More ID Whining

Not to mention the fascistic astronomers that refuse to let Behe teach astrology in the Astronomy Dept.

Ahh, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I had a few tussles with YE creationist Jonathan Sarfati at TheologyWeb (he using the handle Socrates) a few years ago and he was making then the exact same complaints. In this post he's actually responding to another commentator named RufusAtticus:

RufusAtticus

When ever a young-earther complains about radiometric dating I send him/her to the following link Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective.

And whenever a rabid misotheist like you sends an article like that, I use this as yet another example of how anti-Christian bigots use such compromising churchians as Wien as "useful idiots", to borrow Lenin's term. And I just throw back the articles here.

I'd also like to see this explained by YECism.

I'd like to see why anti-YEC bigots keep parroting this canard which was long ago refuted here.

It's a phrase he's used many times.

It's even more annoying when the way they became and remain wealthy and well-connected is by whining about being oppressed. Wasn't it $20,000 Dembski wanted for his Kansas appearance?

"Anti-ID bigots -- they're everywhere in the academy, and your tax dollars support them!"

I'm sure he said this with a straight face despite his awareness that religious groups benefit from some of the most inappropriate tax breaks on record. Dembski and those like him have paradoxically managed to render themselves beyond criticism; when you're a hypocrite about virtually everything you say in public, people in a position to maraud you are often at a loss as to just where to insert the rhetorical-logical knife.

That looks like fun, I'll join in too.

"Anti-murder bigots - they're everywhere in the Police, and your tax dollars support them!"

"Anti-arson bigots - they're everywhere in the Fire Deparment, and your tax dollars support them!

You're not bigoted if you're opposed to something demonstrably wrong.

I have two problems with Dembski's article. Firstly, we have only his word (and he is notorious for frequent misrepresentations and the occasional outright lie) that anything happened at all, let alone that it happened like he says it does. The man is quite simply a grossly unreliable witness.

Secondly, why do ID Creationists think their idiotic theory is any more worthy of respect than Alien Abuductions, Black Helicopters or claims that Elvis is alive? By all means treat the believers with civility, but the unsubstantiated beliefs warrant nothing less than derision.

I'll admit to being a bigot: I have a strong prejudice against stupid and dishonest people. They don't belong in the teaching profession, they shouldn't be ordained as priests, I don't want them flying large airplanes, or representing Our Great Country to others, and I'd rather they not breed either.

Tim Makinson - I suspect you are right, and I also suspect Buffalo Bill of sock-puppitry, excuse me, "street theater".

Slightly off topic..
I like the use of the word misotheism. I had to look it up in OED. However, atheists can't be misotheists as hating God or gods must assume that it/they exsist in the first place.

C'mon now! Elvis is alive! He was abducted by aliens flying black helicopters over Loch Ness!

I tend to be sceptical of charges that involve an anonymous person claiming they were going to be fired for [insert reason here] but weren't because Human Resources/Legal, etc. informed them that they couldn't because of [insert bogus legal reason here]. I worked on a trio of EEO cases, generally administration remains clueless because legal departments and HR departments are often just as clueless OR they don't bother to consult with them.

There's a serious question somewhere in the morass here: how does one distinguish between an academic who's being screwed over on the basis of campus politics from one who's being screwed over on the basis of his/her own cluenessness, credulity or ineptness?

Where possible, I generally try to learn something about the subject matter (Information Theory, for example) and then review a chunk of the individual's work. Another approach would be to see what response the individual's work got from academics from a range of different cultures (for example, if even AiG says the Paluxy Tracks constitute a bad argument, it's probably true). Are there any other reliable yardsticks?

The persecution complex that runs rampant in the religious horde these days would be histerical if they weren't wielding so much power.

Lan Cat writes:

Slightly off topic..
I like the use of the word misotheism. I had to look it up in OED.

Yeah, Old Soc (Soc for 'Socrates', and 'sock puppet' as he often presented Sarfati articles in the third person and acted as if they were different individuals) had a lot of little phrases he'd toss out all the time...elephant hurl...so-and-so, the non-scientist...nice ipse dixit...so-and-so the whinger! (note Aussie spelling). Those were classics.

The worst victimizers tend to be people who insist on seeing themselves -- rightly or wrongly -- as victims. The ID whiners are not to be trusted. At all.

I like the use of the word misotheism. I had to look it up in OED. However, atheists can't be misotheists as hating God or gods must assume that it/they exsist in the first place.

For some reason this reminds me of an old episode of The Waltons, where Erin wanted to marry the deliriously handsome son of the batty old lady neighbor's old beau - he was in the Navy, and he came home from a brief, nasty encounter with the Japanese (WWII, remember) hating God.

Erin's mom wouldn't let her be engaged to him any more because he didn't believe in God.

I remember yelling at the screen - Dimwit! You can't hate someone you don't think is real! Of course he believes in God!

But then again, I thought he had a lucky escape. From Erin and her mom, I mean, not the Japanese!