Swordsbane, EDB is fully aligned with creationism. He already gave you all of his evidence—the premise that all theories are equally valid.

Swordsbane, EDB is fully aligned with creationism. He already gave you all of his evidence—the premise that all theories are equally valid.

Cool, so if I come up with a theory that a slice of wood cut from a tree is really a pizza, can I teach that in school?  After all, it’s round and flat, it has what can be considered a crust..... it must be a pizza… right?

Cool, so if I come up with a theory that a slice of wood cut from a tree is really a pizza, can I teach that in school?

Absolutely. And don’t get me started on Baumkuchen

...the fact that people, especially Americans, sometimes confuse Austria with Australia.

Oy, that’s been one of my pet peeves since childhood.

when I first came to Vienna you could buy t-shirts with a crossed-out kangaroo that said: “no kangaroos in Austria”. 

I hope I can still find them. They sound cute to me, anyway. In just a few short days I’ll be touring the European continent again.

Actually, the USAF found that kangaroos are really lethal.  The following is a story from an Australian Wargame Club website

Don’t Mess With The Kangaroos
This is supposedly a true story from a recent Defence Science Lectures Series, as related by the head of the Australian DSTO’s Land Operations/Simulation division.
They’ve been working on some really nifty virtual reality simulators, the case in point being to incorporate Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters into exercises (from the data fusion point of view). Most of the people they employ on this sort of thing are ex- (or future) computer game programmers. Anyway, as part of the reality parameters, they include things like trees and animals. For the Australian simulation they included kangaroos. In particular, they had to model kangaroo movements and reactions to helicopters (since hordes of disturbed kangaroos might well give away a helicopter’s position).

Being good programmers, they just stole some code (which was originally used to model infantry detachments reactions under the same stimuli), and changed the mapped icon, the speed parameters, etc. The first time they’ve gone to demonstrate this to some visiting Americans, the hotshot pilots have decided to get “down and dirty” with the virtual kangaroos. So, they buzz them, and watch them scatter. The visiting Americans nod appreciatively… then gape as the kangaroos duck around a hill, and launch about two dozen Stinger missiles at the hapless helicopter. Programmers look rather embarrassed at forgetting to remove *that* part of the infantry coding… and Americans leave muttering comments about not wanting to mess with the Aussie wildlife…

As an addendum, simulator pilots from that point onwards avoided kangaroos like the plague, just like they were meant to do in the first place…

So perhaps the ‘roos para-dropped to Oz.

Maybe this is old news to everyone here, but I was a bit staggered last time I was in Hawaii to hear that there are feral wallabies on Oahu..  Rather mindboggling somehow.

Sadie- The only important difference between Austria and Australia is that Austria is a bit smaller.  I’m pretty sure you can still get the t-shirts.  Drop me a line if you’re in town and we can chat over a Doppelspänner.

There are colonies of wallabies in England, they escape from zoos.

Zilch: will do. Vienna is on the itinerary, and if nothing else I’ll give you a ring just to say hi. Regarding the Doppelspänner, I must admit that I’m embarrassingly inexperienced on the subject of European blends, but the stronger the better, right? I have plenty of experience with Turkish blends, which have the habit of leaving me shaking like a leaf up to twelve hours after their imbibing.

Sounds wonderfully cost effective compared to drinking gallons of soda for your caffeine fix though.

Finally, if being a hard-core evolutionist means being a consummate, punitive name-caller, count me out.

I resent that. My being a jerk has nothing to do with evolution.

My being a jerk has nothing to do with evolution.

timmeh- if you are a jerk (which I somehow doubt) it certainly has something to do with evolution.  No evolution, no life; no life, no jerkiness.

Ok I’m not a jerk,but I am very strict and get called worse all the time.

I saw THIS yesterday.  I don’t suppose the IDers have an explanation for it, but the rest of you might get a kick out of it

It was gods all work. See you forget that god can change sides like a striper in a room full of millionaires.

Swordsbane- Of course ID has an explanation for these mites reevolving sex:  the Designer wanted them to have fun again.  Darwinists are flabbergasted.  Uncommon Descent and William Dembski are lauded by the scientific community.

Or maybe not. Oops.

What they need is just a new slogan:  “ID- Less Popular Than Nixon”

Via Pharyngula.

Atheism is TOO simple…

Here is enough Chuck Missler for all you naysayers. It is evident you misunderstood the use of the peanut butter jar. Life comes from life. The accidental and unexplained transition of periodic table elements to human life is what so called scientists, such as Dawkins, is IMPOSSIBLE. Hence peanut butter. This is one of Dawkins premises… Given a long enough timeline the impossible can become possible…

Analyze these videos and dare to call Chuck Missler a stupid man:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=496V7OR35vs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWdiQtp9LFo

Oh, the argumentum ad youtubeum. How about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozbFerzjkz4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXfIop5ZOsY

IMPOSSIBLE

I love it when people use capital letters for that word… as if emphasis on a stupid idea would make it not stupid somehow.

The simple fact is that evolution makes no supposition about where life comes from, so the peanut-butter jar analogy is stupid at least in that way.

Second, if your going to use an analogy to prove something, or in this case, disprove it, then make sure the analogy has the same basic premise.

Peanut butter is already organic, and that means it invalidates the analogy, which is supposed to support the idea that you can’t get life from non-life.  It would have been a better analogy (yet still stupid) if he had used a mound of sand, since life cannot come from sand spontaneously.

Going beyond that, the current scientific theory of the origins of life is barely a theory.  But if I understand it correctly, the basics are that massive discharges of energy, like possibly from lightning, caused the formation of the first amino acids.  Now if you want to say that God was what caused that, then that’s fine with me… until we uncover more evidence, at least.

Getting back to evolution, however, Missler is a moron.  He neither understands the theory of evolution, nor is he competent to debate the theory on scientific grounds, no matter how much he likes peanut butter.

Analyze these videos and dare to call Chuck Missler a stupid man

Done and done.

There is an old story about a patient who was being treated by a psychiatrist. The patient wouldn’t eat or take care of himself, claiming that he was a corpse. The psychiatrist spent many hours arguing with the patient trying to convince him he wasn’t a corpse. Finally the psychiatrist asked the patient if corpses bled. The patient replied, Of course corpses don’t bleed, all of their body functions have stopped.  The psychiatrist then convinced the patient to try an experiment. The psychiatrist would carefully prick the patient with a pin and they would see if he started to bleed. The patient agreed. After all, he was a corpse. The psychiatrist gently pricked the patient’s skin with a needle and, sure enough, he began to bleed. With a look of shock and amazement the patient gasped, “I’ll be darned...corpses DO bleed!”

1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 1:19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.  1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:  1:21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.  1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 1:23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
Romans 1.18-23

For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
James 1.20

Nice try, Andy. Try throwing some Koran quotes at us instead. It would at least be original.

We’ve had a creationist dry spell and now this is all we get?

Translating 1.18-23 into the modern vernacular:

For God is very pissed at men who look at the real world and fail to embrace the fantasy.  For the fantasy is CLEARLY OBVIOUS to anyone who even looks at peanut butter, for Christ’s sake.  So those doo-doo-heads have no excuse for looking at the real world and thinking; “Hey look!  The real world!”

Andy, your religion has components that amount to: “This religion is true, and you are wrong if you believe otherwise.” But apart from Zen, all religions have that feature; it’s standard, like power locks and a radio and the chrome trim package.  What makes yours different?

Oh, right: you grew up in a country where your religion is dominant.

I’m with Elwed. The quality of the Creationists that come around here has dropped considerably. At least some of the ones in the past were funny.

Kudo’s to Swordsbane for pointing out the huge holes in Missler’s argument.

Andy, throwing Bible quotes at people who don’t believe the Bible to be true shows what a moron you truly are.

Oh, the argumentum ad youtubeum.

If you haven’t copyrighted that and its obvious variations, you should.