Religion

Tralhob

No I'm not a professor just lecturer, supervisor, tutor, assessor, course writer and mentor. I didn't get involved in research as I was more interested in being at the sharp end of things. The university work went along with work in the Public Sector. Now that I'm retired I realise that the sharp end of things needs the work of the researchers otherwise it stagnates. Too late for me to get involved but I don't regret it, it's been a blast - I've worked alongside amazing people and whith young people who have been stimulating and challenging.

I was looked upon by others - not by me - as an expert in my areas of work (Adult and Continuing Education, Youth Learning, Adult Literacy and Numeracy, Youth Literacies, Community Development, Community Safety, Community Partnership Planning, Community Learning and Development Planning, Problem Solving, Intelligence led Policing, Youth Representation, Local Government Management, additional special needs adults and young people - note no capitals, apparently it's not PC to capitalise asn because that accentuates their situation, Health Education including mental and sexual health Disability, Equal Opportunity and Child Protection Legislation - it was a long career!) probably because I always questioned what we did and why we did it, any successes were investigated in detail - why did it work, wich bits could have worked better, how can we improve it. I look on life the same way.

What my work with the university students taught me is that if you make a fantastic claim (such as a god, satan, heaven, hell etc.) you have to back it up with reference to a wide range of credible, peer reviewed work. You must be able to argue your case logically and put the opposite view equally well, showing that you have read widely taking in views from all angles from credible sources. It's not acceptable to say that Marxism is a good thing because Marx said it was in Das Capital. Equally it's not acceptable to say that god exists because the bible says so. BUT it is for those who make fantastic claims to prove them through logical discourse. I believe that Theism is a fantastic (as in based on fantasy) idea and therefore it is up to Theists to prove it by referring to credible sources and not Biblical scholars who after akll only study the fantatical book in which god's existence is hypthesised.

The existence of god is a hypothesis because it hasn't been tested credibly against the known facts or subjected to peer review by credible scientists. It is not a theory yet.

Evolution is a theory, because the original hypothesis has been tested against the known fact and subjected to peer review by credible scientists. It is not a fact yet but we get closer day by day.

Neither can be called fact but a theory is one stage closer to fact than a hypothesis.

Sorry, got a bit carried away there

To the Silly old duffer, when you wrote "If the disabled and retarded are allowed to breed then the human race CAN NOT evolve further, and being an evolutionist you don’t want that, do you?"

How dare you talk about the disabled in such a way. You are talking from a position of ignorance and prejudice. Ignorance of how evolution works and prejudice against the disabled or those with additional special needs. I have worked closely with groups of children and adults with both disabilities and additional special needs and they all made more sense than you do. I was honoured to share their space and time.

You are at least thirty years behind the times as far as understanding of evolutionary theory. The Human Genome project has moved us ahead in major leaps and bounds but, strangely, Richard Jorgenson and colleagues' research in botanical genetics and hybridisation in petunias (of all things) in the late nineties and early zeros has actually led to the biggest breakthrough in our understanding of evolution, introducing RNA sequencing and introns.

he's more than 30 years behind the program; more like 150 years. If he's ever read Origin of Species, he obviously didn't 'get it.' Darwin himself repudiated the notion of 'higher' and 'lower' life forms. owm is injecting his own philosophical baggage into a thory that is neutral and descriptive.

You are, as usual, right on the button Tralhob.

I gave the silly old duffer the benefit of the doubt and was working on the assumption that his biological knowledge was based on school learned biology (Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen - professors at Warwick University - call science as taught at school "lies to children, as it has been simplified to such a degree it is no longer true). The biology taught in schools today - in the UK and in the US is at least 30 years out of date. That's an awful lot better than mathematics which is at least 150 years out and of course physics is stuck in the 1950s.

It is part of the "lies to children" teaching that results in natural selection being understood as the 'survival of the fittest' which is of course moronic claptrap. It comes down to bad teaching and the silly old duffer has obviously had some seriously bad teachers.

Sad really as the first thing science students are now told as they arrive at University all bright eyed and bushy tailed proud of their qualifications is "Forget everything you learned at school it's all a pack of lies. Now roll up your sleeves and get ready to learn what we now know!"

Those who find that exciting will be ok. Those who find that upsetting will go on to be something else - probably teachers.

Tralhob,

“How on Earth would you know this?? How on Earth would you have any clue whatsoever about the sincerity of Hitler's religious beliefs?”

You first accuse ME of hypocrisy, then you make THIS statement??? To be honest I don’t think I would know any more than you would. So we are on par on this point.

“Charming. How do you know Hitler didn't believe God instructed him to millions of jews, communists, gays, Romani, etc.?”

Because these groups were/are harmless, and there is NO precedent in God’s Word for Hitler actions against harmless groups such as these. The ‘genocide’ and ‘mass murders’ that are described in the Bible were against people that posed EXPLICIT and FATAL threats to Gods people, so these events are in marked contrast to Hitler’s abhorrent actions.

“Natural selection is not "elimination of the weak."”

What you described IS elimination of the weak!!! In other words the strong survive (to leave more offspring than the weak) and the weak die leaving few, if any offspring. Certain environments will KILL the weak, so the concept of natural selection isn’t as narrow as you seem to realise. Yes, the less fit produce less offspring but the less fit, or the weak, simply DIE. So if you can KILL what you deem to be weak then you will advance natural selection. Eliminating a weak gene-pool from nature is EXACTLY what natural selection endeavours to achieve.

“Mass murder is simply wiping out a portion of the gene pool. Hitler had no way of knowing how fit the people he was killing off were.”

This is very true, nobody actually knows, BUT HITLER BELIEVED HE DID!!! The WHOLE POINT of his eugenics programme (or ANY) WAS to wipe-out unfit gene pools such as the Jews and the physically and mentally disabled. Eugenics mimics natural selection.

“And why the hell would you do all that (forget the fact that it'd be beyond impossible) when nature is going to do it anyway???”

THIS IS THE WHOLE POINT OF HITLER’E EUGENICS PROGAMME. Hitler (and anyone with half a brain) realised that natural selection WILL NOT WORK in this human civilization where NOBODY is SELECTED by NATURE to die, or banned from breeding. If the disabled are left to live and ‘breed’ than natural selection, quite obviously, WILL NOT WORK. This is simply because NATURE is NOT SELECTING against the unfit and weak, so Hitler decided to do it himself!

“What, pray tell, is "advancement" in the context of evolution?”

Quite simple actually, turning a single-celled organism into a human!!! Well I think this is an advancement anyway, I challenge you to defend the position that bacteria (our ancestors) are as advanced as we are! Advancement is turning a weaker species into a stronger one, this is the CENTRAL aspect of evolution!!! When a species gains a mutation that enables it to survive better than its contemporaries then it quite obviously has ADVANCED, it is superior! Do you concur?

“You're saying the Jews are disabled and retarded?”

Hitler exterminated all of the above as the same. He believed them to ALL be unfit.

“Earlier you (ignorantly) said that Hitler abolished religion. I'd just like to point that out. You're backpedalling here.”

I stated that Stalin tried to abolish religion, I accidently put Hitler in the same sentence, I have no idea why I did this as I knew full-well that this was not the case.