Mister P-Mosh

Belle, I didn't mean to give the impression that I was offended at all, because I'm not. I was just bringing up the nazi comparison as a point of discussion, not as something that I really care about. It just reminded me of the story I wrote. Also, if we wanted to adapt the "spelling nazi" term to TWI standards, we could call people "kakos spelling devilspirits"

This isn't entirely related to the topic at hand. There's a guy that I work with that goes to lunch many days at the same restaurant. It's a small middle eastern deli in the back of a middle eastern grocery store, and they have the best rice dishes you can imagine (the hummus is great too.) This guy becomes a bit of a regular, and starts trying to ask the owner what spices are used in the rice, and the owner of course refuses to tell him. This ends up causing a comparison between the owner of that restaurant and the "soup nazi" from Seinfeld. This becomes the new in joke around work with those of us that occasionally go to lunch at this place. Anyway, to make a long story short, my coworker buys some rice to take home to his wife in Dallas. He also buys a disposable styrofoam cooler to keep it in. For whatever reason, he thinks he is being funny so he writes the words "RICE NATZI" (yes, the t is there) on the cooler in huge letters. Then he goes to the airport. So what kind of person would want to be associated with any facet of nazism, to the point of writing it on their property and going to the airport? Even worse, I think the term could be offensive to a lot more people. A Chinese person might take the "rice nazi" phrase to be in reference to them. Or perhaps someone would think he is referring to Rice university. In any case, the whole "nazi" thing seems a bit extreme.

Mine? No. However, there are a few others that sometimes...well nevermind. ;)

Bolshevik, It looks like you're opposed to evolution because you don't want it to be true. This topic started off about a creationist museum, then you came here bashing evolution but claimed to not be a creationist, but in other posts claimed you are a creationist. Then somehow (I've not been around much for the past few days so I didn't see it) you started questioning plate tectonics? It makes sense to do your own research and find out your own information, but at some point you do have to trust in others to be correct rather than redo everything they've done. I'm a computer programmer, yet I have little idea of how a microchip is made, nor do I have any interest in learning how to make them. You could call it "faith" that I consider microchips to be a real thing, and mock that I don't consider the idea that computers are just devil spirits in a box as being valid despite not researching it. The theory of evolution also seems to be valid based on the evidence that it sounds like you reject for religious reasons. You've not given any alternatives here, other than seemingly supporting the idea that the Earth and life was created by the Invisible Sky Giant. If that's not your view, then what is?

Belle, That site looks like the documentary is Intelligent Design propaganda disguised as science. I haven't seen it, but the guys involved are ID advocates, so their science is highly questionable. As far as Sagan is concerned, whoever wrote that took his quote out of context in an attempt to mislead the readers. Sagan wasn't trying to make the Earth look insignificant, but rather give an idea of just how huge the universe is. You won't get that from the small portion quoted, but it's a pretty dramatic read that I highly recommend. The Earth is a tiny place, and there are likely other worlds out there that have life (as Sagan theorized as well) it's just that we haven't discovered them and probably never will because of the immense distances and size of the universe. The photo that inspired Sagan to write that was this: As far as the purpose of Earth and of our lives, it's up to each person to make our lives mean something. This documentary might point out some great things about our planet, but in the grand scheme of things it's so fragile and tiny that we could be snuffed out at any instant by a meteor or supernova. Our limitations prevent us from seeing for certain if there are other Earth-like planets out there, although we can tell that there probably are.

What is also interesting is that upon perusing a small sample of these creationist "scientists", none of them seem to have published their claims in peer reviewed scientific journals. Instead, they publish through religious books and online.

It should be no surprise that real scientists overwhelmingly reject what this museum offers: On a side note, unfortunately one of the people that are in a video in that museum runs a porno site or did something illegal related to sex, and as a result most of the top hits in google are related to that.

This is simply false. Evolution is evolution, and the only ones I've heard using terms like "microevolution" and "macroevolution" are creationists. Additionally, your understanding of the scientific method is extremely flawed. Science is based off of observation. The scientific method is a standardization of how to make these observations and report on them. According to your standards, astronomy is also a non-science because we are unable to create stars. What is lacking in the fossil record? I hear claims from creationists all the time, but the truth is that we have an amazingly good fossil record available and it's getting better all the time. While there is certainly a constant refining of details that sometimes makes us change our views of things (e.g. Tyrannosaurus Rex being a scavenger rather than a killer) there is more than enough evidence to show evolution happening over the past. Actually they are a different species. Homo neanderthalensis is different than homo sapien. Both were two different types of humanoid that had evolved from earlier species. Please provide some evidence of this, because actual scientists seem to disagree with that. Other than the Piltdown man and a handful of other fakes, the fossil record is overwhelmingly accurate and paleontologists are getting better at differentiating between fakes and the real thing. You are inaccurate in claiming that "numerous" fossils were found to be fakes, unless you are including the capsules that Toys R' Us sells to put into water and it grows into a sponge dinosaur. The fact is, science is constantly changing, but that doesn't mean it is not the most accurate means we have for understanding the world. Creationists that oppose evolution are usually charlatans who demand much of science, but refuse the answers when they are given. They also blow the unknowns out of proportion in order to create doubt, and insert nonsense into the debate in order to confuse people. You've undoubtedly been fed a line of creationist B.S. but you don't see it yet. You've been tricked into rejecting reality for a more pleasant myth. It is easier to believe The Invisible Sky Giant waved his magic wand and life suddenly appeared on the planet than to understand that the universe is a complicated place that we can't completely comprehend. Also for the record, there won't be a complete lesson on evolution here from me or anyone. This is a message board, not a college. Where things like creationism that don't require facts or evidence can be explained quickly and easily, science like evolution requires lots of reading, time, and better teaching than I am capable of. If you truly want to learn about it, go to college and take a bunch of science classes. I think literal creationism is a dangerous idea because it rejects rationality and science in favor of fairy tales. I wish religious people would make up their minds as to what they want to believe. It seems like science is evil and the enemy except when religious people get things like penicillin. Why don't religious fundamentalists rely only on prayer and priests when they are ill and let us that value science stick with medicine and doctors? That would surely be a valid experiment to test Darwin's natural selection.

Evolution is evolution. There's nothing with a short enough life-span and a high enough rate of mutation for humans to be able to do experiments that result in one animal turning into another. However, there is the fossil record, which shows us that life forms changed over time, very slowly and gradually, to become what we have today, in addition to many of those older life forms still existing. Anti-science people like to claim that the fossil record is wrong, or that god put fossils into the Earth to trick human scientists, but the facts are there in the fossil record. I would also point out that there were multiple branches of many species that split off. For example with early humans, there were also Neanderthals living at the same time. This was a distinct humanoid creature that was almost as intelligent as homo sapiens, yet they were different. They were wiped out, possibly by our ancestors. The bible makes no mention of Neanderthals, and I would think that talking about other sentient humanoid life on this planet would be pretty important, and I would wonder if they had a different god than homo sapiens or how it is supposed to be explained by creationism.

It's sad that such a museum was ever funded and made. Crap like that is why we are becoming the laughingstock of the world, knowledge-wise. Groucho, I think your point of view is fine. There is plenty of room to believe that other beings, whether gods or aliens, are responsible for the evolution of life on this planet. However, the process of evolution is as much a scientific fact as gravity. Plenty of experiments have been done to prove evolution, and all the specialized breeds of dogs are perfect examples of it. If you don't believe in evolution, then you also don't believe in poodles.

It told me I have the Midland accent, but I don't think that's really the case. I have a messed up accent that is a mix of many different places I've lived.

I've not yet seen it, but from what I've heard, the story and history are not at all accurate, so take it with a grain of salt. I've also heard that the blood is excessive, which is not surprising after he made the Jesus Chainsaw Massacre.

Whoever came up with that saying obviously never had kids.

It doesn't look too bad, so I hope it helps since Florida needs rain so badly. We'll see how this year goes for hurricanes. For me, I'm fortunate enough to have bought a house further from the ocean, and I'm now on a list of critical personnel at work, which means if a hurricane might head this way, I get sent to our company's backup location in Dallas, along with my family.

A decade of prevailing? More like a decade of suck!

That's a good thing. Although I'm not Wiccan, I do think that people should be allowed to represent what they believe in on their permanent resting place.

The Way's treatment of women is one of the first things that bothered me, and caused me to eventually leave. It wasn't the only piece of their doctrine that bothered me, but it was the first one I remember disliking. I always have, and still do, believe that relationships are a partnership between two equals. I also know that as a man, my decisions are not always better. I'm very happy that I married a beautiful, intelligent, loving woman who was never taught that she was inferior to anyone else. An added bonus is that she knows I.T. so I can even complain to her about work and she has good practical advice on that too. :-)

Congratulations Sharon...you are in good company.

My parents joined, and I was probably 2 or 3 years old, so I was essentially raised in TWI. I left after 1) I realized as a young adult that it was all a bunch of B.S., and 2) I could figure out a way to leave without being marked and avoided by my family that are still in TWI. What triggered my realization that they taught a bunch of B.S.? I tried to apply the keys to understanding the bible that VPW taught and took all of the PFAL classes. As a result, I realized that things LCM said didn't fit with what the bible said. Then I thought about it more, and realized that the bible wasn't that consistent and really didn't have all of the answers either, and just gave up the whole thing.

I am completely against second-hand smoke. I really don't understand why smokers feel their right to smoke is more important than my right not to smoke. In certain public places, it should be banned. However, I wouldn't say that it should be banned in bars or in certain areas outside and such. I used to not care, until a friend introduced me to his mom who has bad asthma that gets triggered by cigarette smoke even outside. She can't even go to a park without the risk of someone smoking while walking by triggering an attack. We really need to balance the perceived right to smoke with everyone else's right to breathe. However, the second-hand smoking statistics are generally only for people who are in close proximity with smokers. E.g. the children of smokers, people that work at bars, etc. They are the ones most at risk. It's also laughable to complain about cigarette smoke coming into your car from another car while sitting in traffic since cars emit so much more pollution, including carcinogens, than cigarettes do. The reality is that there are a lot of things that cause cancer, including cigarettes. Cancer rates are through the roof for a variety of reasons. I haven't looked at the statistics lately, but I'd bet that colon cancer rates are through the roof as a result of our diets while lung cancer rates are high due to primarily air pollution. Smoking is certainly a part of it, but we have to put everything in the proper balance and try to tackle the biggest issues first. Smoking bans are a good thing, when done correctly. However, it doesn't help if we blow the impact of second hand smoke out of proportion with reality and discredit the facts that indicate smoking is dangerous.

It's probably a song that wouldn't suit your tastes, but the opening theme from the video game Katamari Damacy came to mind for me. While I can't suggest any specifics, I would recommend that you pick an instrumental song of some sort in order to not take away from the video. If there are no words, it's easier to concentrate on the screen rather than what the singer is talking about. Plus it means that you don't have to find a song that is about kickball on a Thursday at a school picnic. If you want to be cheesy, you could even pick the Indiana Jones theme song. If your son is young enough, he might be ok with the Peanuts theme song from the Vince Guaraldi Trio, or anything else Vince Guaraldi has done as it's good upbeat mood music.

I was trying to do a response to every individual person, but came back and saw this many comments so it would be really tough for me to do. Thanks everyone! In related news, my wife gets to go home today, and the baby is hopefully not too far behind. The baby isn't eating much on her own and prefers to sleep, which is common with premature babies. However, everything else with her is fine and she's already the size of a full-term baby (if my wife had gone the entire 40 weeks I'm sure the baby would have been in the 9 - 10 pounds range.) My wife is on blood pressure medication and still has some issues with that, but hopefully they go away soon. In any case, I'm looking forward to having the whole family home, and even to the sleepless nights of waking up to feed her. I value my sleep but value her health above it. As to the question about whether I was there for the delivery, there's a whole story behind it all that I might tell sometime, but yes, I was there. It was surreal, and coming from a generation that is used to instant gratification, I'm glad my wife had a c section. It took just a few minutes after I arrived before the baby was born, and less than an hour to sew my wife up afterwards. It was better than the days of labor and needles and pain we were looking at if she were to be induced.

I say it because she looks a lot more like her mom than me. She is definitely puffy and Winston Churchill-like, but all babies are. However, we are definitely happy. Thanks! Thanks Bolshevik, We're doing well, and I'll be much better once I can take mother and daughter home and I don't have to sleep on this 6' long bench anymore (I'm about 6'4".)

I know I try to limit the amount of information about my personal life that I post here, as a result of my parents still being in TWI and I don't want any lurking WayGB to cause problems with my family. However, I can't help but post about this. This week, my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She was quite a bit early, and my wife had some complications that caused her to be induced early, but both mother and daughter are doing well. My wife might be able to go home tomorrow and the baby as soon as she gets a normal appetite. Anyway, I just wanted to announce it here, as a proud new papa. It has already changed a lot of my perspective on things, but until we get her home I'm sure my life has not changed as much as it will. In any case, my wife now gets to be recognized tomorrow for Mother's Day.

My employer uses the pro version of GoToMyPC for something...I've never used it, but we are required by the Department of Homeland Security to maintain decent security on our network. They audit us sometimes. As a result, I would assume that the software is ok, even though I've never used it myself.