(CNSNews.com) - The nation's top conservative leaders will gather Wednesday at Collingwood in Alexandria, Va.—a property that was once the site of George Washington’s River Farm—to sign a document organizers are calling the Mount Vernon Statement. It is designed to signal that a united and resurgent conservative movement is declaring philosophical war against the big government and moral relativism advanced by the nation’s liberal cultural, academic and political establishments.
I like it. A revolution of sorts has already begun with the tea party movement. War is the last thing I want unless it's an intellectual one. Let the fight begin.
“In recent decades, America’s principles have been undermined and redefined in our culture, our universities and our politics,” says an excerpt from the statement. “The self-evident truths of 1776 have been supplanted by the notion that no such truths exist. The federal government today ignores the limits of the Constitution, which is increasingly dismissed as obsolete and irrelevant.
Speaking of our universities and redefining culture, let's certainly hope there are few professors as vulgar and motivated by hate as PZ Myers who teaches at the University of Minnesota. His daily rants regarding anything that resembles religion are downright scary at times. After reading the post I linked to from his blog (which is full of his own twisted conclusions about how the incident might have gone down), think about the fact that for years before, during and after the signing of the Constitution, the Bible was a mainstay in education. Today, many of our liberal universities and professors would like it banned from the classroom unless it's referred to as mythical insanity.
It's time for a revolution...I agree. We need to get back to our roots and take heed to the plans that the Founding Fathers laid out for us.
PS: We should let Palin loose on PZ and his choice of descriptions for those he disagrees with..."retrograde retard", "dumb-ass", "bible-thumper", "red-necked ignorant parents", "idiots", etc., etc.. This coming from a supposed professional tenured college professor.
Excuse my language, but he is beyond contempt virtually every time his fingers hit the keyboard.
He's been pounding away at Palin ever since she was reported as McCain's VP choice, and here's the latest...
He posts an Q&A involving Palin:
Here's another answer from Palin that suddenly has more significance:
3. Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?
SP: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.
Then he digs at the fact that her daughter is knocked up...indicating that it's her mother's fault for wanting schools to include abstinence as a form of birth control. News flash! It's the only form of BC that provides 100% assurance that you'll not contract STD's or get knocked up. Hence, it should always be the number one consideration when birth control methods are being taught to our students.
The question is misleading because it says nothing about *abstinence ONLY* education, and I agree with her that school-based clinics and handing out condoms like candy is not the job of our schools for cripes sakes. Schools should work *with* the parents in their efforts at teaching sex education.
PZ makes it sound as if Palin supports abstinence only classes. This reminds me of the nonsense that went on here in Kansas. Not only did activist groups like KCFS get involved in the science standards, they also slammed several of our board members making is sound as if they supported abstinence only sex education. That was apparently a figment of their imagination because I contacted those board members and voiced my concerns about abstinence only, and they replied that they DID NOT support abstinence only sex ed, but what was being put forward was *abstinence PLUS* programs that included the teaching of all forms of contraception.
I am happy to report that my 8th grader has a wonderful class covering these issues, though I don't believe that has anything to do with what was discussed at the state level about sex education. It's a year long class that not only includes sex ed but also helps students learn about how to relate to others socially, they work on building confidence, they learn how to go about choosing their career path, etc., etc.. Before school even started this year, all the parents were invited to a meeting so that we were well versed as to what our students would be learning in this class. I was very impressed, and guess what? Abstinence is on the top of their list as far as teaching birth control, yet it is NOT the ONLY form of birth control that they will learn about.
Liberal professors for tolerance? Yeah, right....tolerance for everything under the sun *except* religion, which most people hold sacred.
PZ Myers, the crusader for atheism, preaches constantly that religion is the hub of intolerance. Whatever...another classic case of do as I say, not as I do. Evidently, in the world of Pharyngula, tolerance is admirable except in the case of religious tolerance.
The question of desecrating the Host aside, there's little question that there is very little, if anything, respectful, fair, or civil about PZ's nasty Internet morass. This should also explode once and for all the myth that Pharyngula is a "science" blog; it's little more than the public soapbox of a mediocre individual with a mild form of Asperger's Syndrome who happens to hate religion. Which is fine, but if PZ wrote about blacks, Jews or gays the way he writes about Christians, he'd have been fired long ago.
It really makes one wonder how this type of behavior is suppose to provide people with a positive view of atheism?
LOL...PZ went ballistic, and it appears that Gordy Slack responded to his little rant.
It never ceases to amaze me that guys like PZ are let loose on our university students. If you want to see the most juvenile post perhaps every written by a professional university biology professor, get a load of this one.
The University of MN employees some real winners, eh? Talk about a rebel rouser and instigator of hatred...and he's supposedly a "tolerant" liberal.
Why on earth the more intelligent scientists don't tell that guy to put a sock in it is beyond me. I've seen a few stand up to him...then PZ foams at the mouth, and they back down. Bizarre.
Here's the money quote from Slack's comment:
I like to watch PZ turn red and stomp around like Rumpelstiltskin as much as most of you probably do. (Otherwise, what would we be doing here? We're not really learning very much here, are we?)
True enough. PZ's rants are entertaining, though it's amazing that some people actually follow this guy like their Billy Graham of Atheism. Kinda tells you something about the atheist mentality.
Is there a God? Does the supernatural exist? Is it possible that the entire universe was the product of a purely accidental, natural 1st cause? If there is a God, what was his purpose in making us?
Both the Christian and the Atheist ponder these questions, and even the most ardent supporters of either faith doubt their conclusions at times. Yes, even PZ Myers, the prideful atheist biologist and associate professor at the University of MN has, no doubt, struggled with those questions during thoughtful moments when he's not addressing his followers. Though, given the confidence in his response to someone who emailed him about their "tormenting" doubts as to what the mechanisms of Darwinian evolution are ultimately capable of, he writes with much bravado and certainty.
The email he received read as follows...
I'm tormented.
I appreciate the struggle many creationists are having about evolutionary science. I find myself tormented as I observe the world around me.
What I seem to be focused on is how a plant or animal is self aware of it's need to evolve? How does a tree know how to "evolve" it's seed to fly on the wind? How would a lizard "know" that it needed to develop camouflage to survive?
I can't imagine [how] any plant or animal other than human would have the ability to "know" and as well as pass it along via DNA to future hundreds of thousands of generations?
I'd appreciate your feedback…this is really starting to bother me.
Unfortunately, this particular person seems to have either misunderstood how evolution works, or he really blew it when posing his concerns to PZ. So, of course, PZ seizes on that misunderstanding and provides his response...
The first part of the answer is that the organism doesn't know that it must evolve. There is no plan, no guidance, no goal imposed ahead of time, the tree or lizard are not following a program that says they have a goal. The outcome emerges as a consequence of selection and chance.
The tree did not plan ahead. In a population of trees, there was chance variation in how far seeds fell from the parent; seeds that fell in the shade of the parent would not flourish, while seeds that were fortuitously caught by the wind and fell further away were more likely to thrive, and produce more offspring. Lizards that blended in with their environment were less likely to be eaten, and had more offspring that, inheriting their parents inconspicuousness, were also less likely to be eaten, and variation in their progeny was selected further approximations to camouflage.
There is no "know", no awareness. Darwin's insight was that life didn't need it to produce a pattern of change — unguided random variation, filtered after the fact by natural selection, produces an appearance of design.
And yes, this is a fact that many people find troubling. We're brought up thinking we're cuddled in the swaddling hands of a god who has a grand plan for us all, and that every little up and down in our life is the product of some cosmic intent — it's reassuring and makes us feel important. It's an interpretation unsupported by any evidence, too, and often contradicted. We live in a world of chance, and we're all on our own.
OK, readers, maybe you have a better explanation. Go ahead, chime in with a comment and explain how we're going to wean the general public away from their imaginary sky father.[my emphasis]
What irritates me is the way in which scientists like PZ explain how evolution works. They take the most simplistic examples possible, and we're to assume that these explanations account for their belief that everything on the planet is ultimately the result of evolutionary mechanisms evolving with that first lucky molecule that happened to accidentally pop into existence. I've attended lectures by both Eugenie Scott and Sean Carroll, and they made reference to these same type of easily supported microevolutionary changes in expectation that their audience would then accept, as fact, the entire molecule to man scenario.
But, when I listen to gentlemen like Dr. David Berlinski question the evolutionary paradigm, he echos my own incredulity in regard to how Darwinists can possibly assert that they have the evidence to make such bold claims about common descent with relatively so little empirical evidence to support the inference. Berlinski is much more articulate than I, so listen to his concerns in regard to whale evolution...
...and, bear in mind that this is merely one transitional account (here is a link to a recent interview with Berlinski as well). Speciation is an important area to consider when contemplating the issues that Berlinski addressed. Empirical evidence supporting speciation occurring through evolutionary means is sorely lacking. It is deemed a "major technical problem for evolutionary biology" as noted in a recent article from The Scientist...
This theory of evolution is really a framework for thinking about change in the living world. It provides no specific guesses for the kinds of traits that may exist, no strong requirements or prohibitions on how they may interact to make a complex organism or ecosystem, and no commitments to how innovation can occur. Even the problem of how a differentiated population ultimately divides into two distinct species (posed in the title of Darwin's seminal work) remains a major technical problem in evolutionary biology.
Consider all we observe in nature today, and ask yourself if the incredible complexity and order of the universe can possibly be the result of nothing other than, in PZ's words, "unguided random variation, filtered after the fact by natural selection" that produces an "appearance of design". And, while we're on the issue of design, why do scientists refer to the design we observe in nature as merely an "appearance" of design? I've always been taught that science follows the evidence wherever it leads, and both Creationist and Darwinist agree that nature most certainly appears to have been designed. Why twist that fact and deem it merely an illusion?
Getting back to the incredible complexity, beauty and intricacy of life, I'd like to share a series of Youtube clips from the Incredible Creatures that Defy Evolution video series, vol. 3. I watched the first DVD in this series several years ago, and the subject matter provides many insights that are interesting to consider before deciding to taking that leap of faith and commitment to the evolutionary paradigm. The complexity of nature is vast and astounding...are we to assume that it all came about by chance?
"The Heavens declare the glory of God.” Psalm 19:1
"What can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made." Romans 1:19-20
Seems that Vox Day, the author of The Irrational Atheist, and PZ Myers have been invited to debate the existence of God this coming Saturday on a Minnesota radio program.
Great timing for me, as I've been working on a post addressing a couple of PZ's posts over at Pharyngula.
Recently, he stated that"There is no historical evidence for Jesus".
*blinks*
Wow. As a cock sure supporter of atheism, I'd have thought he'd be a little more familiar with the historical evidence supporting the existence of Christ, but evidently he's not.
That kinda shines a whole new light on how familiar he is with apologetic arguments that support the existence of God as well. He seems to indicate that he is relatively well versed on the topic as he complains that he has never found any intelligent arguments for god. One wonders how in-depth his knowledge is on the subject.
Well, now it looks as though we may get a taste of what PZ does or does not know about the arguments in favor of the gods. Vox and PZ have been asked to debate the topic on the Northern Alliance Radio Show of Minnesota.
How fun is that??!
It doesn't look like PZ has accepted this invitation yet, but it would certainly be a difficult one for him to back out of, IMHO.
I'll keep you updated...
[Side note: Isn't Vox hawt? But, I promise that his good looks will not affect my discernment in analyzing their arguments fairly.]
Wait -- I complain about the absence of intelligent arguments for God, and Vox Day pops up his little pin head and squeaks about miracles and bleeding statues and liquefying holy relics?
Vox, you don't qualify. You're a pathetic little twerp with delusions of grandeur.
Wow. In PZ fashion, he starts in with the ad hominem attack and makes statements about Vox that are not backed up with evidence. Someone should go over there and ask that PZ provide support for his statement that Vox "squeaks about bleeding statues and liquefying holy relics". I believe a retraction may be in order. First of all, I can't imagine a studly dude like Vox "squeaking", and I don't recall him talking about bleeding statues and holy relics that liquefy. But, who knows....maybe PZ can point out those quotes.
Darn...it's at times like this that I wish I wasn't banned from PZ's palace. He's coming across as extremely cowardly by refusing to debate Vox.
Shoot, Vox recently lambasted new atheists in his latest book, so this would provide the perfect opportunity for PZ to set him straight! What gives?
If you're allowed to mingle with PZ's choir boys, get on over there and encourage PZ to do the courageous thing....DEBATE VOX DAY THIS SATURDAY.
