Another creationist idiot (2008-07-22)

[Rye]

Calling Moses a mass-murdering prophetic cunt and Jesus an apocalyptic, totalitarian loon actually will get as big a reaction out of a muslim as a christian, it is just the reich wing christian's orwellian tribalism that prevents him from realising this. Ignorance helps you dehumanise your brown mirror image, it doesn't let unhelpful weaknesses like similarity get in the way.

[Setzer]

Hey, stop your false bragging. You don't know about about "fibinacci" numbers.

And information theory disproves evolution, somehow, so there!

Yeah, I agree. I don't know "fibinacci" numbers because they don't exist.

There is a Fibonacci number sequence, of course, but this isn't a very complicated concept either, and I have no idea why he thinks it's relevant to the very basic probabilistic argument creationists don't seem to grasp.

Hey, I know what fibinacci is. I had some fibinacci in a nice Italian restauraunt. It went well with garlic.

[Twoyboy]

And why is it the Christians always start going into comparisons with the Koran? Same thing happened with PZ Myers.

What I want to know is, if that's how you prove righteousness, why isn't he out there attacking the Koran? After all, doesn't it basically say he's an infidel while his Holy Book tells him that they are worshiping a "false God"?

[Morilore]

They want to imply you're some liberal anti-America, anti-West, Islamofascist-sympathizer/appeaser that is eager to placate Islam while condemning and "persecuting" Christianity.

I think in this case it's more about macho chest-beating bullshit than Americhristian ethnocentrism. He claims Wong doesn't devote pages of his website to attacking the Koran because he's scared, presumably of Muslim extremist retaliation. That's actually almost a veiled threat, isn't it?

[Patrick Degan]

Hey, stop your false bragging. You don't know about about "fibinacci" numbers.

And information theory disproves evolution, somehow, so there!

Yeah, I agree. I don't know "fibinacci" numbers because they don't exist.

Fibinacci numbers are those numbers in series which tend to be only slightly dishonest but never amounting to more than a mathematical white lie at worst.

[sketerpot]

This is the part that actually surprised me:

We live in a digital universe. (Duh... whatever that means.)Information has to come from somewhere.

What the hell is he trying to say here with the parenthetical remark? Is he saying that he doesn't understand his own argument? Is he saying that it's unimportant, or expressing derision toward anything that sounds as intellectual as "digital universe"?

You can't parody these guys.

[JBG]

I don't know where you find the time to come across these excerebose hebitudes Mr Wong but boy that was fun.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Btw - do creationists have a stance on extra terrestrials?

Some at least do - they're demons. The "logic" being that humans were created in the image of God, therefore an intelligent nonhuman must NOT be in the image of God. So it was explained to me as a child.

[Mayabird]

This is the part that actually surprised me:

We live in a digital universe. (Duh... whatever that means.)Information has to come from somewhere.

What the hell is he trying to say here with the parenthetical remark? Is he saying that he doesn't understand his own argument? Is he saying that it's unimportant, or expressing derision toward anything that sounds as intellectual as "digital universe"?

You can't parody these guys.

What it could be is that he thinks he's being really clever by taking some terminology that smart people supposedly use and then throw it back at the smart people like, "Oh yeah? Take that!" in some brilliant rebuttal that'll make everyone who sees it fall to their knees and start pleasing Jesus. It's kinda like that Chick Tract where the kid tells the professor that angels keep the electrons from falling into the nucleus, but "cooler" and "more edgy".

Or maybe this is thinking too hard about the subject and he's just an old idiot jock.

[Lonestar]

What it could be is that he thinks he's being really clever by taking some terminology that smart people supposedly use and then throw it back at the smart people like, "Oh yeah? Take that!" in some brilliant rebuttal that'll make everyone who sees it fall to their knees and start pleasing Jesus. It's kinda like that Chick Tract where the kid tells the professor that angels keep the electrons from falling into the nucleus, but "cooler" and "more edgy".

Or maybe this is thinking too hard about the subject and he's just an old idiot jock.

Wait, what?

[Wyrm]

For all their idiocy, at least Fundamentalist Islam doesn't pretend that their idiocy is anything but naked religeosity. Fundamentalist Christianity does: they pretend this shit is scientific.

Another thing is that Mike's arguments against christian morality is equally applicable to any other Abrahamic religion, of which Islam is one.

Regarding the "no information creation issue," I find it amusing that creationtards take such pains to point out (or in the case of Dembski, to "prove") that 'information' cannot be created by natural means, and then jump to the conclusion that the 'information' in our DNA cannot be of natural origin, skipping over the very important step of proving that DNA even has 'information' to begin with. And if DNA doesn't contain 'information' in the first place, what's the fucking problem?

[Metatwaddle]

The creationists is illiterate. He is right, the title really does say it all.

I think there's some fundamental law that says anyone who corrects someone's grammar online will make a mistake himself.

On information theory, the physicist Victor Stenger has a very interesting bit in one of his books - either "God: The Failed Hypothesis" or "Has Science Found God?" - about why Dembski and his disciples are completely full of shit when it comes to information theory. Basically, what he says is that they're using two different technical definitions of "information" to make their arguments, and not differentiating between the two (or explaining that there are two types of "information" but not clearly saying which is which).

[Frank Hipper]

What's a "factorial"?
Is it a proselytising pamphlet available from the "Way of the Master" website?

I'm going to go look at some pictures of fractals, and count out 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21...

[RedImperator]

The creationists is illiterate. He is right, the title really does say it all.

I think there's some fundamental law that says anyone who corrects someone's grammar online will make a mistake himself.

On information theory, the physicist Victor Stenger has a very interesting bit in one of his books - either "God: The Failed Hypothesis" or "Has Science Found God?" - about why Dembski and his disciples are completely full of shit when it comes to information theory. Basically, what he says is that they're using two different technical definitions of "information" to make their arguments, and not differentiating between the two (or explaining that there are two types of "information" but not clearly saying which is which).

TalkOrigins has a pretty good page on this as well. It's a helpful one to bookmark, as the information theory argument seems to be filtering down from "serious" creationists to the Internet numbskull creationists. If you do creationism debating regularly, you'll probably run into it before too long, if you haven't already.

[Alyrium Denryle]

For all their idiocy, at least Fundamentalist Islam doesn't pretend that their idiocy is anything but naked religeosity. Fundamentalist Christianity does: they pretend this shit is scientific.

Another thing is that Mike's arguments against christian morality is equally applicable to any other Abrahamic religion, of which Islam is one.

Regarding the "no information creation issue," I find it amusing that creationtards take such pains to point out (or in the case of Dembski, to "prove") that 'information' cannot be created by natural means, and then jump to the conclusion that the 'information' in our DNA cannot be of natural origin, skipping over the very important step of proving that DNA even has 'information' to begin with. And if DNA doesn't contain 'information' in the first place, what's the fucking problem?

DNA does contain "Information" However, the holes in his argument are big enough to drive a truck through. The first is the Universal Probability bound. He assumes that DNA molecules, this "information" came together all at once. WHich it did not. Even computer simulations rigged against the process can create, from a nonsense strand of DNA, a coherent protein coding strand using subsequent generations and a selective process.

Then, he assumes that DNA is a symbolic language, which it is not, and also assumes that the current DNA codex is the only one that is possible. Which it is not.

[Darth Wong]

Well well, it looks like he responded yesterday.

Logical rebuttal, spelled COWARD.

LOL ... this virtually mocks itself.

Yes, yes mocks itself.

There is plenty of biological reproduction in a typical mud ball. And you still have not explained how you know that it is impossible for this kind of "information" to arise through natural processes, especially since DNA is essentially a very complex organic acid, and as such, is obviously quite reactive. Not that I would expect you to know any chemistry.

Of course they're observed in mud balls NOW. The information is there to pass onward. You haven't explained how you know that it is possible for "information" to "arise" through natural processes. Not that I would expect you to know anything.

Who's implying? I'll say it outright. Creationists come in two flavours: ignorant and dishonest. In your case, you're both. You continually make vague reference to areas of chemistry and history which you've obviously never actually bothered learning. Given that, and your tough-guy posturing, I'm guessing that you're either a high school kid or an adult with developmental difficulties.

my what a good guess....I just haven't been brainwashed.

Funny thing about these scientific "hoaxes" you allude to; without exception, they are discovered and debunked by other scientists. When can we expect to see the chuch actively debunk some of the obviously false claims in the Bible, such as the clearly mythical Exodus journey which centuries of archaeological research have failed to support?

I have a great deal of respect for real scientists. The crap you believe in is not science. I can send you a diagram of the scientific method if you need it. How can you know the exodus didn't happen? Do you have some evidence?? Or is this another example of how you re-write history to suit yourself ?

And why do you think people who take God out of the equation must have no morals? On the contrary, it is the Christian fundamentalist who has no morals; he subscribes to a belief system where it is your belief rather than your behaviour which determines your worth: "salvation through faith, not works".

People who know there is a creator to answer to are much more moral than godless savages.(You for instance )

This has nothing to do with macho.

LOL ... so says the mouth-breathing knuckle-dragger whose idea of a rebuttal is to say that I need to face physical violence.

Ah, we resort to name calling...No, I didn't say you needed to or should face physical violence. I was making a comparison. Not that you would understand that.

Is that the best rebuttal you can come up with to my numerous arguments on the subject? Just say it's "stupid" without explaining why? How do you explain those quotes from "Mein Kampf"?

Oh I see you define Christian to your own liking too. Oh well. Mr. Hitler was insane first. Just because he made references to God ,and
tried to court the Catholic Church doesn't make him a Christian. (not that you can comprehend this.)

Not from evolution theory, which states that the most populous and reproductive race is the most successful one. Aryans are nowhere near the most populous race, so they are NOT superior according to evolution theory. But of course, you wouldn't know that, because you obviously don't know the first thing about evolution theory.

Yes he did get a lot of his junk thoughts from evolution THEORY. He took it as fact just as you do. He also made a lot of references to
the occult practices of witches and palm readers, astrology as well. Yes indeed, a real Christian he was. You drag this up to try to discredit Christianity. Islam vindicates a few of the same patriarchs. Still, not a peep about them ha ha ha ...

He was probably a deist. Not that someone like you would recognize the distinction.

Someone like me? You're the one who tried to make him an atheist. But then since there is no god we can just overlook that little shading
of the truth can't we? Hmm, Deist, Yes, I think I grasp the concept!

Tell you what, I'll post your oh-so-brilliant arguments on my Internet forum for all to admire. Will that make you happy?

I don't care what you do with my arguments. Only a select few, (certainly not your regular readers if you have any) will understand what I'm saying anyway.

You're frankly not worth a website update; you're exactly the sort of blustering stereotypical fundie that I would expect to be posting from a place like Knoxville Tennessee. I half-expected you to be making an attempt at satire until I saw your IP address location.

Ouch! oh, that was very small of you. Just what I expected from someone on a fools errand. Oh yes if I didn't mention it before, I'm not a fundie. I'm a funguy! Get it??? ha ha ha. Oh well, Can't expect miracles I suppose.

He seems to think that if he keeps SAYING he's clearly smarter than me, it will actually look that way, even though nothing he says indicates intelligence. I responded thusly:

Yes, yes mocks itself.

You really don't get it, do you? When you screech that I'm a "COWARD" for not exposing myself to physical violence, you are engaging in pitifully obvious macho posturing.

Of course they're observed in mud balls NOW. The information is there to pass onward. You haven't explained how you know that it is possible for "information" to "arise" through natural processes. Not that I would expect you to know anything.

Why don't you try talking to a biochemist? We've observed the addition of genetic material through natural processes, when extra genes get added to the sequence. That is "information" by your definition, since these genes will replicate themselves in subsequent generations.

Of course, you will simply alter your definition upon reading this, and add extra conditions which must be met. Creationists are experts at moving the goalposts.

my what a good guess....I just haven't been brainwashed.

Ah yes, the desperate refuge of the ignoramus: to refer to higher education as "brainwashing".

I have a great deal of respect for real scientists. The crap you believe in is not science. I can send you a diagram of the scientific method if you need it.

News flash: you learned a dumbed-down child's version of the scientific method in high school. If you want to learn the real thing, you have to go to university.

How can you know the exodus didn't happen? Do you have some evidence?? Or is this another example of how you re-write history to suit yourself?

More than a million people walking through the desert for 40 years should have left evidence of their passage. There is no such evidence, and they've looked in all the places it should be. Moreover, there is no Egyptian record of such events, nor is there any evidence of the sudden and massive devastation to their national power that should have taken place due to the multiple plagues and disasters supposedly visited upon them, never mind the overnight loss of more than a million slaves. And finally, there is the impossibility of supplying such a large expedition as it wanders about the desert. Therefore, no Exodus. Is that a sufficiently simple explanation for you?

Why didn't you try looking it up? Are you afraid of what you might find? The only people who think the Exodus is a historically accurate story are religious groups. Even the Director of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University in Israel agrees that there is no evidence to support it, even though it's so important to the Jewish mythos and Israeli national self-identity.

People who know there is a creator to answer to are much more moral than godless savages.(You for instance )

Prove it.

LOL ... so says the mouth-breathing knuckle-dragger whose idea of a rebuttal is to say that I need to face physical violence.

Ah, we resort to name calling...No, I didn't say you needed to or should face physical violence. I was making a comparison. Not that you would understand that.

I understand exactly what you are doing when you keep asking why I don't go out of my way to confront Muslim extremists; you think that this somehow degrades my credibility, because in your primitive mind, the strength of an argument is determined by willingness to face violence.

Oh I see you define Christian to your own liking too. Oh well. Mr. Hitler was insane first. Just because he made references to God, and tried to court the Catholic Church doesn't make him a Christian. (not that you can comprehend this.)

You didn't even bother reading those quotes from "Mein Kampf", did you? Don't worry, I know how people like you operate. You fear information which might shake your confidence, so you avoid even looking at it.

Yes he did get a lot of his junk thoughts from evolution THEORY. He took it as fact just as you do. He also made a lot of references to the occult practices of witches and palm readers, astrology as well. Yes indeed, a real Christian he was.

So you think that anyone who believes in any non-Christian ideas at all is not a Christian? How do you explain all of the people in your own country who go to church every week and also check their horoscope in the newspaper every day?

You drag this up to try to discredit Christianity. Islam vindicates a few of the same patriarchs. Still, not a peep about them ha ha ha ...

No, I point it out because you're obviously too slow to understand that Christianity does not necessarily make you a good person. Have you ever read the Civil War era Texas Declaration of Secession?

He was probably a deist. Not that someone like you would recognize the distinction.

Someone like me? You're the one who tried to make him an atheist. But then since there is no god we can just overlook that little shading of the truth can't we? Hmm, Deist, Yes, I think I grasp the concept!

No, you don't grasp the concept at all. If someone is a deist, he does not believe in any kind of personal God, period.

I don't care what you do with my arguments. Only a select few, (certainly not your regular readers if you have any) will understand what I'm saying anyway.

You're arguing and writing at a grade 9 level at best. Don't kid yourself.

Ouch! oh, that was very small of you. Just what I expected from someone on a fools errand. Oh yes if I didn't mention it before, I'm not a fundie. I'm a funguy! Get it??? ha ha ha. Oh well, Can't expect miracles I suppose.

You probably think that this will look really clever and witty when others read it, don't you? You're way out of your league, kiddo. Your problem is that you don't even realize it.

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=124866

[Darth Raptor]

They want to imply you're some liberal anti-America, anti-West, Islamofascist-sympathizer/appeaser that is eager to placate Islam while condemning and "persecuting" Christianity.

I think in this case it's more about macho chest-beating bullshit than Americhristian ethnocentrism. He claims Wong doesn't devote pages of his website to attacking the Koran because he's scared, presumably of Muslim extremist retaliation. That's actually almost a veiled threat, isn't it?

He's asserting moral superiority on the part of Christianity by claiming a Muslim would violently retaliate against such criticism whereas a Christian wouldn't. I've actually been told "you're lucky I'm not a Muslim" by Christians before. I'm not sure if there's an implicit threat. He probably just went after what he perceived as an exploitable weakness and has no concept of logical fallacies or rational debate.

I'm like Alyrium, I usually go out of my way to save some fire for Islam, Hinduism and even "benign" religions like Buddhism, thereby cock-blocking this retarded argument in its entirety. Only it doesn't work. I still get railed on for going after Christianity disproportionately. An accusation that, while admittedly true, is hardly relevant. If I lived in Saudi Arabia, Islam would be my focus (after desperately trying to stay alive/get the fuck out).

[Darth Wong]

Look at how he phrased it in his first message: "That would take a man willing to make a sacrifice for what he believes."

He thinks that it's a devastating criticism of my character to say that I'm not willing to die for my beliefs, and like many Christians, he probably believes that this will also destroy all of my arguments by association. I'm quite willing to admit that I don't intend to die for my beliefs; if a Muslim put a gun to my head, I'd be praising Allah and Mohammed before he could take the safety off. If he would not do the same, it doesn't make him superior; it makes him stupid.

Mind you, I think we all know he would do the same, because he's just a posturing blow-hard.

[Wyrm]

Regarding the "no information creation issue," I find it amusing that creationtards take such pains to point out (or in the case of Dembski, to "prove") that 'information' cannot be created by natural means, and then jump to the conclusion that the 'information' in our DNA cannot be of natural origin, skipping over the very important step of proving that DNA even has 'information' to begin with. And if DNA doesn't contain 'information' in the first place, what's the fucking problem?

DNA does contain "Information" However, the holes in his argument are big enough to drive a truck through. The first is the Universal Probability bound. He assumes that DNA molecules, this "information" came together all at once. WHich it did not. Even computer simulations rigged against the process can create, from a nonsense strand of DNA, a coherent protein coding strand using subsequent generations and a selective process.

Then, he assumes that DNA is a symbolic language, which it is not, and also assumes that the current DNA codex is the only one that is possible. Which it is not.

I was careful to put 'information' in quotes in my post where I was talking specifically about creationtard's definition of 'information'. My point is not that DNA doesn't contain information the way we would define it, but 'information' the way they would define it. Of course, 'information' here is, put simply and free of all obfuscating bullshit, "put in by God", but they try to weasel around that by saying it means "complex specified information" — the same way saying "I hold a royal flush" is specified.

Of course, the reason why a royal flush is special is because we've decided it was special: we consider the cards ace, king, queen, jack, and 10 of one suit to be a special combination — a combination that is physically insignificant. If the physics of cards makes such sequences particularly low-energy (hence special in a way), they would be much more probable because they'd be selected for.

The problem is that information doesn't exist in a vacuum. A book would just be a big, bound stack of funny ink marks without the existence of a machine (in the form of human visual systems and language centers) to act on human thought processes using the markings as a program — an act which we call 'reading'. DNA would just be an aperiodic crystal without a machine (called collectively the central dogma of biology) to turn the specific pattern of DNA into protiens, which by their very chemistry perform tasks.

Even in pure mathematics, information doesn't exist without a context. The classical information of Dembski only exists because there is a reference probability distribution, p(x), which we may use to calculate the probabilities of symbol strings x. Without the probability distribution p(·), you cannot calculate information content; and since we don't have the probability distribution on DNA in organisms, we cannot compute the information content of a string of DNA — we can only do it for the simplistic and completely unrealistic case of a totally independent joint probability function. Even Kolmogorov complexity (an oft-cited creationtard definition of complexity and hence information) is always in reference to a description language; change the description language, and you change the Kolmogorov complexity of the subject sentences. KC cannot be defined in an absolute sense.

So there you have it. The creationtards can't even determine that a piece of DNA even has information in the first place, because they've stripped away the surrounding context and insist on defining it in a vacuum.

[Junghalli]

I always love it when they trot out the "people who know they will answer to the Creator are more moral" line. Let's see:

Atheist: refrains from evil deeds like murder, rape, and theft because he knows they cause suffering.

Religious person: refrains from evil deeds like murder, rape, and theft because he's afraid of being caught by God.

Which sounds more moral to you, the man who does not do evil deeds even if he could get away with them because he knows they're wrong, or the man who does not do evil deeds simply because he thinks he can't get away with them? It sounds to me like religious people are the ones whose morality is based entirely on fear of punishment, not atheists.

[Wyrm]

Which sounds more moral to you, the man who does not do evil deeds even if he could get away with them because he knows they're wrong, or the man who does not do evil deeds simply because he thinks he can't get away with them? It sounds to me like religious people are the ones whose morality is based entirely on fear of punishment, not atheists.

Very true. We may add to that people who would commit such crimes because they think God will give them a pass in that particular circumstance. For instance, the religious nuts who fly planes into buildings because they'll go to paradise and receive 72 olives. Religion can justify anything, given your ability to interpret the scripture. Some morals.

[DPDarkPrimus]

If it makes you feel any better Mike, he probably thinks of you as a godless savage not because you're an atheist, but because you're not white.

[Revy]

What a bloody hypocrite. He has a go at you for name-calling but calls you a godless savage - amongst other things.

As for the Exodus, isn't it scientifically flawed to ask someone to prove the Exodus didnt happen when the burden of proof is on them to prove that it did? It's exactly the same as them saying we should have to prove that the flood and the ark never happened, that the crucifiction and ressurection never happened, and of course, prove that God doesnt exist.

I never got the whole religious morality gig at all. Let me see if I'm understanding it right - God gives humans free will, but will mercilessly punish them for using that free will to act in any way other than he dictates. Which is free will ... how exactly? That's like holding someone at gunpoint and saying "You're free to do whatever you want, but if you dont do as I say I'm going to shoot you." In fact, it seems to me that God would have to have a very sadistic streak indeed to grant humans the capacity to sin and commit evil, solely so that he can punish them for doing so. Is he that bored?

I don't care what you do with my arguments. Only a select few, (certainly not your regular readers if you have any) will understand what I'm saying anyway.

Well he got one thing right at least ...

[General Zod]

What a bloody hypocrite. He has a go at you for name-calling but calls you a godless savage - amongst other things.

As for the Exodus, isn't it scientifically flawed to ask someone to prove the Exodus didnt happen when the burden of proof is on them to prove that it did? It's exactly the same as them saying we should have to prove that the flood and the ark never happened, that the crucifiction and ressurection never happened, and of course, prove that God doesnt exist.

It's simply fallacious rather than scientifically flawed. As he's asking for people to prove a negative.

[Zixinus]

There is no context to this argument: he doesn't even understand over half of the rebuttals. He just blurts whatever macho-filled egoism he can muster.