This is science? Oh yeah, must be "research in progress". Reminds one of fleshing out a story line for a novel.

Interestingly, chimps are not only the closest ape to man genetically, they're closer to man than they are to any other apes.

Then there's the little matter of the Indian Ocean.

I understand, of course, that you guys are incapable, for strongly held moral reasons, of engaging the theory honestly. But among Darwin's many lines of evidence was the similarity of organisms on remote islands (like the Galapagos) to the closest continent, and their dissimilarity to those on more distant continents.

For a whole lot of reasons, the orangutan hypothesis has low probability, but the citation here proves the opposite of Orrin's and Tom's position: Even low probability alternatives continue to get a respectful hearing, as long as they are not ridiculous.

Outright rejection of Darwin's theory is as silly as it's unqualified acceptance as somehow proven.

What a hoot. But this is scooping today's big news. Primates are out, rats are in. Nature Magazine has unveiled the rat genome and did you know we share over 90% of our genes with the rat. Practically brothers.

Our local rag now charges for access, but the account contains the following:

"The scientists say the genome also provides tantalizing new insights into the way humans and rats evolved from a common mammalian ancestor that scurried about the earth 80 million years ago when dinosaurs existed.
Mr. Marra says one particularly intriguing revelation is that rodents evolved at a much faster rate than primates. This likely gave rodents an evolutionary advantage and could help explain why they thrive in everything from sewer pipes to wheat fields."

I'm sure Jeff can tell us why this all makes perfect sense, but in the meantime, anybody got the phone number for that artist?

Peter:

You go first. You tell us why this doesn't make sense.

OJ:

This photo is the first serious argument you have been able to pose against evolution.

Seems there is far too much cranial hair...

Jeff:

Well, if the rat evolved three times faster than man but the common ancestor (I like to call him Herman)was surrying around wallowing in dinosaur poop just like the rat, just what does "evolved" mean? Show me how the mutations and adaptations from Herman to rat could be considered in any way three times more...something ...than Herman to man.

We share half our DNA with the banana, which is more than some animals. I'm not sure these statistics prove much.

That Dairy Queen caters to cannibals?

Peter:

Show me how the environment was the same for one version of Herman's descendants as another version.

BTW--now's the time to learn about the phylogenetic tree, cladistics, and genetics.

Jeff:

See, I knew you could make it all crystal clear.

Peter:

BTW--evolved, in this case, means branches in the phylogenetic tree. Faster evolution means more branches in the same period of time. Why evolutionary change varies over time, and between species, is, so far as I know, a complete mystery.

Making it an ideal place for the "God of Gaps."

If you are going to effectively attack Darwinism, you need to learn about it.

Neither of the first two are in the least difficult, and a quick pass through "Nature via Nurture" will suffice for the last.

A glancing familiarity with statistics wouldn't hurt, either.

Tom, if you had actually studied darwinism -- I bet there's a college nearby -- you might understand that among the professionals there is a constant and lively debate about the relative importance of natural selection and its subcomponents.

Evolution is, of course, proved by hundreds of millions of pieces of evidence. The exact circumstances of any particular evolutionary event are always somewhat unclear, not because the theory doesn't work but because detailed evidence is lacking, more or less.

The same is true of, say, weather, but nobody pretends that reliance on weather forecasts is some sort of religious fancy.

Peter

I'm a bit surprised at your questions, particularly the fact that you scoff at stuff which is not evidence against Darwinism, but powerful evidence for it.

This is all in Mayr, but if you want to understand - and therefore intelligently criticise - Darwinism, or even just evolution, you need a passing knowledge of a few aspects of biology, particularly:

The phylogenetic tree
and
Cladistics

(Wikipedia really is one of the things that makes the web great)

Harry/Jeff:

You guys are in line for the patronizing award of the year. You remind me of the newly-converted evangelist who answers every philosophical challenge with: "Read the Bible, man."

Taking your two posts together, we learn that evolution is proven by "hundreds of millions" of pieces of evidence (counting, Harry?) but also that how natural selection actually occurs is a complete mystery because of lack of evidence. How about you two STOP reading for a while, go for a long walk and contemplate those two propositions. For good measure, throw in Mayr's assertion that evolution is over for man.

Harry, your analogy to weather is interesting. The accuracy of weather forcasting is testable everyday (for some lonely souls, all day long). But if you had to wager on the weather for the next twenty-four hours, would you bet on the forecast or an old farmer's instincts?

Peter

I think Harry was pretty clear:

"Evolution is, of course, proved by hundreds of millions of pieces of evidence. The exact circumstances of any particular evolutionary event are always somewhat unclear, not because the theory doesn't work but because detailed evidence is lacking, more or less."

Natural selection is not a 'total mystery'. There's masses of evidence - from fossils to genetics to biogeography - for evolution. Evolution itself is as scientific fact-y as a scientific fact can be.

There is often a lack of evidence about the mechanisms of particular instances of evolution, but not for evolution itself.

Brit:

For the record, my scoffing is restricted to the presentation of theory as fact and the hoops you guys will jump through to make it fit. I don't reject anything, except the proposition that natural evolution is a complete and plausible explanation for man.

You guys are going to have to decide whether non-biologists are welcome in the debate or at least whether laymen should just go off and play with other toys. Thanks for the informative links, but I had a hard time understanding them as describing anything other than classification theories based upon similarities of genes, physical characterisitcs, etc. You don't prove astrology through ever more complex astrological charts. You don't prove Christianity through ever more dense scholasticism. And you don't need advanced theological training to pose respectable questions challenging religion.

As far as I can tell, the debate comes down to the proten nature of evolutionary theory. Sceptics suspect theories like stasis and punctuated equilibrium are simply cooking the books after the fact while evolutionists see them as part of science's glorious self-correcting nature. I do note people like Jeff and you often seem more pre-occupied with whether there is a "need" for ID than whether evolution is verifiable or plausible. If that sentiment drives much evolutionary thinking, and I think it does (cf. Mayr on humans, which is almost a total collapse of the rigour and science he applies to other species), your objective becomes as much political as scientific. It also leads you to completely dismiss plausibility as a test for your conjectures. (great voyages, blue eyes, evolution contrary to natural adaptibility, etc.). And then there are consciousness, morality and alienation, about which you guys can only mumble.

While I have your attention, I would like to revisit an issue from a few weeks back. When Orrin challenges you on the philosophical problem that a belief in naturalism ends with an inability to be an objective observor, you dismiss it as some kind of extreme undergrad-like trick and Jeff comes in to talk about standing in front of trucks, a red herring if there ever was one. Why? The inability of the religious to "know" religious truth according to the tenets of religion is a charge you guys make all the time. What is it about naturalism that entitles you to describe natural history as if it's participants were responding unconsciously only to natural forces but then drop the constraints and implications for evolutionary scientists in the name of common sense and the scientific method? And let's keep all those exciting developments in neuro-chemistry up front on this one.

Peter:

I think OJ's trope is that reason is self contradicting, since there is no way to prove reality exists.

Ok, taken as stipulated.

It doesn't matter. If one takes it as axiomatic that reality exists, then certain other things follow. Like not walking out if front of trucks, or playing golf in a thunderstorm. Everyone not subject to more or less continuous supervision acts as if reality exists. OJ does not walk out in front of trucks because there is sufficient expectation in his mind that they haven't heard they can't prove their existence.

The reason I continue returning to the inability of the religious to know big-T truth is because of continuous claims to the contrary. It is when religions start believing their own press releases about posessing absolute Truth that the problems start. Religions have no more grasp on Big-T truth than materialism does, the only difference is that the latter has taken that on board.

Your criticisms of evolutionary theory could in fact stand with some strengthening of your theoretical underpinnings. It is one thing to criticize hypotheses of what caused a particular sequence of changes--most of them can be tested, at best, only by their plausibility with respect to the available evidence, since the details are almost certainly lost in the mists of time.

It is another entirely to trash the underlying mechanisms, because in the broad brush of evolution, (life has changed over time in ways completely consistent with a self organizing, goalless, recursive system) the evidence is wide, deep, and without contradiction.

So the details may be forever beyond us, but the notion that, once life got started on earth, the rest is a compilation of mindless accidents, is very difficult to escape.

BTW--gradual and punctuated evolution are different--and not necessarily contradictory--means of coming to terms with the evidence. That is what science does. Why not contradictory? We seem to be living in something like stasis now. A new ice age, or a 20-mile wide meteor, could punctuate things quite nicely. Would that change evolutionary theory any?

The reason I, brought up Cladistics is the fascinating--and detailed--chain of evolutionary change that starts with Therodonts (a type of dinosaur from--I think--170ish MYA) to mammals and, ultimately, to us.

Or, God created two humans instantly out of whole cloth.

The evidence is out there, you decide.

Peter

Ok, that seems a pretty comprehensive outline of your position.

To answer a few points:

1) Laymen and phylogenic trees
Non-biologists and laymen are very welcome - that's exactly what we are. But we are interested enough to have found out a little bit about biological classification.

I posted those links because your comments suggested to me that you might have an over-simplistic view of evolutionary theory. It is not just a linear progression, like in those famous old pictures they used to draw before they understood it: ameoba to newt to fish to lizard to mammal to man.

Speciation occurs in a branching pattern. When populations of a species become reproductively isolated in different environments and face different evolutionary pressures (or a lack of them), through the processes of mutation, inheritance and natural selection in the environment, they will diverge, and eventually become so different from each other that we can classify them as a new species.

So related animals don't 'turn into each other' - they have common ancestors. Hence the phylogenetic tree pattern of evolution, and the cladogram pattern of biological classification.

You also need to be wary of thinking of a 'species' as a sort of Platonic 'type' - ie. there is an 'ideal' horse, and all actual horses are variably imperfect copies of it.

Darwin introduced to biology the concept of 'population thinking'. This means that you recognise that each individual organism is genetically unique - and the term 'species' refers to a population of genetically unique individuals. Once you've understood this aspect of biology, the 'gradual' concept of speciation is a lot easier to grasp.

2) "Sceptics suspect theories like stasis and punctuated equilibrium are simply cooking the books after the fact while evolutionists see them as part of science's glorious self-correcting nature."

That's undoubtedly true. But you could say it of all science that develops and improves. We have discovered things that explain what was previously unexplained. No other science gets kicked for this as much as evolutionary science does. And that's because it causes problems for some religious theories.

3) I do note people like Jeff and you often seem more pre-occupied with whether there is a "need" for ID than whether evolution is verifiable or plausible.

Evolution is both verifiable and plausible. If there is no need for an ID, we won't believe in one until we see some evidence for one. That's Occam's razor again.

4) "And then there are consciousness, morality and alienation, about which you guys can only mumble."

Evolution is not human-centric. It applies to all life - from orchids to orcas.
We don't have to say anything about morality if we don't want to. Evolutionary explanations for human behaviours is a different branch of study fromk Darwinism as applied to the history of evolution. And a very controversial one. Nobody claims to have all the answers.

5) Undergrad philosophy tricks
OJ sometimes tries to discredit Darwinism by arguing that there's no such thing as absolute truth, and that reason is nothing other than another faith.

Well, that may be, but if it is so, then it applies no more to Darwinism than it does to anything else, from physics to astronomy to literature to tennis. That's a desperate argument, and one any scientist can ignore. Of course I could be plugged into the Matrix, but for the purposes of argument, let's assume we're not. Otherwise we might as well just go home now.

.

Jeff:

"(life has changed over time in ways completely consistent with a self organizing, goalless, recursive system) the evidence is wide, deep, and without contradiction."

When you define "self-organizing" as encompassing both the seemingly purposeful and purposeless, the random and the conscious, the static and the changing, the useful and the obstructive, and the naturally harmonious with the alienating, of course the evidence is wide and deep. Nice tautology.

As I understand, Orrin's trope is a challenge to you guys, not a denial of reality. It has nothing to do with trucks, which is learned behaviour (toddlers do run in front of trucks or right into the ocean, as I once learned to my terror). The question is how can you place yourself as an authoritative observor and interpreter in a world unfolding exclusively in response to purposeless, unconscious forces? Put another way, if evolution determines everything Jeff Guinn knows and thinks, why should I listen to Jeff Guinn, who may have just undergone a random mutation unawares? Are you going to tell me that is not a serious question? Put yet another way, how does evolution explain consciousness?

Finally, your close-mindedness and intolerance is starting to show prominently. You delight in pinning the most unsophisticated scriptural literalism and tenets that were rejected long ago on all the religious, whatever they say. You make the most grandiose, sweeping historical accusations with little or no research and even less interest in it. But you get cranky and possessive if we don't spend full time mastering the arcane language of evolution and keep up to fulltime PH.D standards on all the latest research, most of which has nothing to do with first principles. And then, even on a site like this, you, Harry and Brit suggest it is somehow illegitimate for us to even open our mouths.

But, no problem. I understand. That is what happens when you challenge an establishment faith.

Brit:

We crossed.

"No other science gets kicked for this as much as evolutionary science does. And that's because it causes problems for some religious theories."

No, it is because evolution is a historical account that can't be tested or observed. Religious people used to have terrible difficulties with germ theory. They don't now.

Peter

You mean 'darwinism is a historical account that can't be tested or observed', not 'evolution'...?

I'd argue that a brief perusal of a fossil record allows you to observe evolution.

Jeff brings up plate tectonics in this argument, and he's quite right to do so. It's exactly analagous to evolutionary theory, in that it explains a historical process and can't be 'observed' in real time.

Yet nobody kicks it.

Because it doesn't conflict with many religious beliefs.

If it's a coincidence that nearly everyone who bashes darwinism is religious, it's a very remarkable one.

Brit:

It's not a coincidence at all, because Darwinism is a rival religion.

Out out a seismograph and then tell me you can't see the plates shifting.

That's just a silly argument, OJ.

A seismograph might detect movement, but it certainly doesn't allow you to observe the pattern of the shifts in the continental plates over the last few billion years.

If you can call a seismograph reading an observation of plate tectonics, then I can call a lion catching a gazelle, before that gazelle has any offspring, an observation of darwinism.

Brit:

We can easily measure those movements too over the course of a year.

If the lion sprouts wings and uses them to catch the gazelle, I'll concede Darwinism.

Brit:

Fine, fine. Darwinism and natural selection. I am assuming we are talking about big E here, as we have said so many times.

OJ

If the lion sprouts wings and uses them to catch the gazelle, I'll concede God.

Brit:

I suppose you find it a remarkable coincidence that most people who bash liberalism are conservatives? This discussion of plate tectonics is distorted. The fact that plate tectonics can or cannot be observed doesn't affect whether it is true or not. The inability to observe natural selection doesn't affect whether it is true or not. But it does affect whether you can logically assert it is a fact or conclusively proven.

God's happy with the lion and the gazelle, that's why they don't evolve anymore.

Peter

You denied that it is the conflict with religious beliefs that motivates people to bash Darwinism, instead asserting that "it is because evolution is a historical account that can't be tested or observed."

In other words, you say it is because the theory lacks scientific rigour.

If that were the case, I would expect most attacks on it to come from scientists and biologists.

But they don't. Darwinism is, to all practical purposes, universally believed among biologists.

Most attacks on Darwinism come from religionists.

The plate tectonics point is directly analagous to your criticism of darwinism, not a distortion. Plate tectonics is a theory, but it isn't very controversial.

Finally, let's be clear again.

Evolution is a fact. There's just too much evidence to call it anything else.

We haven't said natural selection is a fact. Natural selection is the best theory, and most widely accepted theory among biologists, that explains the fact of evolution.

Brit:

The problem is that Darwinism is a religion which claims surperiority to others on the basis of a patently false grounding in science.

Brit:

"Darwinism is, to all practical purposes, universally believed among biologists."

There is a vocal minority. However, what percentage of medieval physicians do you think challenged the theory of the four humours? What percentage of physicists and astronomers accept evolution so firmly?

Religion may motivate people to challenge Darwinism, but religion is far from being the source of all the objections.

If your comforting much-repeated mantra is that it is all a FACT, then I am arguing with an evolutionary Jesuit. I would be more impressed with the biologists if I believed that scientists generally had the inside track on distinguishing reality from myth, but I don't. And finally, if biologists are generally as competent to discern historical truth from first principles as lawyers are to discern justice, or doctors good health, I'm considerably less than overwhelmed.

Peter:

"if evolution determines everything Jeff Guinn knows and thinks ..."

That is a classic example of a false premise, and belies a fundamental misunderstanding about Evolution/Darwinism.

Evolution is the term given to the evidence substantiating the fact all life on Earth came from exactly one common ancestor, and has changed the succeeding ~2.5BY. When Brit says that fact is as established as any fact can be, he is exactly correct. There is not one piece of evidence anywhere to contradict that statement, and mountains supporting it.

Darwinism is the explanation for how that change occurred. Darwinism does not determine what the results of that change will be: it doesn't determine there will be gazelles, or lions, or humans. It most certainly won't determine my existence, never mind what I think. So you may mean your question seriously, but its false premise makes it unanswerable.

Regarding OJs trope--what is the alternative? If you take his trope seriously, than thermodynamics is every bit as suspect as Darwinism.

"You delight in pinning the most unsophisticated scriptural literalism and tenets that were rejected long ago on all the religious, whatever they say. You make the most grandiose, sweeping historical accusations with little or no research and even less interest in it."

I beg your pardon. When religious people make claims to possessing, absolute, objective truth, then any instances of similar, now rejected claims, render that assertion at least suspect. I do as much research on religion as I have time for--including following many of the links posted here. Can you say as much for your research on evolution?

As I said above, I am not a biologist, nor do I have anything like PhD expertise in the field. But I do have enough knowledge to spot mistaken arguments and outright strawmen.

Regarding plate tectonics: Yes, with a seismograph, one can measure earthquakes. However, a seismograph will tell you absolutely nothing about crustal movement. And until extremely sophisticated laser measuring systems, the only means we had of measuring such movement was by noting obvious crustal displacements, dating them, thereby determing average velocity and direction. Note that no significant displacements (analagous to OJ's "significant speciation) have occurred during human history.

Note also that religionists long resisted the conclusions of geology and plate tectonics, because they both completely contradicted Bishop Usher's chronology.

So why heap the opprobrium upon Darwinism, whilst accepting other "historical" sciences?

The quantity and quality of the evidence is the same for them all.

I have been using weather/climate analogiess because of an interesting book I just finished, "Our Affair with El Nino, " by George Philander (won't be published till the 24th).

He has a long and remarkably clear description of how simplifying assumptions help scientists to frame a theory which can then be shown to not be contradicted even if no very exact predictions can be made with it (in part, because, with weather the system is mathematically chaotic).

I predict that no religionists are going to attack Philander, because he's writing about weather and climate, and even if he's right, they will not feel threatened in their superstition.

But the argument is equally applicable to the history of life as to the history of the El Nino-La Nina phenomenon.

That's why abstract reasoning has so much practical value, an outcome that probably would not be predicted without extensive experience. We can take a topic thought out in a neutral ground and match it up with one that is more emotional.

At least, some of us can.

Darwin's theory is used as justification for pure materialism. The consequences of a purely materialistic world view, taken as the basis for organizing society and framing the relationships between individual human beings would be destructive to western civilization and the idea of ordered liberty. The supports for civilization transcend materialism. The values taken for granted although embodied within the institutions of our culture find little reasonable justification in materialism and would be jettisoned for the flimsiest reasons or theories.

The very nature of man is under assault by materialism. If materialists wish to organize society they should present better evidence for their position than Darwin and his theories regarding the origin of species.

Atheists are attached to Darwin's theory for obvious reasons. The institutions of western civilization, however, are based on more than pure reason, i.e. tradition, custom and the fundamental belief that a power exists which is above the power of man. History proves the utility of such tradition and the tragedy of it's rejection.

Tom:

Granting, for the moment, your asserttion, what Darwinism is used for has not the first thing to do with whether it correctly describes Natural History.

The very nature of man is what it is. It isn't amenable to Darwinism, or Marxism, or the tenets of one religion or another.

What are the obvious reasons atheists are attached to Darwinism? Does that mean religionists do not find Darwinism a persuasive account of Natural History?

If memory serves, the Catholic Church doesn't object to Darwinism.

Better to marry than to burn, eh, Tom?

Well, fine, but have the decency not to accept, say, antibiotics next time you get sick. That is, if the traditional society that makes our civilization work is so superior.

Harry:

science is just a product of Judeo-Christian culture

Tom:

Nicely said. Isn't it remarkable how our adversaries are so wedded to their creed that they would rather allow it to lead them to inexorably the end of civilization than question it?

Peter:

You have taken as proven that which is far from true.

Darwinism will not lead to the end of civilization, never mind inexorably. Darwinism, if true, does treat rather roughly religious beliefs that make humans the point of the universe.

Oh well.

Besides, any materialistic theory demonstrably refuting religious dogma justifies materialism. The list of such theories is quite long.

I happen to believe in Darwinism because, like any other card-carrying materialist, I have--and continue to--question the heck out of it. The problem is, the answers keep making sense.

Jeff:

Europe proves Peter's point pretty well.

Well, if his point is that the presumption of Darwinism's ability to destroy civilization is sufficient cause to suppress it everywhere, no matter its correctness, then he has contradicted his own point.

That's the way the Taliban worked.

Jeff-

The unqualified acceptance of materialism combined with a belief in pure reason as the basic priciple of social organization is the danger to civilization. Darwin's theoretical franework regarding the origin of species is accepted as proven by those who wish to jettison much of the theistic basis for our civilization.

No one on this blog wishes to suppress any theory even though it's unqualified acceptance is not based on incontrovertable, testable science.

It is a narrative used in support of the antithesis of the custom and tradition which has produced western civilization. Weakening those institutions is not productive. Doing so on the basis of the atheism which is the by product of absolute, officially sanctioned materialism and the arguable case it makes would seem the height of human arrogance.

Your argument regarding suppression and the taliban is an emotional response to a position which has been shown to be prudent throughout history. Darwin's theory regarding speciation has not been proven even though it may very well be accurate. I suppose even rationalists throw up straw men from time to time.

I think western civilization as we know and love it did not even start until secularism tamed religion. Before that, what passed for civilization in the West wasn't worth having.

Orrin says, over and over, that all the things he likes -- capitalism etc. -- depend on Judeo-Christian theory. But he cannot explain why they did not exist when Judeo-Christian values were in the ascendant.

I can. "Mercatura raro aut sumquam ab aliquo diu sine crimine exerceri potuit."

Tom:

"Isn't it remarkable how our adversaries are so wedded to their creed that they would rather allow it to lead them to inexorably the end of civilization than question it?"

Re-read that carefully. Note the implicit assumptions.

1. Absolutely wed to the theory's correctness
2. Despite knowing it--the theory--will lead Darwinists, and everyone else, to end civilization
3. Darwinists would rather end civilization then question the theory's impact on civilization.
4. If Darwinists would only value civilization more than the correctness of the theory, then...

Then what? You tell me, Tom. What else is left if the belief in a material theory, despite its material correctness*, will lead to destroying civilization except to suppress that belief?

That is precisely what that question means--I threw up no strawman. Whether Peter meant it that way is another question. Unfortunately, I only had access to the pixels, not his intent.

*Within the context of scientific inquiry, Darwinism is materially correct because it explains all known observations, does not contradict any observations, makes correct predictions, and has been tested. That the nature of those tests does not satisfy non-materialist critics does not mean the theory has not been tested within the context of rational inquiry.

Harry:

Since I didn't have the pleasure of Catholic school, what does that mean?

Jeff-

You are mis-characterizing my position. You do that often. The theory regarding the origin of species as presented by Darwin is not proven. Some attach themselves to the theory, though unproven, for certain purposes. One of those purposes is a re-thinking of certain social relationships which manifest themselves through certain social institutions which have developed, over time, through custom and tradition. Much of that tradition and custom has theistic underpinnings. Do away with the theism, replace it with materialism and pure reason and you have civilization based on an extremely shifty foundation only dependent on who has the TEMPORAL power. If there exists no power higher than man, the West and the liberties we take for granted will cease to exist. You have greater faith in man than I.

Tom:

I certainly don try to mischaracterize what you say. When I do, please accept my apologies in advance.

However, I must disagree with one assertion. Within the scientific context, Darwinism is most definitely proven.

I do agree with you that some are rethinking social relationships, but I doubt very seriously that Darwinism has the first thing to do with that. Even within the religious context, there is disagreement on certain social relationships, and that disagreement is based on varied viewpoints as to whether assertions of immorality in the Bible are in fact God's words, or merely the opinions of those who possessed secular power at the time.

Keep in mind, Darwinism does not replace God. It does replace a particular conception of how life changes over time. But for those who find that uncomfortable, Darwinism does not exclude God stage managing the entire thing in such a way as to preclude detection of that very stage managing.

Darwinists who claim otherwise are overegging their arguments. As are religionists.

Jeff:

Correction: within biology it is considered proven. Indeed, it's dogma. Physicists are routinely skeptical.

Routinely skeptical?

So you are saying most physicists have physics based arguments against Darwinism That's a new one on me--references please.

It means making a profit is criminal, Jeff.

The assertion, made constantly here, that social order will collapse without theism, and more particularly without Christian theism, is obviously incorrent. There was a social order long before there was Christianity.

Nor is it obvious that the social order that existed when Christianity was unchallenged by secularism was better than any other of the time, or better than today's. In many respects, it was worse.

If humans are capable of learning, as I believe them to be, there can be no a priori reason to think they cannot learn by experience better ways to organize themselves.

That's what representative government was about, and religion always opposed it.

Agreement Between the Settlers at New Plymouth : 1620

IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620.

Mr. John Carver,
Mr. William Bradford,
Mr Edward Winslow,
Mr. William Brewster.
Isaac Allerton,
Myles Standish,
John Alden,
John Turner,
Francis Eaton,
James Chilton,
John Craxton,
John Billington,
Joses Fletcher,
John Goodman,
Mr. Samuel Fuller,
Mr. Christopher Martin,
Mr. William Mullins,
Mr. William White,
Mr. Richard Warren,
John Howland,
Mr. Steven Hopkins,
Digery Priest,
Thomas Williams,
Gilbert Winslow,
Edmund Margesson,
Peter Brown,
Richard Britteridge
George Soule,
Edward Tilly,
John Tilly,
Francis Cooke,
Thomas Rogers,
Thomas Tinker,
John Ridgdale
Edward Fuller,
Richard Clark,
Richard Gardiner,
Mr. John Allerton,
Thomas English,
Edward Doten,
Edward Liester.

Harry-

You curmudgeonly old jacobin. One can only imagine the use you would put to the guillotine with those evil, backward, intolerant Christians.

If only it had been Harry Eagar instead of Robespierre...

Standing by for those physicist references.