and give an excuse to try to “correct†them.
If the church wants to convince me that they know all of the important and final answers, teach by example.
joe
Joe,
You quote Douglas Adams saying “My view is that the moon is made of rock. If someone says to me, ‘Well you haven’t been there, have you? You haven’t seen it for yourself, so my view that it is made of Norwegian beaver cheese is equally valid’ – then I can’t even be bothered to argue.” and then you go to these lengths to argue with Brian? Seems very odd to me. Then again, when only one person has given you attention on this I guess you need to milk it for all it’s worth. You obviously crave attention or you wouldn’t be doing this.
BTW, save yourself the Google-ing. I’m from NZ, an invalid and ex-hard drug user who has done time for cultivation of cannibis. That would have taken you a good half-day to find out, if ever.
Don’t forget, it says “E-mail (required, never displayed)”.
Buh-bye.
Thanks for the responding Shaun.
Interesting implications but no, I wouldn’t spend more than 3-4 minutes trying to chase info down about someone. The US is surprisingly bad at personal privacy though they say they have all of these laws around it. Certain types of “criminals” are actually posted on government and police websites and pop up immediately in web searches.
You are mistaken in that one person gave attention. Most people simply emailed me offline. Many people have no desire to out their own opinions either way. If I had wanted to milk this, I would have taken the comment up and set it up as a whole other blog entry because more people read the blog entries than the individual comments. I simply responded to Brian’s comments.
Sorry you did time for cannibis. If you were busted for personal growth and use that sucks. You deserve jail time for something like that as much as the “official” drug manufacturers do. I am not a user as I have no medical need for it and am strong enough to make it through the days without the additional medicinal assistance it provides. I do realize there are some people who do have physical ailments and have no quality of life without it. It is one of those items that “god hath provided” but since ANYONE can produce it and the “right” people don’t make money off of it, it is illegal. If I required it or someone I cared about it needed it for some physical medical problem, I would have no personal issue against obtaining or growining it. It is just one more stupid law and mindset due mostly to large groups of prudish people feeling they have the right to dictate what is and isn’t good for others.