The Conservative Cave
Interests => Religious Discussions => Topic started by: Rawlings on August 29, 2013, 01:53:10 PM
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By Michael David Rawlings
http://michaeldavidrawlings1.blogspot.com/2011/03/years-of-experience-have-shown-me-that_06.html
Excerpt:
I recently posed a question on Yahoo! Answers and prefaced it with a brief summary of the results derived from the Miller-Urey experiments of 1952 in the light of current science. Of course, the underlying hypothesis on which the experiments were originally based has been falsified, but we learned plenty. While I discussed a number of the problems associated with it, I neglected to emphatically state what that hypothesis was . . . just to see what sort of fish I might catch.
The following is the full version of the necessarily condensed one that appeared on Yahoo! Answers. . . .
A Yahoo! Answers resident, Lord Fluffy Tail, recently offered up the following quote in answer to a question about origins:
In 1951, the American Miller succeeded to form organic matter out of a mixture of ammonia (NH3), methane (CH4), hydrogen (H2) and water (H2O) by exposing this mixture to an electric current. During the experiments different organic mixtures were formed, among them amino acids and nucleic acids. These acids are essential for the building of proteins and chromosomes. —ORACLE ThinkQuest
Miller-Urey has been falsified for years; that is to say, the experiments' parameters and conditions were shown to be incongruent and the results, negative. The reasons for this are legion and very complex, yet textbooks continue to relate these experiments with the same sort of blurb in the above as if they were still something more than an historical footnote. An avalanche of innumerable Internet sites—most of them put up by atheistic, know-nothing layman—continue to tout them as being something that still matters along with theory that is years, even decades, behind current science.
For example, it doesn't appear that the author of Lord Fluffy Tail's source knows that the atmosphere of the primeval world was more oxygen-rich even earlier than he supposes and was generally more oxidizing than reducing—necessary for life, but not friendly to the formation of amino acids. In other words, the actual conditions were considerably more hostile to the prospects of abiogenesis than those of the Miller-Urey experiments. The primordial soup keeps getting driven deeper and deeper into the ocean where, once again, another battery of problematic conditions confound the imbecilic notions of chemical evolutionists.
Also, the author of this source writes that the "origin of life out of lifeless matter is called biogenesis." Uh . . . no. But that's probably just a typo. Biogenesis pertains to the Pasteurian theory that omne vivum ex vivo, i.e., all life is from life. The idea that life may arise from non-living matter goes by the name of spontaneous generation or, in accordance with contemporary theory, abiogenesis.
But the most startling bit of information divulged by this author—which is not a typo, but a UFO—consists of the claim that the Miller-Urey experiments produced nucleic acids.
What? Stop the presses! News flash!
Trust me. They did not produce nucleic acids or anything else like them.
What the published Miller-Urey experiments did produce were small concentrations of at least 5 amino acids and the molecular constituents of others. The dominant material produced by the experiments was an insoluble carcinogenic mixture of tar—large compounds of toxic mellanoids, a common end product in organic reactions. However, it was recently discovered that the published experiments actually produced 14 amino acids (6 of the 20 fundamentals of life) and 5 amines in various concentrations. In 1952, the technology needed to detect the even smaller trace amounts of prebiotic material was not available. But the unpublished Miller-Urey experiments conducted in that same year show that a modified version of Miller's original apparatus, which increased air flow with a tapering glass aspirator, produced 22 amino acids (still only 6 of the fundamentals) and the same 5 amines.
The significance of the recently uncovered results produced by the altered apparatus does not go to the synthesis of proteins as a result of the inherent chemical properties of their molecular precursors within atmospheric conditions that entail a more vaporous, volcanic-gas-like mixture of steam. It goes to the more impressive results that are derived under these simulated conditions coupled with the potentialities of the RNA-world hypothesis and its obligatory molecular precursors. Hence, Senior Correspondent Stephen K Ritter misses the target when he assumes that the team of researchers who analyzed the results of the unpublished experiments "speculate that amino acids formed in volcanic island systems could have been polymerized by carbonyl sulfide—volcanic gas—to form peptides leading to proteins" (Stephen K. Ritter; Oct. 16, 2008; "Origin-of-Life Chemistry Revisited"; Chemical and Engineering News-Prebiotic Chemistry).
They could not have sensibly speculated any such thing, as it is well known that amino acids do not form lasting peptide bonds (much less proteins) under any natural conditions outside living organisms. And this is true under laboratory conditions as well, whether their mixtures be racemic, as is always the case in nature on Earth, or even if they be artificially homochiral.
The original apparatus of the published experiments simulated a strictly reducing atmosphere consisting of hydrogen, methane, ammonia and water, but as Ritter in the same article observes "scientists who have analyzed Miller's experiments doubt that the highly reducing reaction conditions he used existed on early Earth"; however, the apparatus equipped with the aspirating mechanism simulated the more "intense conditions of a lightning-laced volcanic eruption." Hence, the researchers aver that "[t]he volcanic apparatus experiment suggests that, even if the overall atmosphere was not reducing, localized prebiotic synthesis could have been effective". Precisely! But what the researchers mean by the word "effective" goes to the formation of amino acids only, and only within the domains of semi-reducing, carbonyl-sulfide-producing atmospheres of "volcanic island systems", as the more generally oxidizing atmosphere beyond would prevent their formation.
The problem with this scenario is that under natural conditions the newly created precursors could not have stayed inside these atmospheric enclaves for long, for unlike the artificial conditions calculatedly arranged within the apparatuses of laboratories, which artificially remove biotic materials from the synthesizing medium once they are formed, nature would have continued to bombard them and thusly would have destroyed them with the very same source of energy it used to create them. Worse, the vastly more copious abiotic materials that would have also been produced would have continued to react with the racemic mixtures of the biotic materials within the synthesizing medium and would have readily incorporated the latter into compounds that would have been utterly useless for life.
Miller's experiment did produce . . . amino acids, but only by continuously circulating the reaction mixture and isolating products as they were formed. The quantities were still tiny and not in the same proportions as found in nature.
One of the causes of the low yield has been identified by [Edward] Peltzer who worked with Miller. As the amino acids were formed they reacted with reducing sugars . . . forming a brown tar around Miller's apparatus. Ultimately, Miller was producing large compounds called mellanoids, with amino acids as an intermediate product. —J. H. John Peet (Oct. 2005), "The Miller-Urey Experiment", Truth in Science
But the real problem for the synthesis of amino acids in a reducing atmosphere is that in spite of the latter's abundance of free electrons, it would not have provided an ozone layer to protect the amino acids it produced. If the electrical energy that induced their synthesis in one instant did not reduce them to their basic elements or induce harmful reactions in the next, the entire range of UV light's wavelengths would have slapped them silly. And biologically useful organic compounds do not form in oxidizing atmospheres.
Perplexing.
That is why the out-gassing calculations based on chondritic models of planetary formation, which support a reducing atmosphere for the primordial world, do not solve the initial problem of an abiogenic account of life's origins.3 Indeed, chondritic models, in spite of their apparent credibility and that of their inherent calculations, do not explain away the equally compelling and essentially incontrovertible geological evidence that supports an early oxidizing atmosphere.
Perplexing.
It would appear that the problem of resolving the nature of the primordial world's atmosphere requires some sort of synthesis of the two possibilities. But even if the constituents of abiogenesis were profitably given over to the thralls of a semi-reducing atmosphere all those many years ago, we see no evidence of that today. The geological record should contain an overflowing abundance of nitrogen-rich mineral deposits. It doesn't.
Still, despite the paltry concentrations of organic materials produced relative to the energy expended, the best bet for abiogenesis would have been a semi-reducing atmosphere akin to the model simulated by the altered apparatus in the unpublished experiments. At least the organic materials produced in those were slightly more voluminous and diverse. Also, it seems reasonable to assume that the dynamics of the altered atmospheric model would have moved the materials away from the lingering dangers inside the synthesizing medium, past the threats beyond, and into the primordial soup of the oceans below more rapidly.
It's all pie-in-the-sky nonsense, of course, but as long as we're already suspending disbelief far above any reasonable altitude, we might as well go along with the tale forever: never mind the threats beyond the synthesizing medium, never mind the ubiquitous cross-reaction contaminants, never mind that water pushes peptidyl bonding backward, not forward, would disperse the constituents of proteins and condemn most of them to the whims of a churning and lonely isolation, and never mind most of all that the total amount of organic compounds on Earth today is less than a fraction of the lofty concentrations that would be reasonably favorable for the inscrutable processes of abiogenesis. After all, the other precursors of life, which improbably braved and overcame the same obstacles, have need of their prebiotic cousins. The long and arduous journey toward self-awareness must go on by way of an even more implausible series of elaborately complex and fortuitous accidents.
The Miller-Urey experiments showed that under the right conditions nature might be able to build some of life's amino acids; later discoveries in space and here on Earth confirmed that. But that in and of itself was not the rhyme or the reason of the experiments' underlying hypothesis, and beyond that, what have these experiments shown us? Well, not much about that which was expected, but plenty more about that which is obvious.
The natural occurrence of amino acids is light years away from life, and there exists no coherent or demonstrable explanation for how they aggregated and combined by mere chance in the exact sequences we find in life. And even if such a thing were possible, we'd still not be there.
How did the many hundreds of thousands of mindless proteins and other molecular components, which can only function within a very narrow range of conditions, aggregate and combine in the exact sequences required to build the thousands of intricately complex and interdependent pieces of machinery minimally required by a viable, functioning cell? The process could not have been accumulative, but had to have been instantaneously synchronous for obvious reasons. All these things evince a certain set of preconditions and necessities which stupid materialist layman will never understand and agenda-driven scientists will never acknowledge.
(As for those still operating under the sleight-of-hand illusion that the refutation of Behe's flagellum argument overthrows the classic construct of irreducible complexity, see "Labsci and I Discuss Evolution" and "The Debate with Labsci Continues. . . .".)
If one allows that an intelligent agent was required to create the simplest form of life, one opens the door to a world where the regnant theory for the development of life might unravel. If an intelligent agent did it once, what would prevent him from creating other and even more complex forms of life again and again?
We now know that life arose much earlier than was ever thought possible, and the ramifications of this are devastating for abiogenesis, which just keeps running into wall after wall after wall. And the more apparent the complexity of the genome and the infrastructural machinery and processes of the cell becomes, the denser the walls become.
We really don't have a clue about how to explain any of this without considering the necessity of a preexistent intelligence, which is precisely why more and more evolutionists are hesitantly going where they don't want to go. . . . While it still would not resolve the matter of origins, at the very least the evidence points to intelligent extraterrestrials. And that is precisely the point ID scientists have been making for years.
Atheism is poisoning science. Intellectual fascists are arbitrarily asserting a metaphysical naturalism against the evidence. . . .
http://michaeldavidrawlings1.blogspot.com/2011/03/years-of-experience-have-shown-me-that_06.html
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The Miller-Urey experiments showed that under the right conditions nature might be able to build some of life's amino acids
You contradict yourself, I think the thing you are missing is that it was not necessary for God to create life, just create the conditions that would allow life.
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Never use 30 words when hundreds will do.......
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Never use 30 words when hundreds will do.......
I'm waiting for the paperback version. Condensed, hopefully.
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Knock it off with the damned novels! :mad: :killemall:
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:yawn:
It's not even this shitbird's work. If it were, this footnote marker:
Perplexing.
That is why the out-gassing calculations based on chondritic models of planetary formation, which support a reducing atmosphere for the primordial world, do not solve the initial problem of an abiogenic account of life's origins.3 Indeed, chondritic models, in spite of their apparent credibility and that of their inherent calculations, do not explain away the equally compelling and essentially incontrovertible geological evidence that supports an early oxidizing atmosphere
... wouldn't still be in the text. I think Dutch is on to something: this turd is 12, trying to show the grown-ups how smart he is. :thatsright:
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You contradict yourself, I think the thing you are missing is that it was not necessary for God to create life, just create the conditions that would allow life.
No. I didn't contradict myself, and your second assertion, a non sequitur, is teleological in nature, beyond scientific falsification and a distinction that inevitably makes no empirically discernible difference.
Think about it.
Are you a Deist?
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Never use 30 words when hundreds will do.......
The article discusses abiogenesis and the leading theoretical models in the light of the very best research. Just how to propose that be stuffed into one sentence?
Your criticism is absurd.
You're absurd.
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The article discusses abiogenesis and the leading theoretical models in the light of the very best research. Just how to propose that be stuffed into one sentence?
You criticism is absurd.
You're absurd.
You are a ****ing retard. Like most ****ing regards you have no clue that you are one.
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You are a ****ing retard. Like most ****ing regards you have no clue that you are one.
I'm a retard? You lunatic! Your criticism is obviously stupid, nonsensical.
What in the world is wrong with you people? Why the hostility? These mindlessly vicious attacks over a scientific matter? The absurd criticisms?
Do you have something substantive to add to the discussion or not?
It's like I've entered into the Twilight Zone.
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:yawn:
It's not even this shitbird's work. If it were, this footnote marker:
... wouldn't still be in the text. I think Dutch is on to something: this turd is 12, trying to show the grown-ups how smart he is. :thatsright:
More Twilight Zone.
You're accusing me of plagiarism? The footnote markers for all paraphrased and quoted material are on the blog! The footnote markers for all sited research are on the blog! I don't know how to code for them on the board. Hence, the quotation marks and the link.
In any event, not my work?!
Psst. The paraphrased and quoted material in the article, which makes up roughly 10% of the work, is paraphrased and quoted and thusly footnoted as such because paraphrased and quoted material is paraphrased and quoted material. LOL! That’s the whole point! Paraphrased and quoted material are the words of others, not those of the author. And the whole point of citing such paraphrased and quoted material, in addition to the necessities of an article about abiogenesis and the pertinent research, is to back the article's arguments with authority.
I don't follow. . . . In addition to falsely accusing me of plagiarism, you're criticizing my work because it contains authoritative citations? :mental:
The other roughly 90% is original prose and thought regarding current abiogenetic science and research, and hardly that of a twelve-year-old. Shut up!
In any event, how would you know where the footnote markers go unless, of course, I told you where they go in the article on the blog! You're a liar, aren't you?
That's a serious accusation. Slander. Do you make it a habit of throwing baseless accusations around? You're no conservative. You're a morally and intellectually bankrupt dirt bag.
Also, you mindless fool, you might want to check with the owner of this board about the matter of falsely and baselessly accusing other members of crimes on this board. If it's not against the rules, it most certainly should be. I'm reporting your post. It's clearly outrageously slanderous and abusive with regard to privately owned and copyrighted material.
I can't believe this is a conservative board. It's obviously packed with mindless, know-nothing, vicious little pricks. This is how leftist behave, not true conservatives.
If you birdbrains have no interest in the topic of abiogenetic research, then shut up and leave the discussion to those of us who do, that is to say, if there be any such persons on this board.
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People treat you like shit because you are an obnoxious fuquestick.
Why don't you try to figure out what and who are on this site rather than coming off like a know it all fun guzzling gheytoy.
Oh, look. Another hour is up.
Bitch.
Slap.
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Slander! Oh, dear... is that actionable?
Twat.
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People treat you like shit because you are an obnoxious fuquestick.
Why don't you try to figure out what and who are on this site rather than coming off like a know it all fun guzzling gheytoy.
Oh, look. Another hour is up.
Bitch.
Slap.
And of course this must be true because you're all so reasonable and superior, and how dare I correct the arrogant and snooty, albeit, factually wrong atheists featured in my article.
*crickets chirping*
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**** off, junior.
Sincerely, go play in traffic or something.
This is a discussion board. On this board people post their own opinions and debate the merits and shortcomings of each. Sometimes we'll cut clips from other pages, as a means of providing REINFORCING EVIDENCE for our own points of view. We do NOT cut and paste whole chapters from books nobody else here has read, and therefore unable to address the subject material at any but the shallowest of levels. Nor do we post simply to lead the other our own blogs where, surprise surprise, resides MORE LARGE SCALE CUT AND PASTE POSTS of other people's ideas, with just enough of a smattering of our own original thought to keep the accusations of PLAGIARISM from flying around too freely.
In short widdle guy, you've displayed sufficient disregard for the basic guidelines of etiquette on a discussion board to piss of some folks who are under normal circumstances pretty fair-minded and easy going. You have insulted the intelligence of many on this board; folks with more life experience in their bunnions than your tender, hairless pink ass can even fathom. Essentially, you come into our home, shit on our rug, and expect us to then bow in unison to the superiority of your intelligence? I say again: **** you, junior.
(http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/13/139155/2489380-apple_pie.jpg)
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So...
You came to CC and posted something from your own blog, referring to a discussion on Yahoo, and you're butthurt because we didn't give you a Burger King crown and declare you to be the smartest person on the Internetz.
:whatever: :whatever: :whatever:
Get a girlfriend.
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Here's my opinion on the subject, and on our n00b chewtoy:
(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i317/Eupher6/225px-Bernard_Picart_-_The_Perfumer.jpg)
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**** off, junior.
Sincerely, go play in traffic or something.
This is a discussion board. On this board people post their own opinions and debate the merits and shortcomings of each. Sometimes we'll cut clips from other pages, as a means of providing REINFORCING EVIDENCE for our own points of view. We do NOT cut and paste whole chapters from books nobody else here has read, and therefore unable to address the subject material at any but the shallowest of levels. Nor do we post simply to lead the other our own blogs where, surprise surprise, resides MORE LARGE SCALE CUT AND PASTE POSTS of other people's ideas, with just enough of a smattering of our own original thought to keep the accusations of PLAGIARISM from flying around too freely.
In short widdle guy, you've displayed sufficient disregard for the basic guidelines of etiquette on a discussion board to piss of some folks who are under normal circumstances pretty fair-minded and easy going. You have insulted the intelligence of many on this board; folks with more life experience in their bunnions than your tender, hairless pink ass can even fathom. Essentially, you come into our home, shit on our rug, and expect us to then bow in unison to the superiority of your intelligence? I say again: **** you, junior.
(http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/13/139155/2489380-apple_pie.jpg)
You obviously haven't read the article as the vast majority of it is original thought and prose. Once again, your charge of plagiarism is a lie. You. Are. A. Liar.
Indeed, probably more than 90% of the article is original prose.
Your accusation is obviously false and disgusting.
You’re disgusting.
Further, I haven’t violated the etiquette of this or any other discussion board. That’s a flat lie too!
The only petty, small-mindedness on display around here is that being projected by you and your cohorts!
You're just a bunch of Leibowitzian know-nothings, vicious, pitchfork-wielding Jacobins attacking that which you obviously don‘t understand while you apparently can‘t stand those who do and might want to discuss the matter peacefully and respectfully.
I insulted you? Your intelligence? I violated you? I pissed you off? I suppose I put a gun to your head too.
I’m the twat, the juvenile? Some blather about bunions and life experience. . . .
You’re all a bunch of limp-wristed, womanish little pussies with your panties all in a twist over nothing trying to dictate terms to others.
I’m mostly a self-taught, ex-soldier with a two-year degree. The things I don’t know, let alone the things beyond my kin, stretch out before me in this universe and beyond! It took me nearly four months to research and write that piece, but I’m smart enough to know that I need not be intimidated or overly impressed by the rabidly secular or atheistic scientific community.
I earned a well-informed opinion on abiogenesis. Fact. Just like I earned the respect I’m normally accorded as one who honorably served this country. So you take your “fair-minded and easy going†and shove it up your ass, you cowardly little bitch--mouthing your hypocritical trash out of nowhere and about someone you don’t know from Adam behind a computer!
I posted my article in the science forum where it belongs for those persons on this board who are knowledgeable enough to readily follow it and perhaps, iron against iron, improve my understanding of things with new or alternative insights, and that’s the only reason I posted it.
Your petty insinuations regarding my supposed wont to impress . . . goes to the revelation of your character, not mine.
*crickets chirping*
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And of course this must be true because you're all so reasonable and superior, and how dare I correct the arrogant and snooty, albeit, factually wrong atheists featured in my article.
*crickets chirping*
You cry like a little bitch when people "don't treat you nice". You write paragraphs of the biggest words you can find to decry this abuse. From now on I am going to call you the "Religious Vesta" of sunglasses.
Go back to yahoo where the brain dead can suck your tiny cock and worship your drooling rambles.
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...Needless ***** blather snipped....
Further, I haven’t violated the etiquette of this or any other discussion board. That’s a flat lie too!
Yes, you have. Didn't even bother with an introductory thread (which is considered simple, basic courtesy).
The only petty, small-mindedness on display around here is that being projected by you and your cohorts!
Cohort? I'm one of Dutch's cohorts?!? Why yes! Yes, indeed! I am!
You're just a bunch of Leibowitzian know-nothings, vicious, pitchfork-wielding Jacobins attacking that which you obviously don‘t understand while you apparently can‘t stand those who do and might want to discuss the matter peacefully and respectfully.
Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? Tsk, tsk. You ought to be ashamed...
You’re all a bunch of limp-wristed, womanish little pussies with your panties all in a twist over nothing trying to dictate terms to others.
:rotf: :lmao: The only thing that's limp around here is your alleged dick.
I’m mostly a self-taught, ex-soldier with a two-year degree. The things I don’t know, let alone the things beyond my kin, stretch out before me in this universe and beyond! It took me nearly four months to research and write that piece, but I’m smart enough to know that I need not be intimidated or overly impressed by the rabidly secular or atheistic scientific community.
Oh! A semi-educated ***** is amongst us! (With a needle dick.)
....more inane bullshit snipped....
[/quote]
:cheersmate: I have to admit -- you're probably the most obtuse, retarded troll we've had around here in awhile.
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A two year degree!
Oh, ****, stand back boys... We gots us a associated degreed type here...
Hey, retard. I am retired military, finished a four year in three, did grad school and has "teh Masters", went to get my Ph.D, and am proud to be a Jacobite. That you went crying to an admin just shows your pissy little crybaby emo nuts haven't dropped
You are an idiot.
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Yes, you have. Didn't even bother with an introductory thread (which is considered simple, basic courtesy).
Cohort? I'm one of Dutch's cohorts?!? Why yes! Yes, indeed! I am!
Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? Tsk, tsk. You ought to be ashamed...
:rotf: :lmao: The only thing that's limp around here is your alleged dick.
Oh! A semi-educated ***** is amongst us! (With a needle dick.)
....more inane bullshit snipped....
:cheersmate: I have to admit -- you're probably the most obtuse, retarded troll we've had around here in awhile.
You've been promoted to cohort from minion? ****ing modern Army is going to Hell.
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You've been promoted to cohort from minion? ****ing modern Army is going to Hell.
Yeah, even your goat-smelling ass can't stop the inevitable! :lmao:
Bitchslapped for the left-handed compliment. I retired almost 19 years ago and you've still got the new-boy shine on your retiree ID card. :-)
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Yeah, even your goat-smelling ass can't stop the inevitable! :lmao:
Bitchslapped for the left-handed compliment. I retired almost 19 years ago and you've still got the new-boy shine on your retiree ID card. :-)
I still haven't got my retiree id card.
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I still haven't got my retiree id card.
So does that mean you've been AWOL for a coupla years now?
By the way, I like this:
(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i317/Eupher6/Easy_Coconut_Cream_Pie.jpg)
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I am way out on the fringes of society. The closest VA is 90 miles. Closest military facility is 150 miles.
I have doubts our idiot friend is military. Maybe a three year support MOS... maybe.
I believe he has me on ignore because I am mean so I doubt he will answer where what and when of his service.
Pie does sound good, though.
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I am way out on the fringes of society. The closest VA is 90 miles. Closest military facility is 150 miles.
I have doubts our idiot friend is military. Maybe a three year support MOS... maybe.
I believe he has me on ignore because I am mean so I doubt he will answer where what and when of his service.
Pie does sound good, though.
I'd like to quote you about the pie. It really is good. Crust is made from lard, you know.
Ain't nothing wrong with 3-year support MOSs. You know that. So don't even go there.
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BTW, Dutch, when I got my 2nd retiree ID card, I was living 80 miles away from the nearest military facility, which was in Millington, TN.
Since that time, the closest I've ever been to a military facility was 40+ miles. Today it's 151 miles. I've learned to live without the PX and commissary.
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BTW, Dutch, when I got my 2nd retiree ID card, I was living 80 miles away from the nearest military facility, which was in Millington, TN.
Since that time, the closest I've ever been to a military facility was 40+ miles. Today it's 151 miles. I've learned to live without the PX and commissary.
I haven't been on a military post since I retired. I did go to MEPS to swear in boy number one when he enlisted. I will do the same to boy number two when he enlists in Feb.
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I am way out on the fringes of society. The closest VA is 90 miles. Closest military facility is 150 miles.
I have doubts our idiot friend is military. Maybe a three year support MOS... maybe.
I believe he has me on ignore because I am mean so I doubt he will answer where what and when of his service.
Pie does sound good, though.
You are a pie-loving meanie? :-) :cheersmate:
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So...
You came to CC and posted something from your own blog, referring to a discussion on Yahoo, and you're butthurt because we didn't give you a Burger King crown and declare you to be the smartest person on the Internetz.
:whatever: :whatever: :whatever:
Get a girlfriend.
I posted the article in order to discuss abiogenesis. Do you have something substantive to say about the OP or not?
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I posted the article in order to discuss abiogenesis. Do you have something substantive to say about the OP or not?
Do you have anything substantive to say about it, that wasn't written by somebody else, shit sucker?
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I posted the article in order to discuss abiogenesis. Do you have something substantive to say about the OP or not?
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4FnuiibXzqc/TZDAE9iP7iI/AAAAAAAAAIM/Is9Vi-iWwXg/s320/wigga.jpg)
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Abiogenesis: The Unholy Grail of Atheism
By Michael David Rawlings
Years of experience have shown me that most atheists are more obtuse than a pile of bricks. They are either breezily unaware of their metaphysical biases or are unwilling to objectively separate themselves from them long enough to engage in a reasonably calm and courteous discussion about the tenets of their religion: namely, abiogenesis and evolution. While science's historical presupposition is not a metaphysical naturalism (or an ontological naturalism), most of today's practicing scientists insist that the origins and compositions of empirical phenomena must be inferred without any consideration given to the possibility of intelligent causation and design. The limits of scientific inquiry are thereby reconfigured as if they constituted the limits of reality itself, the more expansive potentialities of human consciousness be damned. In other words, if something cannot be readily quantified by science, it doesn't exist, regardless of the conclusions that any rational evaluation of the empirical data might recommend. Hence, should one reject what is nothing more than the guesswork of an arbitrarily imposed apriority, one is said to reject science itself, as if the fanatics of scientism owned the means of science.
Ultimately, the essence of this perversion is a Darwinian naturalism run amok: mere theory elevated to an inviolable absolute of cosmological proportions, which displaces not only the traditional conventions of methodological naturalism (or mechanistic naturalism), but is superimposed on the discipline of science itself. Never has so much been owed to so little.
I'm well acquainted with the hypotheses, the research and the findings in the field of abiogenesis. Also, I understand evolutionary theory, inside and out. I know the science, and I'm current. Indeed, I'm light years ahead of the vast majority of atheists who routinely sneer at theists as the former unwittingly expose their ignorance about the science and the tremendously complex problems that routinely defy their dogma. These are the sheeple blindly following an ideologically driven community of scientists, which, since Darwin, is determined to overthrow the unassailable. God stands and stays: science can neither prove nor disprove His existence; it's not equipped to venture beyond the temporal realm. But this does not mean that the empirical data do not testify to His existence. Science is merely the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it. And science in the hands of materialists is the stuff of fairytales.
I recently posed a question on Yahoo! Answers and prefaced it with a brief summary of the results derived from the Miller-Urey experiments of 1952 in the light of current science. Of course, the underlying hypothesis on which the experiments were originally based has been falsified, but we learned plenty. While I discussed a number of the problems associated with it, I neglected to emphatically state what that hypothesis was . . . just to see what sort of fish I might catch.
The following is the full version of the necessarily condensed one that appeared on Yahoo! Answers. . . .
A Yahoo! Answers resident, Lord Fluffy Tail, recently offered up the following quote in answer to a question about origins:
In 1951, the American Miller succeeded to form organic matter out of a mixture of ammonia (NH3), methane (CH4), hydrogen (H2) and water (H2O) by exposing this mixture to an electric current. During the experiments different organic mixtures were formed, among them amino acids and nucleic acids. These acids are essential for the building of proteins and chromosomes. —ORACLE ThinkQuest
Miller-Urey has been falsified for years; that is to say, the experiments' parameters and conditions were shown to be incongruent and the results, negative. The reasons for this are legion and very complex, yet textbooks continue to relate these experiments with the same sort of blurb in the above as if they were still something more than an historical footnote. An avalanche of innumerable Internet sites—most of them put up by atheistic, know-nothing layman—continue to tout them as being something that still matters along with theory that is years, even decades, behind current science.
For example, it doesn't appear that the author of Lord Fluffy Tail's source knows that the atmosphere of the primeval world was more oxygen-rich even earlier than he supposes and was generally more oxidizing than reducing—necessary for life, but not friendly to the formation of amino acids. In other words, the actual conditions were considerably more hostile to the prospects of abiogenesis than those of the Miller-Urey experiments. The primordial soup keeps getting driven deeper and deeper into the ocean where, once again, another battery of problematic conditions confound the imbecilic notions of chemical evolutionists.
Also, the author of this source writes that the "origin of life out of lifeless matter is called biogenesis." Uh . . . no. But that's probably just a typo. Biogenesis pertains to the Pasteurian theory that omne vivum ex vivo, i.e., all life is from life. The idea that life may arise from non-living matter goes by the name of spontaneous generation or, in accordance with contemporary theory, abiogenesis.
But the most startling bit of information divulged by this author—which is not a typo, but a UFO—consists of the claim that the Miller-Urey experiments produced nucleic acids.
What? Stop the presses! News flash!
Trust me. They did not produce nucleic acids or anything else like them.1
What the published Miller-Urey experiments did produce were small concentrations of at least 5 amino acids and the molecular constituents of others. The dominant material produced by the experiments was an insoluble carcinogenic mixture of tar—large compounds of toxic mellanoids, a common end product in organic reactions. However, it was recently discovered that the published experiments actually produced 14 amino acids (6 of the 20 fundamentals of life) and 5 amines in various concentrations. In 1952, the technology needed to detect the even smaller trace amounts of prebiotic material was not available. But the unpublished Miller-Urey experiments conducted in that same year show that a modified version of Miller's original apparatus, which increased air flow with a tapering glass aspirator, produced 22 amino acids (still only 6 of the fundamentals) and the same 5 amines.2
The significance of the recently uncovered results produced by the altered apparatus does not go to the synthesis of proteins as a result of the inherent chemical properties of their molecular precursors within atmospheric conditions that entail a more vaporous, volcanic-gas-like mixture of steam. It goes to the more impressive results that are derived under these simulated conditions coupled with the potentialities of the RNA-world hypothesis and its obligatory molecular precursors. Hence, Senior Correspondent Stephen K Ritter misses the target when he assumes that the team of researchers who analyzed the results of the unpublished experiments "speculate that amino acids formed in volcanic island systems could have been polymerized by carbonyl sulfide—volcanic gas—to form peptides leading to proteins" (Stephen K. Ritter; Oct. 16, 2008; "Origin-of-Life Chemistry Revisited"; Chemical and Engineering News-Prebiotic Chemistry).
They could not have sensibly speculated any such thing, as it is well known that amino acids do not form lasting peptide bonds (much less proteins) under any natural conditions outside living organisms. And this is true under laboratory conditions as well, whether their mixtures be racemic, as is always the case in nature on Earth, or even if they be artificially homochiral.
The original apparatus of the published experiments simulated a strictly reducing atmosphere consisting of hydrogen, methane, ammonia and water, but as Ritter in the same article observes "scientists who have analyzed Miller's experiments doubt that the highly reducing reaction conditions he used existed on early Earth"; however, the apparatus equipped with the aspirating mechanism simulated the more "intense conditions of a lightning-laced volcanic eruption." Hence, the researchers aver that "[t]he volcanic apparatus experiment suggests that, even if the overall atmosphere was not reducing, localized prebiotic synthesis could have been effective". Precisely! But what the researchers mean by the word "effective" goes to the formation of amino acids only, and only within the domains of semi-reducing, carbonyl-sulfide-producing atmospheres of "volcanic island systems", as the more generally oxidizing atmosphere beyond would prevent their formation.
The problem with this scenario is that under natural conditions the newly created precursors could not have stayed inside these atmospheric enclaves for long, for unlike the artificial conditions calculatedly arranged within the apparatuses of laboratories, which artificially remove biotic materials from the synthesizing medium once they are formed, nature would have continued to bombard them and thusly would have destroyed them with the very same source of energy it used to create them. Worse, the vastly more copious abiotic materials that would have also been produced would have continued to react with the racemic mixtures of the biotic materials within the synthesizing medium and would have readily incorporated the latter into compounds that would have been utterly useless for life.
Miller's experiment did produce . . . amino acids, but only by continuously circulating the reaction mixture and isolating products as they were formed. The quantities were still tiny and not in the same proportions as found in nature.
One of the causes of the low yield has been identified by [Edward] Peltzer who worked with Miller. As the amino acids were formed they reacted with reducing sugars . . . forming a brown tar around Miller's apparatus. Ultimately, Miller was producing large compounds called mellanoids, with amino acids as an intermediate product. —J. H. John Peet (Oct. 2005), "The Miller-Urey Experiment", Truth in Science
But the real problem for the synthesis of amino acids in a reducing atmosphere is that in spite of the latter's abundance of free electrons, it would not have provided an ozone layer to protect the amino acids it produced. If the electrical energy that induced their synthesis in one instant did not reduce them to their basic elements or induce harmful reactions in the next, the entire range of UV light's wavelengths would have slapped them silly. And biologically useful organic compounds do not form in oxidizing atmospheres.
Perplexing.
That is why the out-gassing calculations based on chondritic models of planetary formation, which support a reducing atmosphere for the primordial world, do not solve the initial problem of an abiogenic account of life's origins.3 Indeed, chondritic models, in spite of their apparent credibility and that of their inherent calculations, do not explain away the equally compelling and essentially incontrovertible geological evidence that supports an early oxidizing atmosphere.
Perplexing.
It would appear that the problem of resolving the nature of the primordial world's atmosphere requires some sort of synthesis of the two possibilities. But even if the constituents of abiogenesis were profitably given over to the thralls of a semi-reducing atmosphere all those many years ago, we see no evidence of that today. The geological record should contain an overflowing abundance of nitrogen-rich mineral deposits. It doesn't.
Still, despite the paltry concentrations of organic materials produced relative to the energy expended, the best bet for abiogenesis would have been a semi-reducing atmosphere akin to the model simulated by the altered apparatus in the unpublished experiments. At least the organic materials produced in those were slightly more voluminous and diverse. Also, it seems reasonable to assume that the dynamics of the altered atmospheric model would have moved the materials away from the lingering dangers inside the synthesizing medium, past the threats beyond, and into the primordial soup of the oceans below more rapidly.
It's all pie-in-the-sky nonsense, of course, but as long as we're already suspending disbelief far above any reasonable altitude, we might as well go along with the tale forever: never mind the threats beyond the synthesizing medium, never mind the ubiquitous cross-reaction contaminants, never mind that water pushes peptidyl bonding backward, not forward, would disperse the constituents of proteins and condemn most of them to the whims of a churning and lonely isolation, and never mind most of all that the total amount of organic compounds on Earth today is less than a fraction of the lofty concentrations that would be reasonably favorable for the inscrutable processes of abiogenesis. After all, the other precursors of life, which improbably braved and overcame the same obstacles, have need of their prebiotic cousins. The long and arduous journey toward self-awareness must go on by way of an even more implausible series of elaborately complex and fortuitous accidents.
The Miller-Urey experiments showed that under the right conditions nature might be able to build some of life's amino acids; later discoveries in space and here on Earth confirmed that. But that in and of itself was not the rhyme or the reason of the experiments' underlying hypothesis, and beyond that, what have these experiments shown us? Well, not much about that which was expected, but plenty more about that which is obvious.
The natural occurrence of amino acids is light years away from life, and there exists no coherent or demonstrable explanation for how they aggregated and combined by mere chance in the exact sequences we find in life. And even if such a thing were possible, we'd still not be there.
How did the many hundreds of thousands of mindless proteins and other molecular components, which can only function within a very narrow range of conditions, aggregate and combine in the exact sequences required to build the thousands of intricately complex and interdependent pieces of machinery minimally required by a viable, functioning cell? The process could not have been accumulative, but had to have been instantaneously synchronous for obvious reasons. All these things evince a certain set of preconditions and necessities which stupid materialist layman will never understand and agenda-driven scientists will never acknowledge.
(As for those still operating under the sleight-of-hand illusion that the refutation of Behe's flagellum argument overthrows the classic construct of irreducible complexity, see "Labsci and I Discuss Evolution" and "The Debate with Labsci Continues. . . .".)
If one allows that an intelligent agent was required to create the simplest form of life, one opens the door to a world where the regnant theory for the development of life might unravel. If an intelligent agent did it once, what would prevent him from creating other and even more complex forms of life again and again?
We now know that life arose much earlier than was ever thought possible, and the ramifications of this are devastating for abiogenesis, which just keeps running into wall after wall after wall. And the more apparent the complexity of the genome and the infrastructural machinery and processes of the cell becomes, the denser the walls become.
We really don't have a clue about how to explain any of this without considering the necessity of a preexistent intelligence, which is precisely why more and more evolutionists are hesitantly going where they don't want to go. . . . While it still would not resolve the matter of origins, at the very least the evidence points to intelligent extraterrestrials. And that is precisely the point ID scientists have been making for years.
Atheism is poisoning science. Intellectual fascists are arbitrarily asserting a metaphysical naturalism against the evidence.
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The Unbearable Badness of Ayn Rand
October 19, 2012 By Vic Sizemore
My good friend Marcelo has decided to read Ayn Rand’s fiction, to “see what all the hype is about.â€
He has started with Fountainhead, the story of Howard Roark, the architect who heroically refuses to sacrifice his individual principles to the collective, no matter how they treat him. Marcelo is an artist, and he likes Roark’s pluck, his faith in his own artistic vision. Plus, Rand speaks with such conviction, it’s hard to resist.
As many young people do—in my experience, mostly young men—I once went on a Rand bender: Atlas Shrugged, We the Living, The Romantic Manifesto. I devoured the book by her disciple Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.
She starts with existence exists, which is her axiomatic principle, the starting point from which she builds her belief system. From there she is quick to deny even the possibility of spiritual reality. Eventually she ends in a place where selfishness is a high virtue, altruism a despicable vice, and capitalism the only sane economic system.
Her philosophy is harshly categorical, and corresponds to the developmental stage of black/white either/or thinking of youth. No wonder the people I run across who take her philosophy seriously are always young, at least in their thinking.
As unsavory as these aspects of her philosophy might be, that isn’t what makes her writing bad. She herself says, “The fact that one agrees or disagrees with an artist’s philosophy is irrelevant to an esthetic appraisal of his work qua art.†With this I agree.
In the intro to Mark Musa’s The Portable Dante we are told that the great poet intended for his writing to work on four levels: the literal, which is the observation of what actually happens; the allegorical, which gets at underlying theological or philosophical meaning (for example Virgil as the embodiment of human reason); the moral or didactic, for teaching the reader; and finally the anagogical, which opens spiritual or mystical truths.
The fact that Dante consciously designed his poetry to work on all these levels is not what brings readers back to him. The literal level is where the thrill of recognition grabs you.
Dante describes souls writhing in the seventh circle of hell, plagued by fire from above and burning sand from beneath: “They were in fact, like a dog in summertime / busy, now with his paw, now with his snout, / tormented by the fleas and flies that bite him.â€
I am transported to my childhood in West Virginia, to the dirt road that ran between the church parsonage where I lived and the garbage truck garage. In the road is a mangy black dog with fur clumped into flat cakes, dropping to scratch, spinning to bite at fleas.
There’s the grotesque description of one who sowed schism in life, ripped bodily in half, “from his chin to where we fart…. Between his legs his guts spilled out, with the heart / and other vital parts, and the dirty sack / that turns to shit whatever the mouth gulps down.â€
I remember a deer hanging from a neighbor’s backyard swing set, split open, its bloody innards spilled onto a blue tarp. Grotesque, even horrifying.
Dante is excellent on multiple levels, yet he begins where all good writing—all good art—must: true to the literal, so carefully observed, that you cannot help but trust it.
Rand’s fiction sucks for the same reason so much Christian fiction sucks. It is endlessly didactic, so busy preaching it forgets to pay close attention to life. Her characters deliver lectures. You don’t have to look closely to see they are puppets with Rand’s own lips moving eerily under the mask, her angry eyes staring out through holes in the rubber face. The bad guys in her books are straw men called collectivism, and altruism and they speak only in bromides and Rand gleefully bats them down.
Is it unfair to hold her to such a high standard as Dante? How about her contemporary Flannery O’Connor, who also saw her own writing as working on all four levels? Again Rand comes up short, and not simply because she’s not as good a writer—which she surely is not—but because her own aesthetic draws up short. She is writing bad fiction by design.
In her Romantic Manifesto Rand says, “The greater the work of art, the more profoundly universal its theme.†So far so good. She writes, “Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments.†What exactly does that mean?
Rand believes the work should set forth the author’s vision of an ideal world, not deal with the world as it is. Art, according to Rand should deal only with what is “important,†which sounds fine, but the problem is that when, as Rand consciously does, the artist lops away parts of human existence she believes to be unimportant, we get substandard art.
The artist knows what she is out to prove and sets out to do it. No discovery for the writer, then none for the reader. Rand never lets the story itself say anything meaningful. You want to tell her to shut up already and tell the story. Or find a form more suited for argumentation, like an essay.
We come to art to find something important, no doubt. But it is in careful attention to the literal, physical details—quotidian, often smelly and unpleasant, even disgusting and scary—that we find the important thing for which the work is aiming. The artist is as surprised as everyone else to find the discovery hidden in the muck of life.
It is also in this close attention to the literal that paradoxically we glimpse the transcendent.
The lotus flower floats on the surface of the water, blooms in the glorious sunlight and air; but its roots are down deep underwater, in the slime of rotting leaves. It cannot be otherwise
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(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i317/Eupher6/Forums/countbasie.jpg)
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(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i317/Eupher6/home-large-gumby_zpsfd625c72.png)
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[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KBiXurSxg8[/youtube]
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(http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/podcast_papvp3_2th.jpg)
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I think I found Mr. Rawlings:
(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i317/Eupher6/piercings.jpg)
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The Unbearable Badness of Ayn Rand
October 19, 2012 By Vic Sizemore
My good friend Marcelo has decided to read Ayn Rand’s fiction, to “see what all the hype is about.â€
He has started with Fountainhead, the story of Howard Roark, the architect who heroically refuses to sacrifice his individual principles to the collective, no matter how they treat him. Marcelo is an artist, and he likes Roark’s pluck, his faith in his own artistic vision. Plus, Rand speaks with such conviction, it’s hard to resist.
As many young people do—in my experience, mostly young men—I once went on a Rand bender: Atlas Shrugged, We the Living, The Romantic Manifesto. I devoured the book by her disciple Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.
She starts with existence exists, which is her axiomatic principle, the starting point from which she builds her belief system. From there she is quick to deny even the possibility of spiritual reality. Eventually she ends in a place where selfishness is a high virtue, altruism a despicable vice, and capitalism the only sane economic system.
Her philosophy is harshly categorical, and corresponds to the developmental stage of black/white either/or thinking of youth. No wonder the people I run across who take her philosophy seriously are always young, at least in their thinking.
As unsavory as these aspects of her philosophy might be, that isn’t what makes her writing bad. She herself says, “The fact that one agrees or disagrees with an artist’s philosophy is irrelevant to an esthetic appraisal of his work qua art.†With this I agree.
In the intro to Mark Musa’s The Portable Dante we are told that the great poet intended for his writing to work on four levels: the literal, which is the observation of what actually happens; the allegorical, which gets at underlying theological or philosophical meaning (for example Virgil as the embodiment of human reason); the moral or didactic, for teaching the reader; and finally the anagogical, which opens spiritual or mystical truths.
The fact that Dante consciously designed his poetry to work on all these levels is not what brings readers back to him. The literal level is where the thrill of recognition grabs you.
Dante describes souls writhing in the seventh circle of hell, plagued by fire from above and burning sand from beneath: “They were in fact, like a dog in summertime / busy, now with his paw, now with his snout, / tormented by the fleas and flies that bite him.â€
I am transported to my childhood in West Virginia, to the dirt road that ran between the church parsonage where I lived and the garbage truck garage. In the road is a mangy black dog with fur clumped into flat cakes, dropping to scratch, spinning to bite at fleas.
There’s the grotesque description of one who sowed schism in life, ripped bodily in half, “from his chin to where we fart…. Between his legs his guts spilled out, with the heart / and other vital parts, and the dirty sack / that turns to shit whatever the mouth gulps down.â€
I remember a deer hanging from a neighbor’s backyard swing set, split open, its bloody innards spilled onto a blue tarp. Grotesque, even horrifying.
Dante is excellent on multiple levels, yet he begins where all good writing—all good art—must: true to the literal, so carefully observed, that you cannot help but trust it.
Rand’s fiction sucks for the same reason so much Christian fiction sucks. It is endlessly didactic, so busy preaching it forgets to pay close attention to life. Her characters deliver lectures. You don’t have to look closely to see they are puppets with Rand’s own lips moving eerily under the mask, her angry eyes staring out through holes in the rubber face. The bad guys in her books are straw men called collectivism, and altruism and they speak only in bromides and Rand gleefully bats them down.
Is it unfair to hold her to such a high standard as Dante? How about her contemporary Flannery O’Connor, who also saw her own writing as working on all four levels? Again Rand comes up short, and not simply because she’s not as good a writer—which she surely is not—but because her own aesthetic draws up short. She is writing bad fiction by design.
In her Romantic Manifesto Rand says, “The greater the work of art, the more profoundly universal its theme.†So far so good. She writes, “Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments.†What exactly does that mean?
Rand believes the work should set forth the author’s vision of an ideal world, not deal with the world as it is. Art, according to Rand should deal only with what is “important,†which sounds fine, but the problem is that when, as Rand consciously does, the artist lops away parts of human existence she believes to be unimportant, we get substandard art.
The artist knows what she is out to prove and sets out to do it. No discovery for the writer, then none for the reader. Rand never lets the story itself say anything meaningful. You want to tell her to shut up already and tell the story. Or find a form more suited for argumentation, like an essay.
We come to art to find something important, no doubt. But it is in careful attention to the literal, physical details—quotidian, often smelly and unpleasant, even disgusting and scary—that we find the important thing for which the work is aiming. The artist is as surprised as everyone else to find the discovery hidden in the muck of life.
It is also in this close attention to the literal that paradoxically we glimpse the transcendent.
The lotus flower floats on the surface of the water, blooms in the glorious sunlight and air; but its roots are down deep underwater, in the slime of rotting leaves. It cannot be otherwise
Good eye.
http://michaeldavidrawlings1.blogspot.com/2013/01/objectivist-cult-member-says.html
Objectivist Cult Member Says Composition Not Relevant to Science
Source: Associated Press
by Michael David Rawlings
01/15/2013
You-Just-Can’t-Make-This-Stuff-Up World Journal 　
In response to a learned missive regarding the technical application of the philosophical terms for measurement and composition to mathematics and modern science, Objectivist cult member Robert "Pseudo-Science" Bumbalough yesterday averred that the composition of empirical phenomena was not relevant to the scientific concerns of identity. “It just doesn’t matter,†he said with a slur and the look of a crazed animal in his eyes. “Chemistry? Pfft. Who needs it?â€
Bumbalough is a follower of the self-styled philosophy of reason known as Objectivism, so-named by its originator Ayn Rand, the controversial novelist and Russian émigré of the Twentieth Century who died of heart failure in 1982.
Rand is most notable for her rather boorishly didactic novels Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for her unapologetic defense of ethical egoism and laissez-faire capitalism.
Reports have it that Rand developed her sophomoric theory of concepts, the centerpiece of Objectivism’s mysticism, while all hopped up on amphetamines and the charm of an endless chain of nicotine delivery devices.
“After the sixth day she was downing handfuls of Dexedrine at a time every two hours with shots of Vodka like they were Gummy Bears,†an anonymous insider revealed.
“We had to board up all the windows on account of the fact that we almost lost her when she smashed through one. I just managed to snatch her by her ankles on her way out. We’re talkin’ forty stories. On top of that, by the eleventh day she dispensed with the Pall Malls altogether. When we weren’t repairing the holes in the walls of her apartment from all the bouncing around, we were lining up eight balls of pure N.â€
Another source who was present at the time told this report, “The needles kept breaking off in her arms due to the eradicate and uncontrollable spasms that racked her entire body from all the juice. So enraged was she with our incompetence that she literally busted the pulsing vein in the middle of her forehead that had grown to the size of a small lemon. Blood and spittle sprayed everywhere as she screamed at the top of her lungs, ‘Look here, you worthless toads, existence exists! Now go nick a roll of duct tape from the corner market and just lash me down to the chair!’.â€
Bumbalough just recently came to the public’s attention for the first time. Readers might recall the infamous Heisenberg Incident in which he created a short-lived sensation in the science community when he claimed that the paradoxical position-momentum dichotomy voided the seemingly inescapable principle of causality.
“There’s no friggin’ cause!†Bumbalough said in a press release. “It just happens, and I can prove it.†While the science community eagerly awaited Bumbalough’s paper it was leaked by a member of his entourage that he had been under the influence of LSD for months on end. Subsequent probes revealed that Bumbalough wasn’t even a scientist, but a fanatical follower of Ayn Rand with a history of mental illness.
“Naturally, we were all very excited by the reports of a major breakthrough, only to learn shortly thereafter that Bumbalough was just another Objectivist loon,†lamented Dr. Stenson of the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics. “Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family.â€
This reporter has learned that Bumbalough has an extensive history of making outlandish scientific claims, including the claim that science not only tells us all we need to know about empirical phenomena, but about the absolute extent of existence itself. “God doesn’t exist,†Bumbalough is fond of saying, “and science proves it.â€
“You need to understand what’s going on here,†explains Professor Blouer, head of the Department of Philosophy and Comparative Sociological Studies at Berkeley. “Objectivists don’t think like normal human beings. They regurgitate formulaic phrases from Rand’s works and from those of Objectivism’s leading apologists by rote. It [Objectivism] is not a rational system of thought in the tradition of the self-evident, classic laws of logic and the operational aspects of identity’s comprehensive expression. It’s just an incoherent amalgamation of meaningless blather cobbled together around a few of the more obvious insights about existence . . . so nothing else really follows.â€
Lawrence Nielson of Cult Watch is more blunt: “They’re slogan spouters. Take for instance Peikoff’s asseveration that a creator would need a creator and that identity is the finite thing identified or some such rubbish. For normal people these statements are on the very face of them nonsensical, but not for the Objectivist true believer.†Peikoff is Ayn Rand’s formal “intellectual†heir. Neilson continues, “Any attempt to point out the problems . . . [of their reasoning] to them is likely to be meant with more slogans, the most common of these being, ‘You’re denying the axiom of existence!’ or ‘Theory of concepts!’. It would be tragic if it weren’t so hilarious.â€
Former cult member Kevin Saunders, deprogrammed by Cult Watch, explains:
You’re programmed to believe that certain ideas about realty, which are obvious to anyone with an IQ above that of a small rash, are profound and unique to Objectivism. That’s the hook. After that, you’re encouraged to repeat the rest of Objectivism’s tripe over and over again until it all melds together into one, big, fat, sugar-coated cookie in your brain, so much so that the thoroughly brainwashed acolyte believes that the actual universals themselves are being denied by Objectivism’s detractors.
“It’s what we call a self-defense mechanism downed without the milk,†Nielson interjects.
Kevin takes a deep breath. A shimmer of tears threatens to spill over. “I can’t believe I fell for it,†he sniffs. “I mean . . . I’m not a stupid man.†I wave off the camera. “I was in a bad place, ya know? My wife had left me, and the kids hated me, especially the eldest. Even my dog turned on me. There was so much stress in my life . . . and Objectivism promised a way out. Next thing I know, I’m smoking’ five packs of coffin nails a day and my shelves are lined with hundreds of dollars of books and pamphlets filled with rank stupidity.â€
"Our motto around here is Don’t read Objectivism; read real philosophy,†Nielson concludes.
After leaving several messages on Bumbalough’s voice mail for his side of things over this latest meltdown, I learned that he had been admitted to Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital of New York for treatment. “Mr. Bumbalough is being treated for substance abuse and significant emotional problems,†a hospital spokesman informed me. However, he was able to speak with me briefly from his room over the phone before he had to be straight-jacketed and dragged off for several hours of shock therapy.
Rawlings: “It’s my understanding that you hold to the position that the chemical composition of things is not relevant to identity in science.â€
Bumbalough: “That’s right.â€
Rawlings: “Could you explain that for us?â€
Bumbalough: “It’s self-evident.â€
Rawlings: “How’s that?â€
Bumbalough: “That’s right.â€
Rawlings: “What’s right?â€
Bumbalough: “That’s right.â€
Rawlings: “Uh . . . okay. Aren’t extension and composition intertwined?â€
Bumbalough: “That’s right.â€
Rawlings: “But, Bumbalough, seriously. . . . Uh . . .what?â€
Bumbalough: “Look, buddy, I got spiders crawlin’ up my legs here, and you’re askin’ me about composition?â€
Rawlings: “Well . . .â€
Bumbalough: “Look. It’s real simple. Ya got an orange. See? Ya got an apple. See? They’re both spherical in shape. See? That’s their extension, buddy. You can measure that. See? You can put a friggin’ number on that.â€
Rawlings: “Okay.â€
Bumbalough: “Okay. So one’s orange, and the other’s red . . . or maybe the other’s green. Ya like green apples? It that it? Fine. The other’s green. Ya happy now? Look here, ya Jew Bastard, I don’t like green apples. See? If ya want green apples, buy ’em yourself. I don’t want no friggin’ green apples! Got that?â€
Rawlings: “That’s fine.â€
Bumbalough: “You’re damn right that’s fine! No green apples. The friggin’ apple is red. Ya got that? Red!â€
Rawlings: “Okay. It’s red.â€
Bumbalough: “You’re damn right it’s red!â€
Rawlings: “Okay. So we’ve got an orange and a red apple?â€
Bumbalough: “That’s right.â€
Rawlings: “And they’re both spherical in shape?â€
Bumbalough: “Did I stutter? . . . Grusunkahlahdoodoo!â€
Rawlings: “Uh . . . grusunkahlahdoodoo?â€
Bumbalough: “Damn skippy! That’s you’re friggin’ identity right there! Orange. Red. Spherical. Identity! . . . Duhsmorkinjoo!â€
Rawlings: “And the chemical composition?â€
Bumbalough: “Spiders!â€
Rawlings: “Focus, Bumbalough.â€
Bumbalough: “Okay. Ya want quality? Huh? Is that what ya want, ya analytic-synthetic dichotomy, Jew bastard? I’ll give ya some quality. Orange. Red. That’s you’re friggin’ quality right there!â€
Rawlings: “No. Bumbalough. I’m asking about their inherent chemical properties . . .â€
Bumbalough: “What friggin’ difference does it make? Orange. Red. Color. That’s you’re friggin’ quality right there! Spherical. That’s you’re friggin’ quantity right there! Put a number on it!â€
Rawlings: “But why orange or red or spherical?â€
Bumbalough: “Are ya friggin’ deaf? Who cares? Do ya eat the why? Huh? Tell me that. Do ya eat the friggin’ why?â€
Rawlings: “Well, actually, yes . . .â€
Bumbalough: “Identity!â€
Rawlings: “. . . I do.â€
Bumbalough: “Finite!â€
Rawlings: “So the chemical properties don’t matter at . . .â€
Bumbalough: “It is written by the hand of the goddess!â€
Rawlings: “Uh . . . What?â€
Bumbalough: “Funklestink!â€
Rawlings: “Bumba . . .â€
Bumbalough: “Slinkalooloo! Hahnoonahyuhkahlala!â€
Rawlings: “Bumba . . .â€
Bumabalough: “Existence exists! Grusunkahlahdoodoo! You’re denying the axioms! A plague on you and all of your house! It is written! Page 82! The goddess speaks!â€
Rawlings: “Steve, call the hospital on the other line.â€
Bumbalough: “Friggin’ scientists think they know everything! Identity! Quantity I tell you! It is written! The goddess be praised! Finite! I got blisters on my fingers! Goo goo g'joob! Theory of concepts! Spiders! Big honkin’ spiders! Those friggin’ analytic-synthetic dichotomy, Jew bastards! . . .â€
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Now, I don't care who you are. That's funny.
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Now, I don't care who you are. That's funny.
I agree.
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ti9NgDqYxo[/youtube]
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Contrary to what those who choose to persecute or lie about us wish to believe, Wicca is a very peaceful, harmonious and balanced way of life which promotes oneness with the divine and all which exists.
Wicca is a deep appreciation and awe in watching the sunrise or sunset, the forest in the light of a glowing moon, a meadow enchanted by the first light of day. It is the morning dew on the petals of a beautiful flower, the gentle caress of a warm summer breeze upon your skin, or the warmth of the summer sun on your face. Wicca is the fall of colorful autumn leaves, and the softness of winter snow. It is light, and shadow and all that lies in between. It is the song of the birds and other creatures of the wild. It is being in the presence of Mother Earths nature and being humbled in reverence. When we are in the temple of the Lord and Lady, we are not prone to the arrogance of human technology as they touch our souls. To be a Witch is to be a healer, a teacher, a seeker, a giver, and a protector of all things. If this path is yours, may you walk it with honor, light and integrity.
Wicca is a belief system and way of life based upon the reconstruction of pre-Christian traditions originating in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. While much of the information of how our ancestors lived, worshiped and believed has been lost due to the efforts of the medieval church to wipe our existence from history, we try to reconstruct those beliefs to the best of our ability with the information that is available.
Thanks to archaeological discoveries, we now have basis to believe that the origins of our belief system can be traced even further back to the Paleolithic peoples who worshipped a Hunter God and a Fertility Goddess. With the discovery of these cave paintings, estimated to be around 30,000 years old, depicting a man with the head of a stag, and a pregnant woman standing in a circle with eleven other people, it can reasonably be assumed that Witchcraft is one of the oldest belief systems known in the world toady. These archetypes are clearly recognized by Wiccan as our view of the Goddess and God aspect of the supreme creative force and predate Christianity by roughly 28,000 years making it a mere toddler in the spectrum of time as we know it.
Witchcraft in ancient history was known as "The Craft of the Wise" because most who followed the path were in tune with the forces of nature, had a knowledge of Herbs and medicines, gave council and were valuable parts of the village and community as Shamanic healers and leaders. They understood that mankind is not superior to nature, the earth and its creatures but instead we are simply one of the many parts, both seen and unseen that combine to make the whole. As Chief Seattle said; "We do not own the earth, we are part of it." These wise people understood that what we take or use, we must return in kind to maintain balance and equilibrium. Clearly, modern man with all his applied learning and technology has forgotten this. Subsequently, we currently face ecological disaster and eventual extinction because of our hunger for power and a few pieces of gold.
For the past several hundred years, the image of the Witch has been mistakenly associated with evil, heathenism, and unrighteousness. In my humble opinion, these misconceptions have their origin in a couple of different places.
To begin, the medieval church of the 15th through 18th centuries created these myths to convert the followers of the old nature based religions to the churches way of thinking. By making the Witch into a diabolical character and turning the old religious deities into devils and demons, the missionaries were able to attach fear to these beliefs which aided in the conversion process. Secondly, as medical science began to surface, the men who were engaged in these initial studies had a very poor understanding of female physiology, especially in the area of a women's monthly cycles. The unknowns in this area played very well with the early churches agenda lending credence to the Witch Hunters claims and authority. The fledgling medical professions also stood to benefit greatly from this because it took the power of the women healers away giving it to the male physicians transferring the respect and power to them.
Unfortunately these misinformed fears and superstitions have carried forward through the centuries and remain to this day. This is why many who follow these nature oriented beliefs have adopted the name of Wicca over its true name of Witchcraft to escape the persecution, harassment and misinformation associated with the name of Witchcraft and Witch not to mention the bad publicity the press and Hollywood has given us simply to generate a profit.
What Witchcraft is:
Witchcraft is a spiritual system that fosters the free thought and will of the individual, encourages learning and an understanding of the earth and nature thereby affirming the divinity in all living things. Most importantly however, it teaches responsibility. We accept responsibility for our actions and deeds as clearly a result of the choices we make. We do not blame an exterior entity or being for our shortcomings, weaknesses or mistakes. If we mess up or do something that brings harm to another, we have no one but ourselves to blame and we must face the consequences resulting from those actions. No ifs, ands or buts and no whining...
We acknowledge the cycles of nature, the lunar phases and the seasons to celebrate our spirituality and to worship the divine. It is a belief system that allows the Witch to work with, not in supplication to deities with the intent of living in harmony and achieving balance with all things.
The spells that we do involve healing, love, harmony, wisdom and creativity. The potions that we stir might be a headache remedy, a cold tonic, or an herbal flea bath for our pets. We strive to gain knowledge of and use the natural remedies placed on this earth by the divine for our benefit instead of using synthetic drugs unless absolutely necessary.
Wiccan believe that the spirit of the One, Goddess and God exist in all things. In the trees, rain, flowers, the sea, in each other and all of natures creatures. This means that we must treat "all things" of the Earth as aspects of the divine. We attempt to honor and respect life in all its many manifestations both seen and unseen.
Wiccan learn from and revere the gift of nature from divine creation by celebrating the cycles of the sun, moon and seasons. We search within ourselves for the cycles that correspond to those of the natural world and try to live in harmony with the movement of this universal energy. Our teachers are the trees, rivers, lakes, meadows, mountains and animals as well as others who have walked this path before us. This belief creates a reverence and respect for the environment, and all life upon the Earth.
We also revere the spirits of the elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water which combine to manifest all creation. From these four elements we obtain insight to the rhythms of nature and understand they are also the rhythms of our own lives.
Because Witches have been persecuted for so many centuries, we believe in religious freedom first! We do not look at our path as the only way to achieve spirituality, but as one path among many to the same end. We are not a missionary religion out to convert new members to think the same as we do. We are willing to share our experience and knowledge with those who seek our wisdom and perspective however. We believe that anyone who is meant for this path will find it through their own search as the Goddess speaks to each of us in her time and way. Wiccan practice tolerance and acceptance toward all other religions as long as those faiths do not persecute others or violate the tenant of "Harm None."
What Witchcraft is not:
More information about Witchcraft is available in the Frequently Asked Questions section, but in the interim, here are the main points.
Witchcraft or Wicca is not a cult. We do not proclaim ourselves to be spokespersons for the divine or try to get others to follow us as their leaders.
We do not worship Satan or consort with Demons. Satan is a Christian creation and they can keep him. We do not need a paranoid creation of supreme evil and eternal damnation to scare us into doing the right thing and helping others. We choose to do the right thing and love our brothers and sisters because it IS the right thing and it feels good to do it. I suppose it is a maturity thing.
We do not sacrifice animals or humans because that would violate our basic tenant of "Harm None." Anyone who does and claims to be a Wiccan or a Witch is lying.
We have no need to steal or control the life force of another to achieve mystical or supernatural powers. We draw our energy from within, our personal relationship with the divine and nature.
We do not use the forces of nature or the universe to hex or cast spells on others. Again, "Harm None" is the whole of the law.
Witches have a very strict belief in the Law of Three which states that whatever we send out into our world shall return to us three fold either good or bane. With this in mind, a "True Witch" would hesitate in doing magick to harm or manipulate another because that boomerang we throw will eventually come back to us much larger and harder then when we threw it.
This is not to say that Witches are perfect, we are human too just like everyone else and make mistakes and errors in judgment. Just as there are parents who love and nurture their children, there are parents who abuse their children. As there are many who devote their lives to giving and helping mankind, likewise there are those who devote their lives to taking advantage of and using people for their own gain. Unfortunately the same flaws in human nature applies to witches too.
Most of us continually strive to consider all potential outcomes of our thoughts and actions pausing to seriously consider the consequences before undertaking a ritual, spell or rite that could go astray. It is when we follow the path with the love of the Goddess in our hearts and adhere to the basic tenant of the Reed that our works are beneficial and we achieve harmony and balance with all things.
The heart of Wicca is not something summed up into a few short words and can often take on different meaning to each since the Lord and Lady touch us in different ways. To gain a fuller understanding of the Craft, I urge you visit the other pages on this site as well as following the links to a select group of exceptional Wiccan and Witchcraft sites. Through the wisdom and words set down through the ages, you will find that you are able to understand the basis of our beliefs and how they may apply to you. Your inner voice will also quickly let you know if the intent of what you are reading is for superficial purposes to benefit self instead of working to benefit the whole. Remember to read with your heart, for it is when you see life and the world with your heart and spirit that you truly gain an understanding of what Wicca is.
Blessed Be!
Herne
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In the earliest days of Buddhism, there was no organized monastic community, only the followers of the Buddha, and women were among those ordained. It is not known exactly when the practice of ordaining women stopped, but it may have been related to the difficulties associated with travel and accommodation under hazardous conditions.
By the time of the First Council, the monastic community became more structure and certain rituals and rules were established for the sangha. Candidates were to shave their heads and wear a yellow robe. To join the sangha, candidates must pay respect at the feet of ordained monks and declare three times the Three Refuges in the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha. Around this time, monastic buildings (viharas) began to be constructed to accommodate monks on their journeys.
The rules governing the behavior of monks were originally ten:
No taking of life
No stealing
No sexual intercourse
No lying
No taking of intoxicants
No eating at the wrong time (i.e., after midday)
No dancing or music
No decorations or cosmetics used on the body
No sleeping on raised beds
No acceptance of money.
The first five rules were expected of all Buddhists (with the third precept modified to prohibit wrongful sexual activity. By the time of the Pali canon, the 10 monastic prohibitions expanded into 227 rules. The text containing these regulations is caleld the Patimokkha, which became an integral part of the Vinaya (Conduct) "basket" of the Pali canon.
When Mahakasyapa died shortly after the First Council, Ananda became head of the sangha (Buddhist monastic community). During the 40 years he led the sangha, Buddhism spread throughout India. The Buddha had directed his disciples to teach "for the welfare of the many, out of compassion for the world," and this his disciples did. Never using violence or coercion, they simply taught others the way to enlightenment.
Early Buddhist evangelism usually consisted of a pair of monks entering a village, going from house to house with their begging bowls until they had enough for the one meal they ate each day. The monks would then return to the outskirts of the town, where they would often be followed by those who had been impressed by their demeanor and wished to talk with them. The monks would share what they knew, then move on to the next village. The rapid growth of Buddhism probably had much to do with the way the monks conducted themselves. Always peaceful and respectful, the Buddhist monks would speak in the same way and with the same sense of compassion to people of any caste.
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My skimming skills are improving. Thanks Rawlings.
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My skimming skills are improving. Thanks Rawlings.
:lol:
h5
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The rules governing the behavior of monks were originally ten:
No taking of life
No stealing
No sexual intercourse
No lying
No taking of intoxicants
No eating at the wrong time (i.e., after midday)
No dancing or music
No decorations or cosmetics used on the body
No sleeping on raised beds
No acceptance of money.
I knew there was a reason I never became a Buddhist monk. I bat .200 on the Monk's To-Do list (no stealing and no lying)
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^Another Monk I would bat .200 or less at...
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f9/Adrain_Monk.jpg/250px-Adrain_Monk.jpg)
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We got the perfect chew toy here. The arrogance and long windedness of Dangles and the immaturity, neck beard and generalized faggyness of our favorite Ronulan who's name I have forgotten.