I have to confess to being amused to no end by the reaction to my tsunami post on ARN's message boards. They've all got their panties in a bunch because of how horribly insensitive I am, though I frankly think this outrage is entirely fake. It's just easier to focus on that rather than on the actual substance of the post. Charlie D, who I don't know, tried mightily to get one of them to actually discuss the substance of my argument and get them to attempt to show that the analogy wouldn't work, but they absolutely refused to do so. That rather frantic avoidance of the issue suggests something, doesn't it?
Mike Gene in particular makes a huge deal out of how horribly I've treated poor Krause, and over me saying, "You are the one being parodied, Krauze, not the victims of this tragedy". I really didn't intend the "you" to be as specific as it appears; I meant it merely to refer to ID advocates. Either way, it should be quite obvious that the post was aimed at ID and was in no way intended to be a parody of the victims. For crying out loud, what do these people think, that I sat down and thought, "You know, I never liked those people who died in this tragedy. I think I'll exploit their death"?
Frankly, I'd take their feigned outrage a bit more seriously if it wasn't so clearly selective. While they are wailing about how insensitive I am, not a word about the astonishing insensitivity (not to mention stupidity) of claiming that God killed all those people on purpose because of our sin. And while Mike Gene is throwing a fit about my "stereotyping" and "kneejerk" reaction, he is quite busy engaging in such things himself, and ignoring the vitriolic reaction of some of his fellow boardmates (jon_e in particular, who I suspect might share a brain with Robert O'Brien based on the sheer stupidity and juvenile nature of his posts there).
All in all, it's quite amusing to watch. I must at least give some credit to Krauze here, who posted the original message. He is at least honest enough to say:
Ed also demands "a positive argument for ID, and a positive theory of ID", but I'm afraid I'm going to have to take a pass on that. We're already dealing with a lot of issues, and I don't want the thread to fray any further. If it'll make him happy, though, I'll gladly admit that I don't think there exists a theory of ID - yet - and that I don't expect Ed or any other to be convinced of what is still just an interesting idea being bounced around on internet boards and blogs.
Bravo, Krauze. And you're right, I probably aimed things too specifically at you personally without knowing what your specific position was on the subject. I did assume that since you were posting at ARN and taking a shot at PT that you must be in agreement with the other ID folks. Maybe that's true and maybe it's not, but I shouldn't have assumed it. You've at least shown with this statement that you're more willing to be honest about this than most of them are.
- Log in to post comments
I found the story about the absence of dead wild animals (other than human animals) in Sri Lanka quite interesting. On a different message board I posted that tsunamis are obviously part of the delicately balanced ecosystem of shorelines and humans didn't evolve for life in that niche. I went on to say that we shouldn't help anyone rebuild in the devastated areas because it isn't natural or safe for humans to live there - tsnamis are just nature's way of saying "if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen".
As expected, my message wasn't well received. ;-)
In case some readers of this new blog entry haven't also read the comments-section on the previous entry, let me just repeat that I'm responding to this on the ARN message board. My response to this particular post of Ed's can be found here. Pay the thread a visit; I promise I won't bite (too hard). ;-)