creationist propaganda
Bev Clark/Steve Gallacci
though going a bit far afield, i had to jump on this.
">You know, it would be darn nice of science could come up with a real
skeleton
>other than their 'pig's tooth' that they said was an ancient man a long
time a$
>and the crippled body of a human found in france, they also said was an
ancient
>human. I'm not buying into this due to the fact that why is it, they
can find
>complete skeletons of dinosaurs that supposedly lived millions of years
ago, y$
>no skeletons or even fragments of a primitive man other than one that is
still$
>member of homo sapiens?
This is right out of an old Fundamentalist track from the '70s, all the
points of which can be seriously refuted.
There are good skelatal remains how available, things like pig's teeth
have been well-weeded out as the mistakes they were, dinosuar remains
reperesent large populations of common species over many millions of years
while Homo has a past of only a few million years, and was a fairly rare
and limited range specie early on.
Issues of evolution from inside the sceintific community deal with the
fiddlybits of processes and such, but there is no HONEST doubt about the
basics, that the world is old and species do change.
That some bible idoliters (technically a sin in the bible itself) can't
accept a god who works on a bigger scale than their own myoptic version
of the world ought to be their own private problem. Old earth and
evolution doesn't challenge god, only the authority of the bible nazis.
Ostrich
Bev Clark/Steve Gallacci (bev...@netcom.com) wrote:
: That some bible idoliters (technically a sin in the bible itself) can't
: accept a god who works on a bigger scale than their own myoptic version
: of the world ought to be their own private problem. Old earth and
: evolution doesn't challenge god, only the authority of the bible nazis.
Erf! This is a point that Christians have been trying to make for the
last few years - a Fundamentalist worships the Bible, a Christian
worships Christ.
-Ostrich! <")
William Brogden
Well said!
<RANT>
These literal bible creationists make me sick.
The facts are that every field of science, from Astrophysics to
Zoology supports:
1. The great age of the universe - much older than the physical earth.
2. The basic biochemical connection of all life on earth.
3. The observable process of evolution.
</RANT>
WBB
Syke
Ostrich wrote:
Quick, a reference was made to nazis, so now I'll say somewhere there must
be a bible Hitler to kill
this thread!
Syke, who notes this debate is absolutely useless because people are stubborn
and narrow minded and no matter what is said, you can't convince someone who
is stuck in their views to not be stuck in them through mindless chatter and
the propoganda that is from both sides... might I add that it was teacher's
and not scientists who wanted the evolution view.
--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Homepage:http://www2.fortunecity.com/roswell/bacon/2/home.html
ICQ:11325417
Places to Find Me Online:
Transformers Genesis:mozzarella.wpi.edu port 2000
Quinn/Nightwatch/Darius/Scatter
FurryMUCK:Syke, occasionally
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Syke
Ostrich wrote:
> Bev Clark/Steve Gallacci (bev...@netcom.com) wrote:
>
> : That some bible idoliters (technically a sin in the bible itself) can't
> : accept a god who works on a bigger scale than their own myoptic version
> : of the world ought to be their own private problem. Old earth and
> : evolution doesn't challenge god, only the authority of the bible nazis.
>
> Erf! This is a point that Christians have been trying to make for the
> last few years - a Fundamentalist worships the Bible, a Christian
> worships Christ.
>
Oh, and while I'm at it, I'm a Christian and I follow as close as I am able
and nobetter than to do anything but SHOW it. Speaking and not living what
you preach
is why so many of us are branded hypocrites. And if I get one flame about
there being no such thing as
Christians who can be furry I will flame you so bad you won't walk for the
next week ;)
> -Ostrich! <")
Syke, who has already been flamed for that once and finds it annoying, and
hey, it's self defense ;)
Bev Clark/Steve Gallacci
In article <896398242.22798.0...@news.demon.co.uk>,
Ostrich <ost...@fysh.org> wrote:
>Bev Clark/Steve Gallacci (bev...@netcom.com) wrote:
>
>: That some bible idoliters (technically a sin in the bible itself) can't
>: accept a god who works on a bigger scale than their own myoptic version
>: of the world ought to be their own private problem. Old earth and
>: evolution doesn't challenge god, only the authority of the bible nazis.
>
>Erf! This is a point that Christians have been trying to make for the
>last few years - a Fundamentalist worships the Bible, a Christian
>worships Christ.
The book "Stealing Jesus" (highly recommended) discusses this at length
from the point of view of an honest Christian analysing what the
Fundy/"christian"right has been doing.
Farlo
William Brogden did speaketh thus:
>The facts are that every field of science, from Astrophysics to
>Zoology supports:
>1. The great age of the universe - much older than the physical earth.
Tricks! Tricks! It's done with mirrors ... er, REALLY BIG mirrors,
yeah, that's the ticket ... =:)
(Anyfur remember "Yeah, That's the ticket" from SNL?)
>2. The basic biochemical connection of all life on earth.
It's magic (and, given the education level of most people that I deal
with, might as well be). Alchemy! Sorcery! EVIL magic!!!
m>^_^<m I shoulda been an Inquisitor ... it's a gift....
>3. The observable process of evolution.
Animals don't change - people do. Oh, wait, that's not it...
"... and God said, 'Let there be Weinerdogs' and life was good..."
Aphasians, 12:3
Weinerdogs are also known as "Dachshunds" for those of you who might
miss the reference...
... i can imagine the Garden of Eden, Adam picking wax out of his ear,
and Peg (...er...) EVE playing innocently with the weinerdogs ...
BWUH HAH HA
Ron Orr...& Tirran
Syke <str...@dallas.crosswinds.net> wrote:
> Oh, and while I'm at it, I'm a Christian and I follow as close as I am able
> and nobetter than to do anything but SHOW it. Speaking and not living what
> you preach
> is why so many of us are branded hypocrites.
IIRC, 'Speaking and not living what you preach' was specifically
_not_ what the disciples were exhorted to do; rather the opposite. This
does tend to get forgotten... or ignored.
> ... And if I get one flame about there being no such thing as Christians
> who can be furry I will flame you so bad you won't walk for the next week
> ;)
No argument from me; two of the most genuine (and thoughtful)
Xtians I know are furrys. Still trying to figure out _why._
Ron
Kimba W. Lion
griz...@vianet.on.ca (Ron Orr...& Tirran) wrote:
> No argument from me; two of the most genuine (and thoughtful)
>Xtians I know are furrys. Still trying to figure out _why._
Why what? I can't figure out which characteristic the "why" applies
to.
You don't have to answer that. But it sounds like a good topic for
discussion. But maybe not here. Whatever. :)
Kimba
or something...
WitchCat 1
Hoi. Being the flaming liberal that I am, I view all belief systems equally,
Christianity as well as Science. They both have something to offer, as does a
good novel or a glorious night at the theatre. Still, we must not fall into the
trap of saying that one path is the right one, and all others false. After all,
what if Christianity AND Science are both flawed in their dogmas? GASP!! Then
we'd have to think fur ourselves (perish the thought).
WitchCat
Dr. Cat
Farlo (stan...@abac.com) wrote:
: BWUH HAH HA
I'm sorry, but that's not the correct Hebrew spelling of "banana" as
written in the bible. The original from the Old Testament (also known as
"The Koran" or "The Torah", depending on which religion you happen to
belong to this century) is BUH NAH NAH. Please remember these hold words
accurately and keep them always close to your heart.
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions || Free alpha test:
*-------------------------------------------** http://www.bga.com/furcadia
Furcadia - a new graphic mud for PCs! || Let your imagination soar!
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
(Disclaimer: A banana in time saves mimes.)
Dr. Cat
WitchCat 1 (witc...@aol.com) wrote:
: what if Christianity AND Science are both flawed in their dogmas? GASP!! Then
: we'd have to think fur ourselves (perish the thought).
Well, us cats are supposed to be naturally suspicious of anything called
a dog-ma, shouldn't we?
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions || Free alpha test:
*-------------------------------------------** http://www.bga.com/furcadia
Furcadia - a new graphic mud for PCs! || Let your imagination soar!
*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------*
(Disclaimer: I'll be in my room, working on inventing my new scheme of
thought and it'll be made with all catmas and no dogmas!)
Farlo
Dr. Cat did speaketh thus:
>Farlo (stan...@abac.com) wrote:
>: BWUH HAH HA
>
>I'm sorry, but that's not the correct Hebrew spelling of "banana" as
>written in the bible. The original from the Old Testament (also known as
>"The Koran" or "The Torah", depending on which religion you happen to
>belong to this century) is BUH NAH NAH. Please remember these hold words
>accurately and keep them always close to your heart.
BWAH HAH NA BUH NAH NAH ... bah. Bwahnanananas. In both ears.
>(Disclaimer: A banana in time saves mimes.)
NO!!! Bananas are truly a good and just fruit, never to be used for
evil purposes like protection of mimes! Ack! Phbt!!!
Ucalegon
In article <356E1325...@dallas.crosswinds.net>, Syke
<str...@dallas.crosswinds.net> writes:
>might I add that it was teacher's
>and not scientists who wanted the evolution view.
This at first seemed so removed from reality as to be more
Syke-o than false. But there may be some truth to it. Teachers
had nothing much to do with proving evolution true. (Yes,
*proving* it *true*--the chance of finding that evolution did
not occur, whatever the mechanism, is essentially equal to
the chance of finding that the earth sits immobile at the
center of the universe.) But nowadays teachers are often
on the front lines of the fight against the forces of unreason,
while the biologists sit in the university teaching students
who want to learn the facts of biology rather than fake up
evidences for creation. Not having creationism rubbed in
their faces continually, they dismiss it with the contempt
it deserves instead of fighting it with the fear it deserves.
Anyone who's interested in evolution should read Daniel
Dennett's *Darwin's Dangerous Idea*, which shows just
how powerful (and disquieting) Darwin's idea is.
Acag, Treesong (ucal...@aol.com)
Elf Sternberg
In article <199805300344...@ladder03.news.aol.com>
ucal...@aol.com (Ucalegon) writes:
>In article <356E1325...@dallas.crosswinds.net>, Syke
><str...@dallas.crosswinds.net> writes:
>>might I add that it was teacher's and not scientists who wanted the
>>evolution view.
>Teachers had nothing much to do with proving evolution true.
Please understand; as a scientist this wording doesn't really
apply. Nobody actually proves evolution true; the point of science
is to examine the facts.
In this case, the facts are that fossil
differentiation appears in geological strata (thus, geology supports
evolutionary theory); that the strata where the fossils appear can be
dated according to both geological and radiological means (so the
nuclear sciences support evolutionary theory); that these
radiological deposits are the result of exposure to the open sky and
that these deposits are linear over exposure time (and this astronomy
supports evolutionary theory)... I could go on. The facts are what
you see with your eyes and hold with your hands. Everything else is
just theory.
This is how creationists get away with their argument. They
claim that evolutionary theory "hasn't been proven true." Of course
it hasn't. Nobody every calls a scientific theory true. When a
theory explains a large and diverse body of facts, it is called
"robust." When it consistently explains new phenomena, it is called
"reliable." But (and this is the big 'but'), in order to be a
scientific theory, it must be 'tentative'.
The evolutionary premise for observations has been both
robust and reliable from the very beginning. Some of Darwin's
collary theories about how evolution occurred have been modified
(natural selection has been amended to include other features
available to higher species) and some have been chuckled (gradualism
has given way to a variety of theories).
Given the observations we have at the atomic level, at the
genetic level, at the macroscopic world level, and at the level of
the observable universe, the theory that "Our current atomic
structure, genetic structure, physiology, geology, and cosmology are
the result of the accumulation of changes from previous forms
occurring over billions of years," has demonstrated both robustness
and reliability.
But it's still 'tentative', i.e., someday someone may find an
observation that brings the whole theory into question. As more and
more evidence builds up, this seems unlikely, but science will never
call evolution a 'fact' because that would be an arrogant assumption
that we know everthing. This uncertainly disturbes a lot of people.
Creationism offers certainty, but at a price. To make the universe
fit in ten thousand years, certain elements of quantum physics stop
working; to make man only ten thousand years old, certain elements of
medicine stop making sense, and so on. The "creationist theory" is a
theory only in the way the layman understands the word 'theory'; it
is not a scientific theory because it is not tentative or testable;
ultimately it relies on an uninterrogable God for all the answers.
>But nowadays teachers are often on the front lines of the fight
>against the forces of unreason, while the biologists sit in the
>university teaching students who want to learn the facts of biology
>rather than fake up evidences for creation.
Yes, teachers are; and frequently they crumble under the
weight of a loud and vocal minority. Most biology textbooks until
the college level never explore evolution these days; the largest
textbook market in the U.S. (the State of Texas) has told textbook
manufacturers to avoid the argument entirely by redacting it from
their texts. And since textbook publishers don't want to have two
different versions of their textbook, few textbooks are printed with
evolutionary theory.
Elf
--
Elf M. Sternberg - www.halcyon.com/elf
The view of programming as language-as-text gives the patience to look
slowly through the code. In the end, the overall "productivity" of a
system, the fact that it comes into being at all, is the handiwork
not of tools that seek to make programming seem easy, but the work
of engineers who have no fear of "hard."
Wanderer
Dr. Cat wrote in message <356f0...@feed1.realtime.net>...
(snip)
>(Disclaimer: I'll be in my room, working on inventing my new scheme of
>thought and it'll be made with all catmas and no dogmas!)
You start with Genesis, which has a cat-alysation of reality, followed by a
cat-aclysm. Then you have a cat-alogue of history, ending in the New
Testament with a cat-harsis (though some atheists might suspect cat-alepsy).
And then you finish off with Revelations' cat-astrophe.:>
I'm feeling silly tonight, did you notice?;>
Yours truly,
The dog-gedly wolfish,
Wanderer**wand...@applink.net
Where am I going?I don't quite know.
What does it matter where people go?
Down to the woods where the bluebells grow.
Anywhere! Anywhere! *I*don't know!
Ucalegon
In article <6kpcvm$4ho$1...@brokaw.wa.com>, e...@halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg)
writes:
> But it's still 'tentative', i.e., someday someone may find an
>observation that brings the whole theory into question. As more and
>more evidence builds up, this seems unlikely, but science will never
>call evolution a 'fact' because that would be an arrogant assumption
>that we know everthing.
I know the drill about theories not being true, and I'm willing to adhere
to it when talking to scientists. But the fact of evolution is so well
established, much better than most things that the average person
considers 'true', that I think it is pointless, and even
counterproductive, to avoid the word 'true'. That evolution has
occurred--as opposed to any particular theory of how it did--is
true. This is not arrogant. We don't know everything, but we do
know *enough* to say that our picture of the history of the world
is as near as dammit certain. Either life has evolved over
billions of years or some omnipotent being has created the
world as one immense lie with overwhelming evidence for
evolution.
Put it this way: setting aside all the tentativity rhetoric, if you had
to choose between the chance that you'll be killed by a falling
meteor tomorrow and the chance that the earth will be
definitively proven this year to be only thousands of years old,
which would you call less likely? I unhesitatingly pick the latter.
Acag, Treesong (ucal...@aol.com)
David Gonterman
>This is right out of an old Fundamentalist track from the '70s, all the
>points of which can be seriously refuted.
>There are good skelatal remains how available, things like pig's teeth
>have been well-weeded out as the mistakes they were, dinosuar remains
>reperesent large populations of common species over many millions of years
>while Homo has a past of only a few million years, and was a fairly rare
>and limited range specie early on.
>
>Issues of evolution from inside the sceintific community deal with the
>fiddlybits of processes and such, but there is no HONEST doubt about the
>basics, that the world is old and species do change.
>That some bible idoliters (technically a sin in the bible itself) can't
>accept a god who works on a bigger scale than their own myoptic version
>of the world ought to be their own private problem. Old earth and
>evolution doesn't challenge god, only the authority of the bible nazis.
I needn't have to argue with this person. In my humble opinion,
people who believe in this Theroy of Evolution and call it Fact, even
though it is ten times as much as a Fairy Tale, and takes a Hundred of
much faith as does the Creation Theory. These people just plain
refuse to believe that someone or something made reality, even though
everything *we* all made requires someone to make it. I heard they
even don't want to be accountable for said creator.
However, far from saying the same old sing song arguments that have no
doubt been repeated ad nauseum in this newsgroup, I would like to
invite you all to visit the CRI page at www.equip.org. Even though
this page is designed with a pro-christian stance, they do assume that
you have a brain. They research their subjects in question and
presents concise answers in their pages, and on the air. (Their show
is even Web-Casted, a big plus.) You can request for their info for
free via a form, although I suggest that you buy some books,
exceptionaly the ones that go against Church Movements today. Anyone
who thinks Benny Hinn is a total fake can't be all bad, eh?
An exceptional topic here, which would apply here is called, "The FACE
that demonstrates the Farce of Evolution." Emphasis is on the word
FACE, which is an acronym for helping memory. These people should
have books on School and College study guides.
David Gonterman-----...@aol.com-----------------
FoxFire Studios--------http://users.aol.com/dgonterman------------------
FoxFire Comic Strip----http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/8256/FoxFire-------
Farlo
David Gonterman did speaketh thus:
>I needn't have to argue with this person. In my humble opinion,
>people who believe in this Theroy of Evolution and call it Fact, even
>though it is ten times as much as
More useless flamage. Bleagh.
Anyone want to share their tips with the rest of us on basic figure
drawing? A beginner's primer for drawing the anthropomorphic form?
-------------------
Farlo m>*_*<m
Urban Fey Dragon
Standard XXXX
@abac.com XXXX
-------------------
These people don't approve of spam (AFAIK) and
e-mail sent to them will get you in trouble:
postmaster@[127.0.0.1]
abuse@[127.0.0.1]
MAILER-DAEMON@[127.0.0.1]
.@[127.0.0.1]
..@[127.0.0.1]
root@[127.0.0.1]
Peter da Silva
In article <3572b8fb...@news.accessus.net>,
David Gonterman <dgo...@spiff.net> wrote:
>I needn't have to argue with this person. In my humble opinion,
>people who believe in this Theroy of Evolution and call it Fact, even
>much faith as does the Creation Theory. These people just plain
>refuse to believe that someone or something made reality, even though
>everything *we* all made requires someone to make it. I heard they
>even don't want to be accountable for said creator.
So you feel that a dynamic and evolving Creation, set in motion billions of
years ago and still running like new, is somehow inferior to one that
requires continual manual intervention and handholding by the Creator?
I think your idea of God is far to small and limited to deserve the name.
--
This is The Reverend Peter da Silva's Boring Sig File - there are no references
to Wolves, Kibo, Discordianism, or The Church of the Subgenius in this document
| "Settle down, boys. There's pain enough for everyone in net.*." |
| -- Kate Wrightson |
James Allen
In article <3572b8fb...@news.accessus.net>
dgo...@spiff.net "David Gonterman" writes:
>
>
> I needn't have to argue with this person. In my humble opinion,
> people who believe in this Theroy of Evolution and call it Fact, even
> though it is ten times as much as a Fairy Tale, and takes a Hundred of
> much faith as does the Creation Theory. These people just plain
> refuse to believe that someone or something made reality, even though
> everything *we* all made requires someone to make it. I heard they
> even don't want to be accountable for said creator.
>
Firstly, I'm sure that many people have pointed out that a belief in
God is not incompatible with a belief in evolution, or any other aspect
of scientific theory. It may be _irrelevant_, from a scientific POV,
but that's not the issue. Evolution (and science itself) is only
incompatible with a certain brand of Biblical literalism - and I'd urge
every supporter of this brand of literalism to read 1 Kings 7:23 and then
press the "Pi" button on their pocket calculators, or Luke 17:34 and
consider their opinions on homosexuality.... ;)
However, I accept your argument that science and "Creation Theory"
require the same amount of "faith". Someone who supports science must
accept certain axioms, and it could be argued that a belief (for example)
in the invariance of natural law requires just as much "faith" as a
belief in the literal truth of the Authorized Version of the Bible.
That being said, I think that science may have rather more in the way
of practical sucess to show than biblical literalism when it comes to
actually getting things done in the Real World (TM).
"Scientific Creationism", on the other hand, attempts to claim that
science and biblical literalism _are_ compatible, which implies that
the Scientific Creationists accept the axioms of Science. I'd be
interested to know which of Duane Gish's claims (or whoever it is who
runs the place these days) you think can stand up to examination against
_scientific_ (rather than Biblical) criteria.
Incidentally, I've seen a very elegant attempt to reconcile science with
Biblical literalism, which basically says that Genesis 1 should have read
something like:
1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth [which condensed
from a dustcloud into a ball of molten rock, which then solidified. Life
arose soon afterwards by chemical processes, and evolved over a period
of billions of years by natural selection. Fish, reptiles, birds and
mammals all arose from earlier simple forms, and left imprints of their
bones in the rocks. And then, in 4004 BC, a great natural disaster
occurred...] 2. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness
was on the face of the deep...
> However, far from saying the same old sing song arguments that have no
> doubt been repeated ad nauseum in this newsgroup, I would like to
> invite you all to visit the CRI page at www.equip.org. Even though
> this page is designed with a pro-christian stance, they do assume that
> you have a brain. They research their subjects in question and
> presents concise answers in their pages, and on the air. (Their show
> is even Web-Casted, a big plus.) You can request for their info for
> free via a form, although I suggest that you buy some books,
> exceptionaly the ones that go against Church Movements today. Anyone
> who thinks Benny Hinn is a total fake can't be all bad, eh?
>
One thing that I've always noticed in the more, shall we say, conservative
wings of the Christian church is the great hatred the various groups have
for each other - I won't speculate as to whether this reflects in any
way on their adherence to various theoretical aspects of the Christian
faith - like, you know, _love_, man? ;)
>
> An exceptional topic here, which would apply here is called, "The FACE
> that demonstrates the Farce of Evolution." Emphasis is on the word
> FACE, which is an acronym for helping memory. These people should
> have books on School and College study guides.
>
I was under the impression that creationism had already made considerable
inroads into the American educational system - but I can't speak from
first-hand knowledge. I'm glad that, in the UK, at least, the various
Christian churches don't feel obliged to force the general public to
accept their creeds.....
Now, this discussion is great fun, but some people might consider
it to be slightly off-topic. Therefore:
ObFurry: Part of the reason that creationism (and other forms of
anthropocentrism that people have believed over the centuries) retains
its appeal is undoubtedly true to the considerable difference in
appearance and habits between humans and apes. Furries are generally
depicted as being a lot closer to their animal originals - would they
have this problem?
Jim
--
____/#####\ || Replies to - Ja...@jimx.demon.co.uk ||
##### .\_ || The JIMX Homepage - http://www.jimx.demon.co.uk/ ||
##### * ||==================================================||
/------- || "They'll only take my .sig when they scrape ||
/ || it off my cold, dead C-drive." ||
Bev Clark/Steve Gallacci
>
>Personally, I believe, from my extensive studies of Creationist,
>Evolutionist, and neutral texts, and from my own calculations, that
>Creationism AND Evolutionism, in their current forms, are BOTH a load of
>BS! The earth is far older than Creationists claim, and far younger than
>Evolutionists claim. The idea that God created every single species that
>exists today, even the thousands of variants among a single Order such as
>Rodentia, is a violation of The Economy of Miracles (a theological
>principle that God never acts unless he has to), The Principle of Least
>Action (the idea that someone or something will always take the easiest and
>most simple route to accomplish a task) AND Ockham's Razor (the simplest
>solution is usually the correct solution.) The idea that all species on
>earth evolved from a single cell that spontaneously formed is equally
>absurd. It's the equivalent of having a planet composed entirely of jet
>airliner parts, and through natural processes, producing a fully functional
>747!
uhm.
Your assesment and dismissal of evolution and the analogy you use merely
suggests that you know a lot less about an awful lot than you think you do.
I am no enemy of religion per se, but I don't like creationism and the
malevolent authoritarianism that masqeradies as christianity that goes
with it.
I also don't like simple ignorance claiming to be well-reasoned opinion.
A full understanding of evolution and the related issues is a major bit
of interdisciplinary study that next to no one actually ever bothers with.
Ucalegon
In article <35730730...@news.isat.com>, captp...@isat.com (Captain
Packrat) writes:
>The idea that all species on
>earth evolved from a single cell that spontaneously formed is equally
>absurd. It's the equivalent of having a planet composed entirely of jet
>airliner parts, and through natural processes, producing a fully
> functional 747!
If you can still repeat that nonsensical analogy with a straight face,
you haven't been reading the right books on evolution--of course
a planetload of jet airline parts will never in a googolplex of years
produce a 747, because it lacks all three of the essentials of
evolution: reproduction, differential reproductive success, and
mutation. By the same token, any fool can see that a 747 can't
fly: it has no feathers, it can't flap its wings, and it can't see where
it's going.
Getting from nonlife to the first cell is still very hard in our
present state of knowlege; reproduction is hard to manage,
and so is differential reproductive success that makes a
difference. But from the first cells to all modern life--that's
clear sailing. I grant you faith is still needed as yet, faith that
we will find an answer to life's beginnings when we know
more. But it is precisely our ignorance, given the total lack
of fossils and only the most tenuous and indirect evidence
of how things might have happened, that makes it now
unreasonable to claim that we will *never* find an answer.
(Actually, I think it's quite possible we will never know just
how life arose; but I think in a few decades we will have
solid evidence of ways that it *can* arise from nonlife.)
The origin of the first life is a morass of speculation.
Evolution of life thereafter is a fact.
Again, I recommend Dennett's *Darwin's Dangerous Idea*.
Read and absorb that, and you still may not believe in
evolution, but your arguments against it may make some sense.
Acag, Treesong (ucal...@aol.com)
bgar...@indy.tds.net
>first-hand knowledge. I'm glad that, in the UK, at least, the various
>Christian churches don't feel obliged to force the general public to
>accept their creeds.....
>
Unfortunately, the USA traces its European ancestry to the Puritans, who I
believe were booted out of England for being, shall we say, unneighborly.
To no one's surprise, they came to North America and, quickly becoming
bored with persecuting the Native Americans, began to persecute each other.
And now their descendants (ideological descendants, at least) continue to
drive the rest of us crazy.
*sigh*
Derlin
Micole Khemarrica
Farlo wrote:
> David Gonterman did speaketh thus:
> >people who believe in this Theroy of Evolution and call it Fact, even
> >though it is ten times as much as
>
> Anyone want to share their tips with the rest of us on basic figure
> drawing? A beginner's primer for drawing the anthropomorphic form?
As it has often been debated, you can look at 'basic figure drawing' for
zoiomorphs from two different angles: drawing people first, and drawing
animals first. Personally, in my opinion, one should learn both but the
priority should be on learning people as that is the predominant 'shape'
you draw zoiomorphs from.
Now, regarding human 'basic figure drawing', there are a couple of good
books like "Drawing the Marvel Way" which gives you good 'hacks' on
illustrating without having to learn the entire formal process.
Another good reference is... well, people. I used to run a Life Drawing
workshop that would help beginners and experts alike, as even the pros
can use some time looking at a live person and trying to get enough of
the image on paper before the pose is gone. Life Drawing is a good way
to teach you _not_ to get wrapped up in your head -- you can't spend the
time plotting out geometric shapes or build a skeletal structure, you
just have to connect your eyes to your hands and draw the shapes you
see. After a few sketches, you can always go back and build upon the
Life Drawing scribble to make them more finished, and some people have
found this to be an amazing eye-opener.
Formal and informal styles have some techniques that are good to learn;
the 'head-height' measurement, action lines, perspective and
forshortening -- learning these simple techniques greatly improve the
quality of the artpiece and bring life to it.
So, do you want me to go into details? :3
ermine
[Undo the Knot to Reply.]
William Brogden
> It's the equivalent of having a planet composed entirely of jet
>airliner parts, and through natural processes, producing a fully
> functional 747!
Oh that stupid analogy again - that and the shoebox full of watch parts.
A cursory study of the real work that has been done on chemical
evolution
(starting with the famous Miller experiment) would suggest a better
analogy:
If you put a bunch of bar magnets in a shoebox and shook it - would you
be
at all surprised to find that they formed chains and various structures?
WBB
Doodles
On Mon, 01 Jun 1998 09:12:18 -0400, Micole Khemarrica
<NoS...@MyPlace.com> wrote:
>So, do you want me to go into details? :3
[At this point, a rabbit in firefighter's gear sticks his head out of
the burning newsgroup...]
"For the love of Ghod, PLEASE! We're fighing an uphill battle and
content is the only weapon we have!"
Unca Spooge, running out of water...
Elf Sternberg
In article <35729B...@bga.com>
William Brogden <wbro...@bga.com> writes:
A better analogy is the "million monkeys" analogy. You know
that one-- if you had an million monkeys hammering away at a million
keyboards when would one of them write Hamlet? Well, if you were
relying completely on random selection it would take a long time. But
there's a great simulator that demonstrates that if you have an
"environment" in which the play is a "best fit," rejecting keystrokes
that didn't fit into the environment as the monkeys hammered away one
button after another, it wouldn't take long at all-- about a day.
This is why the creationist analogies fall apart. They fail to
take into account all of the surrounding environmental issues that
affect the evolutionary process-- and that includes everything from
the smallest atom to the farthest star.
I got one great laugh the other day when I heard a creationist
blaming "a belief in evolution" for the collapse of Social Security.
I couldn't follow the logic and I don't remember enough of it to
repeat it here.
ELynne
On Sun, 31 May 1998, David Gonterman wrote:
<snipsnipsnip>
> doubt been repeated ad nauseum in this newsgroup, I would like to
> invite you all to visit the CRI page at www.equip.org. Even though
> this page is designed with a pro-christian stance, they do assume that
> you have a brain. They research their subjects in question and
Ummm...I followed the link you gave, just to check out what they had to
say, and the first thing I saw was a banner ad for a book called "The
Kingdom of the Cults," said Cults (which "are larger and more numerous
than ever before, and they are actively preying on Christians to draw them
into their world of deceit and lies") apparantly include Jehovah's
Witnesses, Bhuddism, New Age, "Eastern Religions", Islam, and "many
more"...apparantly anything that the author doesn't like.
I know, this has *nothing* to do with a debate about Creation vs.
Evolution (which is a debate I take both side on, BTW), but when the first
thing I see on a web page is a banner ad for a book telling me how to
protect myself from the insidious belief systems of everybody on the
planet who doesn't happen to believe exactly what I do...well...I'm much
less inclined to give that web page much credence right from the start.
Sorry, it's terrible and opinionated of me, but if you were to follow a
link to a page with information about evolution and the first thing you
found was a banner ad for a book called "God is Dead, Stop Arguing About
It Already!", I bet you'd be a lot less willing to give that information
the benefit of the doubt, neh?
Just thought I'd let you know...
-- Erin, Easily Amused
"Look, a bug!"
ELynne
On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Captain Packrat wrote:
> Personally, I believe, from my extensive studies of Creationist,
> Evolutionist, and neutral texts, and from my own calculations, that
> Creationism AND Evolutionism, in their current forms, are BOTH a load of
> BS! The earth is far older than Creationists claim, and far younger than
> Evolutionists claim. The idea that God created every single species that
Actually, they're both true. In some sense. And false in some sense.
And irrelevant in some sense. And...hmm, I'm hungry. Pizza, anybody?
Ron Orr...& Tirran
Kimba <Kimba...@aol.com> wrote:
> griz...@vianet.on.ca (Ron Orr...& Tirran) wrote:
>
> > No argument from me; two of the most genuine (and thoughtful)
> >Xtians I know are furrys. Still trying to figure out _why._
>
> Why what? I can't figure out which characteristic the "why" applies
> to.
>
> You don't have to answer that.
Ah, but you _know_ I will. ;)
> ... But it sounds like a good topic for
> discussion. But maybe not here.
Well, bring it up you-know-where and I'll say something there,
too. :)
But... what I was trying to get at was that in my rather broad
experience, the majority of people who style themselves 'devout' Xtians
tend to be rather hostile towards _anything_ out of a rather
narrowly-defined mainstream. The thoughtful ones seem obsessed with
proving doctrine, at least, the particular doctrine that they themselves
follow. (Yes, there are exceptions. I met one, the pastor of my
brother's private school, a man whose services were a lot less Anglican
than the school probably intended, and a lot more 3rd-century-CE. I
wish, tho, that I'd had the chance to talk to C.S. Lewis...)
So it came as quite a surprise to find that what I've always
seen as the _true_ spirit of Xtianity was being kept alive by people who
in may ways see themselves more clearly as animals than as human beings.
Damifiknow why... yet...
Ron
confuzzled (as usual)
Ron Orr...& Tirran
Peter da Silva <pe...@taronga.com> wrote in reply to something I snipped
to save space:
> So you feel that a dynamic and evolving Creation, set in motion billions of
> years ago and still running like new, is somehow inferior to one that
> requires continual manual intervention and handholding by the Creator?
This is a POV I keep running across myself; that the creator
must also be a micromanager. It doesn't work in the office; why on earth
(sorry) would it work in a universe 30 billion light years across?
> I think your idea of God is far to small and limited to deserve the name.
Agreed; people (some people) seem to need a god they can
understand at their own level, a phenomenon that has been used to
explain the size of some ancient pantheons.
I'm far more taken with the alternative idea, still extant in
some cultures; a creator who sets everything up, puts it in motion, then
sits back and watches without taking part, sometimes creating 'demigods'
to do specific jobs. Makes sense to me; if being creator was _my_ job,
this is how I'd do it. ;)
Ron
David Gonterman
On 01 Jun 1998 13:05:14 EDT, ELynne <Ely...@cris.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 31 May 1998, David Gonterman wrote:
><snipsnipsnip>
>> doubt been repeated ad nauseum in this newsgroup, I would like to
>> invite you all to visit the CRI page at www.equip.org. Even though
>> this page is designed with a pro-christian stance, they do assume that
>> you have a brain. They research their subjects in question and
>> David Gonterman-----...@aol.com-----------------
>
>Ummm...I followed the link you gave, just to check out what they had to
>say, and the first thing I saw was a banner ad for a book called "The
>Kingdom of the Cults," said Cults (which "are larger and more numerous
>than ever before, and they are actively preying on Christians to draw them
>into their world of deceit and lies") apparantly include Jehovah's
>Witnesses, Bhuddism, New Age, "Eastern Religions", Islam, and "many
>more"...apparantly anything that the author doesn't like.
>
I'd personaly go "Natch" with the Eastern Religions and disregard any
arguments pro or anti. It's the cults who have the audacidy to claim
to call themselves "Christian" and then go off on how long God's
handspan is, how Christ atoned for our sins, or that you *have* to
shake as if yer getting tazed and speak in some language you can only
achieve after snorting crack for 7 hours while listening to the same
tune over and over again.
>I know, this has *nothing* to do with a debate about Creation vs.
>Evolution (which is a debate I take both side on, BTW), but when the first
>thing I see on a web page is a banner ad for a book telling me how to
>protect myself from the insidious belief systems of everybody on the
>planet who doesn't happen to believe exactly what I do...well...I'm much
>less inclined to give that web page much credence right from the start.
>Sorry, it's terrible and opinionated of me, but if you were to follow a
>link to a page with information about evolution and the first thing you
>found was a banner ad for a book called "God is Dead, Stop Arguing About
>It Already!", I bet you'd be a lot less willing to give that information
>the benefit of the doubt, neh?
>
>Just thought I'd let you know...
>
>-- Erin, Easily Amused
>"Look, a bug!"
I have no intention to go off on this tangent. My only intention to
provide some information strengthing the debate we have now. Maybe
next time, I'll spare you the swim through the spam and send you the
file myself, heh?
James Allen
In article <35752c05...@news.isat.com>
captp...@isat.com "Captain Packrat" writes:
> Bleah, sent the message out before making my point. :P
>
> There is evidence for both sides, and there is evidence to disprove both
> sides. Neither side is able to conclusively prove that their side is
> correct, nor can they completely prove the other side is wrong. Both sides
> have been guilty of fabricating and misinterpreting evidence, and both
> sides tend to examine the evidence only in light of their own point of
> view.
I'd be interested to know what you consider the evidence to be that
"disproves" evolution, or which has been fabricated by the "side"
(presumably, the scientific community) that "supports" evolution.
I agree completely that creationism and science interpret evidence based
on different points of view ("paradigms", if you like), and the conclusions
they reach are equally valid when we take this into account. It's only
when they come up against the Real World(TM) that one approach produces
better results than the other - IMO, of course. ;)
>
> Both Creationism AND Evolution require faith. Either you _believe_ that an
> unseen being or beings created life on this earth, for an unknown reason,
> or you _believe_ that life began through an almost mathematically
> impossible random chance, using unknown processes involving unknown
> chemicals in an unknown environment, for no purpose at all.
Well, if we don't know the chemicals, the processes and the environment,
we can't really say that the chance of life beginning spontaneously
is "mathematically impossible". That being said, I agree that, from
the scientific point of view, it's not legitimate to introduce Divine
Intervention when our current theories can't explain something - what
we should do is look for a better theory...
I don't see why the concept of life (or anything else) having a "purpose"
is relevant to the discussion of how it came to be, incidentally.
>
> BOTH sides require a belief in the unknown.
>
> (I'm mostly neutral in the argument between Creationists and Evolutionists;
> I believe that BOTH sides, as they are currently, are incorrect.)
>
Again, I'd be interested to know what aspects of evolutionary theory
you consider to be incorrect.
Uryvichk
Who says you can't believe in both? I believe in a God that created the world,
but I think he did it via science (i.e., the formation of science which opened
the possibility that life could arise from nonlife)
I don't think we can just make judgments about these beliefs. Perhaps both are
right, perhaps one is; perhaps neither is.
Yes, I've never posted here before. Kudos!
-Nakar Gabab,
Neither a prairie dog, gopher, or weasel,
but a pure-bred, 100% genuine meerkat!
Arved
Captain Packrat wrote:
>
> On Tue, 2 Jun 1998 05:05:37 GMT, wulf...@netcom.com (Dennis Bieber) wrote:
>
> > Where is the testability of Creationism? Where is the
> >independent (of one book) evidence to look at? Throw the bible away and,
> >looking at the world as it exists today, show me what leads to a divine
> >creation?
>
> "One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without
> concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all. The better
> we understand the intricacies of the universe and all it harbors, the more
> reason we have found to marvel at the inherent design upon which it is
> based." -- Dr. Wernher von Braun
I don't intend to cause any flaming (probably will, anyway ;o)
Please note that von Braun's opinion is a biased one, too
(as would be anyone else's). He was a hard-core Nazi (*),
so the idea of determination and purpose is probably just
around the corner.
Please take it somewhere else, maybe talk.origin or something.
Arved
------------
(*) If you've got no problems managing working slaves
and also have a profound knowledge of rocket design,
you can be de-nazified with a signature.
Peter da Silva
In article <35797ff5...@news.isat.com>,
Captain Packrat <captp...@isat.com> wrote:
>I suppose I should have been more explicit. Evolution is a pretty well
>established fact. Spontaneous generation of life from nothing, however,
>is mathematically as close to impossible as one can get, and has absolutely
>no proof that it has occurred.
Um, Captain, evolution and biogenesis are separate issues.
One does have to wonder what the creator was doing for the first three
billion years of Earth's existence, though.
>The most famous (on the evolutionist side) include Nebraska Man (used in
>the Scopes trial, and nothing more than a pig's tooth.), and Piltdown Man
>(which was an outright hoax that a LOT of scientists fell for)
And a lot didn't. And you don't have scientists rallying around this or that
piece of evidence the way the creationists do.
>But we do know what is required for a structure to be capable of
>self-replication, and we can calculate the odds of such a structure forming
>at random.
And they're pretty low. But not zero.
>The sheer number of permutations and combinations of chemicals required to
>produce a self-replicating organism, are simply mind-boggling, and are as
>close to infinite as is possible.
You don't need a self-replicating organism. Just a self-replicating molecule.
And you have three billion years for one to show up. Once it does, then the
rest just falls into place. Three billion years is a lot of time. It's enough
time for life to evolve from bacteria-analogs to humans and destroy itself
in nuclear war twice over. And you only need it to happen once, anywhere, on
one of millions of planets in billions of galaxies in the whole universe, to
set the show on the road.
There's so many variables involved that any discussion of this subject based
on odds is meaningless. The only odds we know about are that it's happened
at least once.
Peter da Silva
In article <357b982d...@news.isat.com>,
Captain Packrat <captp...@isat.com> wrote:
>Evolution CAN be proven. Spontaneous genesis of life has not been proven,
>and probably cannot, and has mathematical probability against it. The
>chemicals involved, the processes by which it occurred, the environment in
>which it occurred, all of these are COMPLETELY UNKNOWN. Therefore,
>accepting such a hypothesis as fact, requires taking a leap of faith.
Who's accepting it as fact?
Any other hypothesis involves changing the laws of physics, and there's no
evidence whatsoever which way to change them.
So, until someone comes up with a better proposal, with evidence to support
it, then it's the one we have to base further hypotheses on. "When you have
eliminated the impossible then what remains, however improbable, must be
the truth".
>"One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without
>concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all. The better
>we understand the intricacies of the universe and all it harbors, the more
>reason we have found to marvel at the inherent design upon which it is
>based." -- Dr. Wernher von Braun
That's cool. So why does that design have to be based in the Bible, rather
than some other Holy Book? Maybe the creator hasn't revealed itself to any
human yet... and one day his true believers will descend from the sky in
flying saucers to lead us back to the true path.
Yes, I'm completely serious about that. Once you abandon the current theories
of biogenesis (which you're collecting together under the umbrella of
abiogenesis) you have no basis for selecting one hypothesis over another, and
the assumption that the Creator only did its thing on Earth is a pretty weak
one. The odds are against it.
>Please READ _ALL_ of what I've written. I'm not taking sides. I've taken
>opportunities to argue against BOTH Creationism AND Evolution AS THEY ARE
>CURRENTLY TAUGHT.
OK, tell us how biogenesis is currently taught (as it's really taught, rather
than the way the creationists are complaining it's being taught). Then tell us
exactly what that has to do with evolution (biogenesis and evolution are
related, but no more so than biogenesis and chemistry or biogenesis and
sociology). Then maybe we'll understand exactly what you're so upset about
that you've taken to USING CAPITAL LETTERS at us.
>People seem to get in their heads that there are only 2 choices; either God
>created everything 4-6,000 years ago, in 7 days, exactly as it says in
>Genesis, or that all life is the result of billions of years of completely
>random chance. There ARE middle grounds, and alternate theories that are
>just as equally valid.
Ah, so what's the mechanism you're postulating to explain theogenesis (the
creation of deities)? Did epistemological molecules come together in the
trillions of years of non-time before the big bang until a self-aware
I AM THAT I AM arose from nothingness?
>I'm trying to wake people up and get them to re-evaluate their positions.
>Do you believe what you do because that is what you were taught? Or have
>you actually taken an _impartial_ look at ALL sides?
Yes. I have. Have you?
William Brogden
> There is evidence for both sides,
Surely you jest! There is no "evidence" for creationism, just
people deluding themselves - one of humanities greatest weaknesses.
WBB
? the platypus {aka David Formosa}
In <3574798e...@192.0.2.3> wulf...@netcom.com (Dennis Bieber) writes:
>On Mon, 01 Jun 1998 20:43:16 GMT, captp...@isat.com (Captain Packrat)
>declaimed the following in alt.fan.furry:
[...]
>> While 747's cannot replicate, computer viruses CAN.
>> What would be the odds of random data forming a viable, self-replicating
>> virus?
Oddly enough quite high. Given a signfiently large number of
random programs (in the form of say tapes for a turing mechean), there are
good chancers that some of these will be able to self replecte.
>> And what would be the odds of the virus evolving into an entire,
>> fully functional operating system, with word processors, video games, etc?
I have built systems that make use of programs that evolve to solve
problems (like how to navagate a robot without causing a traffic jam with
the other robots). And can say that it is possable to evolve complex
behavour by the use of evolotionary techneeks.
--
I'm a perl programer; if you need perl programing, hire me.
Please excuse my spelling as I suffer from agraphia; see the url. Support NoCeM
http://www.cit.nepean.uws.edu.au/~dformosa/Spelling.html http://www.cm.org/
I'm sorry but I just don't consider 'because its yucky' a convincing argument
Syke
William Brogden wrote:
If it wasn't that I already pulled out of this senseless debate, I
would comment. *shrug* Besides, we'll all
eventually find out if it's true or not.
-- Syke
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Homepage:http://www.furnation.com/Syke
ICQ:11325417
Places to Find Me Online:
Transformers Genesis:mozzarella.wpi.edu port 2000
Quinn/Nightwatch/Darius/Scatter
FurryMUCK:Syke, occasionally
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Elf Sternberg
On Mon, 01 Jun 1998 20:43:16 GMT, captp...@isat.com (Captain Packrat)
declaimed the following in alt.fan.furry:
> For something to replicate itself, it requires some level of
> sophistication. A random bunch of chemicals will never reproduce itself.
> Only if those chemicals are arranged into certain, specific patterns, do
> they gain the ability to self-replicate. Lets try a more accurate analogy,
> computer viruses. While 747's cannot replicate, computer viruses CAN.
> What would be the odds of random data forming a viable, self-replicating
> virus? And what would be the odds of the virus evolving into an entire,
> fully functional operating system, with word processors, video games, etc?
There's an artificial life program called 'Tierra' that does
exactly what you're proposing. The problem with your analogy is that,
in order for random data to spontaneously become a virus it must be
*run* through the processor; most data never actually runs on the
metal and so never has a chance to "evolve." Likewise, most operating
systems have a variety of mechanisms (checksums, CRC confirmations,
and so on) to prevent corrupted code (not deliberately altered code,
as man-made viri are) from running on the metal. Unlike a biological
environment, where there are massive arrays of of chemical vectors in
which a process may evolve, there's only one place in a computer for a
virus to arise-- running through the processor, "on the bare metal."
So the analogy holds up, but just barely-- there hasn't been enough
time, and there aren't enough computers in the world, to really answer
this question directly.
On the other paw, there's 'Tierra', a program that, if virus
writers knew about it, would be a nightmare. Tierra is a processor
simulator that does exactly what we're discussing; take a RISC
(Reduced Instruction Set) simulator, give it a LOT of memory, seed it
completely through with random values, and then set the PCReg at the
start, and _try_ to run everything in the memory. Sure enough, valid
programs "evolve" out of this soup with suprising regularity. It's
essentially a virus "breeding" program. Translating RISC viri into
"real" viri (those that will inhabit programs other than Tierra) is an
art as complex as writing viri in the first place, but it's very
possible.
One of the coolest Tierra-viri I had in my zoo at one time was a
symbiot that stole the reproductive code of other viri. It was
completely inert by itself, and in a "real" programming environment
would become readily apparently by its slow destruction of disk
drives, but in Tierra, where everything is assumed to be a primordial
soup of electronic germs, it would fire off the location of itself to
specific memory locations based upon an evolved knowledge of where
other viri kept their "reproductive organs." When that viri code
started to reproduce, instead of copying itself, it would copy the
symbiot. After a while, a nice, balanced ecology of parasites and
hosts developed.
And in a way, computer programs are evolving. The niche is our
desires; the programs that "fit best" into what we think we want
flourish and those that don't fit best are allowed to die. Note that
this is different from "the fittest"; the best programs rarely
flourish because what they need, in terms of development time and
machine resource, are frequently greater than critical mass can
support. To assume a human being, like an operating system,
"assembles itself randomly from surrounding components," misses the
big picture. Homo Sapiens arose from previous forms because, of the
several different species of genus Homo, Sapiens fit best into the
more complicated environments outside of the African plains. This
calls for a process that is neither random nor designed, and we call
that process natural selection.
Operating systems evolve too; Linux is a classic example of an OS
that has a previous generation, and each generation thereafter it
mutates. Some mutations are inimical-- it just won't run. Some are
neutral-- useful to the operator who caused them but not to anyone
else. Some seem beneficial, and the environment called "The Linux
Kernel Group" selects those mutations (patches, drivers, etc) to be in
the next generation. If those mutations turn to be less than
beneficial after a while, the larger "Linux Community" selects those
mutations out again.
There are lots and lots of unused genes in our sequences, things
that have been selected _out_ of our biological heritage but have
never been cleaned out of the code. Read a few books on human
genetics; it's amazing how over half the DNA in our systems is
useless, even dangerous, to our development from fertilized egg to
whole human being. Yet the chemistry of genetics doesn't really
provide a mechanism for removing those genes-- it just adds _more_
genes somewhere that reach back and turn off those codes. So much of
the human genome consists of nothing more than markers reading "ignore
the next dozen sequences-- they're legacy stuff not used anymore."
You see the same thing in computers. Strip down a PC box to
nothing at all and boot it-- you'll see "NO ROM BASIC". That's legacy
code on your floppy driver ROM chip; really old PCs, from the first
half of the 1980s, had a BASIC interpreter on a chip and the floppy
drive, unable to find an operating system, a hard drive, or anything
else, defaults to that message. A legacy nobody uses anymore-- the
BASIC interpreter on a chip.
Evolutionary theory is about understanding these concepts of
niche, environment, selection, and legacy. If there were a designer
why is there "garbage" code in our gene sequences? As a programmer, I
almost find it offensive to think that God put "goto" statements into
the genes that made me. It's far more interesting, even fascinating,
to me to think that we have a complex universe governed by a tiny set
of fundamental forces, and from those forces alone arose such
marvelous beings as ourselves. From whence the dictum of those forces
came is a mystery; we can even call it God and admire his handiwork.
Anyone who wants to experiment with Tierra can find it at
http://www.hip.atr.co.jp/~ray/tierra/tierra.html. Be warned: It's a
big bear of a program and there's no Windows port of it that I'm aware
of.
Allen Kitchen
? the platypus {aka David Formosa} <dfor...@st.nepean.uws.edu.au> wrote in
article <896794763.228377@cabal>...
> In <3574798e...@192.0.2.3> wulf...@netcom.com (Dennis Bieber)
writes:
>
> >On Mon, 01 Jun 1998 20:43:16 GMT, captp...@isat.com (Captain Packrat)
> >declaimed the following in alt.fan.furry:
>
>
> >> While 747's cannot replicate, computer viruses CAN.
> >> What would be the odds of random data forming a viable,
self-replicating
> >> virus?
>
> Oddly enough quite high. Given a signfiently large number of
> random programs (in the form of say tapes for a turing mechean), there
are
> good chancers that some of these will be able to self replecte.
This can be seen with the computer simulation LIFE.
Lots of patterns create the odd pattern known as a
BULLET. This pattern of "cells" moves across the screen
in a definate direction. Furthermore, there is a cell pattern
known as the GENERATOR that creates BULLETs over
and over again. It's not the same as a computer virus,
but it is a replicating pattern formed from random bits.
Allen Kitchen, who used to love mathematical recreation.
Wanderer
Hm, verging on probability theory here ... :>
Captain Packrat wrote in message <35741213...@news.isat.com>...
>On 1 Jun 1998 05:19:31 GMT, ucal...@aol.com (Ucalegon) wrote:
>
>>If you can still repeat that nonsensical analogy with a straight face,
>>you haven't been reading the right books on evolution--of course
>>a planetload of jet airline parts will never in a googolplex of years
>>produce a 747, because it lacks all three of the essentials of
>>evolution: reproduction, differential reproductive success, and
>>mutation. By the same token, any fool can see that a 747 can't
>>fly: it has no feathers, it can't flap its wings, and it can't see where
>>it's going.
>
>knowledgable about aerodynamics, aeronautics, and theory of flight would
>easily be able to tell that it can.
<chuckle> Except that, technically, a 747 *doesn't* fly.:> All the plane
itself actually does is to push itself forward through the atmosphere fast
enough that it continuously glides.:>
>
>For something to replicate itself, it requires some level of
>sophistication. A random bunch of chemicals will never reproduce itself.
>Only if those chemicals are arranged into certain, specific patterns, do
>they gain the ability to self-replicate. Lets try a more accurate analogy,
>What would be the odds of random data forming a viable, self-replicating
>fully functional operating system, with word processors, video games, etc?
>
>and evolving, however, like all other computer viruses, Macro viruses have
>a definite origin; they were created by someone.
>
<chuckle> True enough. But binary wasn't created. It was discovered and
codified, but not created, since it's a very simple conecept: on/off,
hot/cold, 0/1. And technically, every OS that allows a computer to detect
and use newly-installed memory *did* evolve from a virus: The first
viruses, called "worms", were used to unite mainframes by seeking out and
using available memory that wasn't being used.:)
Plus, you're operating from a fallacy: By choosing to analogise through a
manmade item which only exists in a manmade environment, you automatically
eliminate any theory which does *not* take into account the intervention of
the beings which build the computer.:> In any event, the point in the post
you were answering was simple enough, and is pointed out by the following
digest version of an actual experiment:
The experimenter placed a mixture of chemicals (approximating those found in
trapped atmospheric samples in bedrock deposited when dinosaurs roamed the
earth) into a gas chamber. He then applied electrical charges to the
mixture for an extended period (two months, IIRC). At the end of the
period, basic amino acids had been formed.
Now you may ask, "What does that say about Creationism and Evolution
Theory?". The answer is: Nothing. All it says is that it could have
happened that way, and in no way does it substantiate or eliminate either
theory. So there.:>
Yours truly,
The well-read,
Wanderer**wand...@applink.net
Where am I going?I don't quite know.
What does it matter where people go?
Down to the woods where the bluebells grow.
Anywhere! Anywhere! *I*don't know!
Wanderer
I hate to come in on this, but ...
David Gonterman wrote in message <3573206a...@news.accessus.net>...(in response to David's link to Christian Research Institute)
>>Ummm...I followed the link you gave, just to check out what they had to
>>say, and the first thing I saw was a banner ad for a book called "The
>>Kingdom of the Cults," said Cults (which "are larger and more numerous
>>than ever before, and they are actively preying on Christians to draw them
>>into their world of deceit and lies") apparantly include Jehovah's
>>Witnesses, Bhuddism, New Age, "Eastern Religions", Islam, and "many
>>more"...apparantly anything that the author doesn't like.
>>
>
>I'd personaly go "Natch" with the Eastern Religions and disregard any
>arguments pro or anti. It's the cults who have the audacidy to claim
>to call themselves "Christian" and then go off on how long God's
>handspan is, how Christ atoned for our sins, or that you *have* to
>shake as if yer getting tazed and speak in some language you can only
>achieve after snorting crack for 7 hours while listening to the same
>tune over and over again.
>
ever since people forgot what size the cubit was that Noah used when
building the ark. Yes, some people like to talk about it, but I don't find
anything unChristian about wanting to know more about what the Bible says.
2.) The same goes for discussions of Jesus' death on the cross for our
sins. If we're not supposed to discuss it, then why are we called
Christians in the first place?
3.) When you refer to "shaking and talking in a language", I assume you're
talking about the Charismatics (who, fur those who don't know, sometimes
"speak in tongues", and "have visions" ... and no, the quotes don't mean I
think they're lying, since such things do occur in the Bible, but are only
there to denote subjects of which I myself have no experience). Charismatic
churches don't *require* that you do these things, please note. They simply
accept them when/if they happen.
4.) Eastern religions are cults? Well, skipping over the days when Rome
said that was what Christians were, any investigation reveals that these
religions are substantially identical to Christianity. It isn't the
scripture that defames them, but the practitioners.
5.) Mormons a cult? I suppose, technically, they are. Especially since
they've revealed and accepted that the "Book of Mormon" was actually written
by Brigham Young and not translated from an inscription found on two golden
plates. That said, the Mormons have many good things to say as well. True,
they do have a scripture promoting polygamy (not that the KJV doesn't), but
they also touch on the race problems of the time. Or do you think that
Jesus would have liked the slavery of the Old South?
6.) Deceit and death? Sounds like those pamphlets I sometimes find lying
around that rail against role-playing games, Jewish people, and every
Protestant that ever was.
David Gonterman, sir? I recommend a rereading of the Golden Rule: "Do unto
others as you would have them do unto you". It's quite good, even if it is
Old Testament. And I vastly prefer it to Fundamentalist preachers screaming
about how wrong I am to allow other people to think and feel and worship in
their own ways wherever they wish (and marry whomever they wish, but that's
more of a Southern issue lately).
Yours in Christ,
The faithful,
Wanderer
bgar...@indy.tds.net wrote in message ...
called "Victorian", as that was the era in which one did not refer to:
limbs, but legs
bellies, but stomachs
guts, but innards
cleavage or breasts, but bosoms
... and so on and so forth. This was the era in which piano legs, chicken
legs, legs of lamb and table legs all had to be *clothed*, for crying out
loud. (Of course, this is also the era most of the Bureau of Standards and
Practices seems to look to when it comes to television, which is why Buster
Bunny wears a shirt and Bugs Bunny almost never wears anything.;)
The Puritans, by contrast, were rather easygoing about many things. Not
religion, no (after all, the town was started because of religion), but:
sex
nudity
violence
... and, I admit, not *too* much else.;> But they *were* a bit more relaxed
... they just weren't supposed to *enjoy* it.:>
Yours truly,
The wolfish,
Dan Pankratz
> whole human being. Yet the chemistry of genetics doesn't really
> provide a mechanism for removing those genes-- it just adds _more_
> genes somewhere that reach back and turn off those codes. So much of
Maybe not in humans, but in organisms which need to reproduce rapidly, such
as bacteria, there is selection in favor of those organisms within a population
with the most streamlined genomes. There is little, if any, "junk" DNA in an
E. coli.
As to whether or not the introns, pseudogenes, tandem repeats, mini- and
microsatellite DNA sequences found in eukaryotes/mammals/higher organisms are in
fact "junk" is still a matter of debate. True, they are not transcribed into
message that we know of, and yes, they do not code for protein in any canonical
sense, but whether they in fact do nothing on a genetic level is another question
entirely. They may be very important in issues of chromatin structure and gene
expression.
-Dan (the kyOOte one)
Sordes
<<> Anyone want to share their tips with the rest of us on basic figure
> drawing? A beginner's primer for drawing the anthropomorphic form?>>
Here's a couple suggestions, not so much on figure drawing but more in
general....
One thing I see a LOT that really bugs me is the way many furry artists deal
with tails. Most furries have tails, right? But a lot of people insist on
drawing the tail parallel to the character's spine, as if the end of the tail
was superglued to a spot between the character's shoulder blades.
It looks really bizarre, & with the exception of a squirrel at rest, there's no
precedent for it in nature (curly-tailed spitz-type dogs have tails that curl
over their backs, but that's different).
Another thing is, a lot of amateur artists insist on using black to shade. It's
really worthwhile to experiment with using cool colors such as violet or blue
to make a shady tone & the effect is a zillion times more effective with a
minimum of effort.
Have fun,
-Sordes
"Don't worry! As long as you hit that wire with the connecting hook at
precisely eighty-eight miles per hour the instant the lightning strikes the
tower... everything will be fine!" -Doc Brown
Farlo
Sordes did speaketh thus:
>One thing I see a LOT that really bugs me is the way many furry artists deal
>with tails.
Yeah, I noted this one, too - tails are an extension of the *spine*.
Same problem goes for figure poses: ever see a figure drawn so that
their spine looks like it's broken? It is not usually the intent of
the artist to depict such figures, but i've seen it.
>Another thing is, a lot of amateur artists insist on using black to shade.
>It's
>really worthwhile to experiment with using cool colors such as violet or blue
>to make a shady tone
That's a neat tip - thanks!
-------------------
Farlo m>*_*<m
Urban Fey Dragon
Standard XXXX
@abac.com XXXX
-------------------
These people don't approve of spam (AFAIK) and
e-mail sent to them will get you in trouble:
postmaster@[127.0.0.1]
abuse@[127.0.0.1]
MAILER-DAEMON@[127.0.0.1]
.@[127.0.0.1]
..@[127.0.0.1]
root@[127.0.0.1]
Micole Khemarrica
Sordes wrote:
> <<> Anyone want to share their tips with the rest of us on basic figure
> > drawing? A beginner's primer for drawing the anthropomorphic form?>>
>
> Here's a couple suggestions, not so much on figure drawing but more in
> general....
>
> drawing the tail parallel to the character's spine, as if the end of the tail
> was superglued to a spot between the character's shoulder blades.
>
> It looks really bizarre, & with the exception of a squirrel at rest, there's no
> precedent for it in nature (curly-tailed spitz-type dogs have tails that curl
> over their backs, but that's different).
Actually, if you watch cats you can see that the joint is flexible
enough to rise to be perpendicular to the rest of the spine... but
you're right, it still _looks_ odd on a zoiomorph image. :3
> Another thing is, a lot of amateur artists insist on using black to shade. It's
> really worthwhile to experiment with using cool colors such as violet or blue
> to make a shady tone & the effect is a zillion times more effective with a
> minimum of effort.
Actually, to be more accurate, the best color for shading is the
complimentary color of the surface the shade falls on, subject to the
opacity of the object and the color of the light striking it. So, for a
orange-red fox you would use a blue-green for the darkest parts of the
shadow, then move up into the dark umber browns as you move into the
prenumbra. A bright red fox standing in a spotlight would produce a
green shadow -- a red fox in a yellow spotlight would leave a purple
shadow, with some blue/green subshadows, depending on how reflective the
fox and the surface the shadow is sitting on.
Now, while this sounds really dopey, I've actually done this trick and
it works... if you keep the colors muted (greyed) to start, you can see
what other colors might be needed to draw the shadow out better.
When in doubt of a color, using a grey _opposite_ of the primary color
will work in a pinch. For said red fox, use a cool grey... for a
cold-white polar bear, use a warm grey. :3
ermine
[Undo the Knot to Reply.]
Mark Atwood
Heh, I suppose you are right, for loose enough definition of "cult".
> Especially since they've revealed and accepted that the "Book of
> Mormon" was actually written by Brigham Young and not translated
> from an inscription found on two golden plates.
Snort. I admit that I havent watched the semiannual Conference Talks
or read the LftFP for a few years now, but I've pretty sure I would
have heard of this one. Got a citation?
> Or do you think that Jesus would have liked the slavery of the Old
> South?
Probably not, but then OTOH, in the NT record, he didn't seem to have
a problem of the slavery practiced there and then.
>
> 6.) Deceit and death? Sounds like those pamphlets I sometimes find lying
> around that rail against role-playing games, Jewish people, and every
> Protestant that ever was.
Chick tracts!
This man is EVIL. When i first found these things, I thought it was a
joke or parody, someone exagerating the most insane views of fundies
and charismatics to make them look bad. I was boggled when I learned
that they are "for real".
--
Mark Atwood | Thank you gentlemen, you are everything we have come to
m...@pobox.com | expect from years of government training. -- MIB Zed
Wanderer
Captain Packrat wrote in message <35750d7...@news.isat.com>...
(snip)
>I was brought up as a Protestant, and was taught that God created all
>species in 7 days. I looked into it with an open mind, and no longer
>believe that this is the correct answer.
>
(snip the rest, as it's personal beliefs, and cannot be effectively
debated/argued/whatever)
One of the more interesting theories, (IMHO), is that, when it says "7
days", it's applicable to read the part of the Bible that says that, to God,
a thousand years is but a moment (by which logic, it's entirely feasible for
the Earth to be a lot older than what the Bible seems to say;).
Another interesting theology of cosmogony appears in the Buddhist religion,
where one of the theories is that the entire world and universe in which we
exist is nothing more than a dream of the Buddha ... and who knows when he
shall wake, or what he shall dream next?;>
Yet another alternative, listed in the Hindu religion, is that there are
three gods in charge of existence: Rama, Krishna, and Shiva. It works like
this:
Rama awakes, and is lonely. So he creates the universe. After a time, he
grows tired of it, and sleeps again.
At this time, Krishna awakes, and runs the universe for whatever span of
time he chooses, until he, too, grows tired of it and sleeps again.
Then Shiva awakes. Seeing the world and not being interested in it, he
destroys it, to get it out of the way. Once he's had his fun, he goes back
to sleep.
Then Rama awakes ...
Very circular, but very intriguing, hm?;>
(For that matter, there's even a hint of this in the Bible, that we're not
the first Creation. Remember, the story in Genesis says that before God
parted the heavens and the earth, and the land from the sea, "the Earth was
without form, and void". But elsewhere, it says, "for nothing that is void
is created by him". Yes, this *has* been the source of a lot of different
debates.;)
And then, of course, there's the concept of God as a writer ... :>
Yours truly,
The dreaming,
Captain Packrat
On 03 Jun 1998 10:13:42 -0400, Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
>> 6.) Deceit and death? Sounds like those pamphlets I sometimes find lying
>> around that rail against role-playing games, Jewish people, and every
>> Protestant that ever was.
>Chick tracts!
>
>http://www.chick.com/
>
>This man is EVIL. When i first found these things, I thought it was a
>joke or parody, someone exagerating the most insane views of fundies
>and charismatics to make them look bad. I was boggled when I learned
>that they are "for real".
Their comic book series, "The Crusaders" is even worse. I used to have the
entire set, just for its humor value. They are so absurd that they're
laughable. (The obsolete hairstyles, clothing and slang don't help any
(afros?))
One issue, "Spellbound?" is all about the evils of rock & roll music and
how it is based on ancient druid chants used to worship the devil, and that
music company directors are all witches who summon demons and cast spells
on their new albums to enslave your children. o_O (I'm NOT making this
up!)
Other tracts & comics teach about how things like Freemasonry, Halloween,
Wicca, homosexuality, LDS, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Catholic Church, etc.
are either evil or devil worship. O_o
By their reckoning, I must be REALLY evil, because I am a practitioner of
the medicine wheel, a reader of medicine cards, a user of Mouse medicine,
and I love rock & roll (all of which are occult/demonic/evil by their
definition. Seems to me the only thing that is truly evil is the
intolerance of the person who writes those tracks....)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Captain Packrat |
| (Captain on FurryMUCK and FurToonia) |
| |
| Fur Central ---> http://www.personal.isat.com/captpackrat/ |
| Plush Central ---> http://www.personal.isat.com/captpackrat/plush/ |
| |
| Furry Code 1.3 (available from Fur Central) |
| FRM/R4 A+++ C>+ D++ H+++ M+++ P++++ R+ T++++ W Z++>+++ |
| Sm+ RLCT* a cn++ d- e+ f++++ h+ iwf+++ |
| |
| If you're furry and you know it, Hug the Mouse! |
| |
| O. .O |
| ==V== |
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Syke
Captain Packrat wrote:
> On 03 Jun 1998 10:13:42 -0400, Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> >> 6.) Deceit and death? Sounds like those pamphlets I sometimes find lying
> >> around that rail against role-playing games, Jewish people, and every
> >> Protestant that ever was.
>
> >Chick tracts!
> >
> >http://www.chick.com/
> >
> >This man is EVIL. When i first found these things, I thought it was a
> >joke or parody, someone exagerating the most insane views of fundies
> >and charismatics to make them look bad. I was boggled when I learned
> >that they are "for real".
>
> Their comic book series, "The Crusaders" is even worse. I used to have the
> entire set, just for its humor value. They are so absurd that they're
> laughable. (The obsolete hairstyles, clothing and slang don't help any
> (afros?))
Actually I have the whole series of that as well but take most of it with a
grainof salt due to some discrepencies and things that were just unbelievable
when
put up against my personal experiences and what I was being taught. Of course,
these were out in the seventies or something. They were my mothers.
>
>
> One issue, "Spellbound?" is all about the evils of rock & roll music and
> how it is based on ancient druid chants used to worship the devil, and that
> music company directors are all witches who summon demons and cast spells
> on their new albums to enslave your children. o_O (I'm NOT making this
> up!)
I remember that one :P You should read the book called 'Dead Air', very good
bookand horror about a rock band in the music industry. The problem with that
particular book
is that it uses pretty much ALL rock and roll as being 'evil', which I do not
believe is true.
There are some recording labels you kinda have to wonder about though,but others
just do it
for shock value. It finally came down to this, words not the music. The lyrics
of the song count
more than the actual music. It's like taking the national anthem and changing
the words around to
be something anti-american, which most of us would consider blasphemas *Nah,
maybe not, Clinton's
too big on not being proud of our country, of course, with what it's become the
only reason to be proud of it
is that we at least get to rule ourselves... don't we... never mind, stupid thing
to say. o.o*
I'm picky and choosy over what I listen to, depressed people should not listen to
depressing songs, they only make you
more depressed and even make happy ppl depressed because of the subconscioius of
the individual. I don't really think
there's hidden messages, as a matter of fact, I'd say it's all open. Suicide,
Death, Lonliness, it only enhances the mood. In truth,
the human mind and emotions are constantly influenced by outside material no
matter what it is, even if you don't notice it. Just pay attention to how you
feel while listening to a song.
>
>
> Other tracts & comics teach about how things like Freemasonry, Halloween,
> Wicca, homosexuality, LDS, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Catholic Church, etc.
> are either evil or devil worship. O_o
Never saw these, but then, I don't keep up with comics much anymore, too much
Xmen.
>
>
> By their reckoning, I must be REALLY evil, because I am a practitioner of
> the medicine wheel, a reader of medicine cards, a user of Mouse medicine,
> and I love rock & roll (all of which are occult/demonic/evil by their
> definition. Seems to me the only thing that is truly evil is the
> intolerance of the person who writes those tracks....)
Not to defend them or anything, but it's not like they're up in your face telling
youyou're evil. If it's readable, you have the choice to read it or not to read
it. :P
And as I said before, the ppl who constantly say they're being tolerant
are the least tolerant. But then again, tolerance is a touchy subject, I'd just
say whomever
writes those tracts is not doing a good job of being subversive and explaining
WHY, instead of just
saying, this is bad, don't do it, why?
The worst thing to do is accuse someone or bring up the words, "You should be
more tolerant." because those
can get thrown right back into your face quite viciously since saying them isn't
being very tolerant. It's usually best
to show tolerance by actions and not words.
>
-- Syke
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Homepage:http://www.furnation.com/Syke
Drop me a line on my artwork and stories so I can improve. I don't want to
remain the same.
ICQ:11325417
Places to Find Me Online:
Transformers Genesis:mozzarella.wpi.edu port 2000
Quinn/Nightwatch/Darius/Syke
FurryMUCK:Syke, occasionally
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Keith Wood
All Christian religions are "cults' -- look it up.
[> Especially since they've revealed and accepted that the "Book of
[> Mormon" was actually written by Brigham Young and not translated
[> from an inscription found on two golden plates.
Pretty cool trick -- The Book of Mormon was published in March 1830,
and Brigham Young didn't read it until TWO YEARS later.
BTW, you are mixing up your prophets -- it was Moses who had the Ten
Commandments on two stone tablets. Joseph Smith, Jr, translated the
Book of Mormon from a stack of plates which was described by witnesses
in a sworn statement as containing "many leaves" with the "appearance
of gold."
Syke
Keith Wood wrote:
> "Wanderer" <wand...@applink.net> writes:
> [
> [ 5.) Mormons a cult? I suppose, technically, they are.
>
> All Christian religions are "cults' -- look it up.
>
>
If you're going to say that, then ALL religions are cults. The words ALL
or EVERY when used in any sentence are indicators
that you should not take whatever follows it as truth or even valid. It
also works for True/False tests >:)
Charles Gray
On Tue, 02 Jun 1998 11:58:24 -0400, Mighty Mike McGee
<readsi...@bottomofpage.com> wrote:
>Dennis Bieber wrote:
>> Where is the testability of Creationism? Where is the
>> independent (of one book) evidence to look at? Throw the bible away and,
>> looking at the world as it exists today, show me what leads to a divine
>> creation?
>
> Hmmmm...
> Well, lots of civilizations throughout the history of man, not just
>Christianity, have tales about the beginnings of life on Earth. Sure, I
>could buy one civilization being off the mark by saying that the
>universe wasn't created through random accident, but dozens of them?
> And then there's all that paranormal stuff, like weeping statues and
>stigmata. Like I said, I always get a smile on my face when people who
>believe that Elvis has been reincarnated as Bigfoot say that God cannot
>exist. Science still hasn't come up with an explanation for ghost
>stories, crop circles, synchronicity, the Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull,
>anomalous rains, astrology, psychic visions, the supernatural, and the
>like - although there have been plenty of attempts, all sounding
>slightly feeble. So I'm not about to dismiss the concept of a creator
>just yet.
>--
> -Michael McGee
> "You gotta be one of the good guys, son. 'Cause there's way too many
>of the bad." - Preacher: Until the End of the World TPB
> m dot mcgeem @ shaw dot wave dot ca
> ICQ # :559895
> Visit My Web Page, Featuring Furcadia comics and Hybrids
>stories:http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Lair/2582/index.html
Well, the problem is that in order to be accepted by science,
something has to be testable, in the lab, and the test have to be
repeated by a variety of scientists. This was what killed cold
fusion, since too many scientists couldn't replicate the process.
Now creationism, on its face, fails the above test. I'm not
saying that God could not of created the world in 7 days, just that
there is no way to test that statement, no way to replicate the
process of it, and no way to verify it. Therefore, it cannot be
considered science, rather being a matter of religious faith. (Note,
I'm Episcapol, or Anglican for you Brits).
Of course, science has its own problem right now, being known
as the Big Bang theory. If its true, then the universe either sprang
from nothing, or has existed for eternity, which begins to intrude
onto the aformentioned matters of faith.....
Charles Groark
Syke wrote:
> There are some recording labels you kinda have to wonder about though,but others
> just do it
> for shock value. It finally came down to this, words not the music. The lyrics
> of the song count
> more than the actual music. It's like taking the national anthem and changing
> the words around to
> be something anti-american, which most of us would consider blasphemas *Nah,
> maybe not, Clinton's
> too big on not being proud of our country, of course, with what it's become the
> only reason to be proud of it
> is that we at least get to rule ourselves... don't we... never mind, stupid thing
> to say. o.o*
>
Just FYI, the music for the National Tantrum (grin) is actually an eighteenth century
drinking song. Supposedly, when you couldn't sing it correctly, it was time to stop
drinking. Of course, with the musical range of the song, it's almost impossible to
sing correctly *sober*.
Charlie
Syke
Charles Groark wrote:
*LAUGH* I rest my case on music and lyrics. :) So what are the original words anyway? I'm
interested :)
>
>
> Charlie
Fender
>
>That's very similar to another idea, which I can't remember the name of
>offhand, that the universe only exists in your mind. Life, the Universe,
>and Everything, are all figments of your imagination. Nothing exists that
>doesn't exist in your mind. If you think about it, it does make sense (pun
>intended).
Solipsism.
Keith Wood
In article <3575A537...@dallas.crosswinds.net>,
Syke <str...@dallas.crosswinds.net> wrote:
[
[
[Keith Wood wrote:
[
[> "Wanderer" <wand...@applink.net> writes:
[> [
[> [ 5.) Mormons a cult? I suppose, technically, they are.
[>
[> All Christian religions are "cults' -- look it up.
[>
[>
[
[ If you're going to say that, then ALL religions are cults. The words ALL
[or EVERY when used in any sentence are indicators
[that you should not take whatever follows it as truth or even valid.
Ah, you just failed the AFF reading test.
"look it up" assumes that you are literate and have access to some
source for definitions of words. If you had done so, you would have
found that the word "cult" describes Christianity.
And, to further compound your error, there are many religions which do
NOT fit the definition.
Captain Packrat
On Wed, 3 Jun 1998 01:04:31 -0500, "Wanderer" <wand...@applink.net> wrote:
>One of the more interesting theories, (IMHO), is that, when it says "7
>days", it's applicable to read the part of the Bible that says that, to God,
>a thousand years is but a moment (by which logic, it's entirely feasible for
>the Earth to be a lot older than what the Bible seems to say;).
Actually, the Hebrew word used in Genesis for "day" is "yom", which can be
translated as either "day", or as "a period of time".
Therefore, a _possible_ literal translation could be: "dusk, dawn, the
first era."
>Another interesting theology of cosmogony appears in the Buddhist religion,
>where one of the theories is that the entire world and universe in which we
>exist is nothing more than a dream of the Buddha ... and who knows when he
>shall wake, or what he shall dream next?;>
That's very similar to another idea, which I can't remember the name of
>Yet another alternative, listed in the Hindu religion, is that there are
>three gods in charge of existence: Rama, Krishna, and Shiva. It works like
>this:
Interestingly, some Native American creation histories state that man is
descended from animals (all of them, though, not just primates. Some have
joked that the white man's only clan animal is the ape, because that's the
only one they believe they are descended from)
>(For that matter, there's even a hint of this in the Bible, that we're not
>the first Creation.
And nowhere does it say that we are His only creation. If He created us,
who's to say he couldn't have created others, on other planets? Furries
maybe? :)
*Cue X-Files theme*
Sordes
<<Actually, if you watch cats you can see that the joint is flexible
enough to rise to be perpendicular to the rest of the spine... but
you're right, it still _looks_ odd on a zoiomorph image. :3
>>
Sure, kitties often carry their tails perpendicularly, not folded up against
their spine. A *furry* carrying its tail perpendicular to the spine would have
a tail that went straight-out, parallel to the ground.
<<Actually, to be more accurate, the best color for shading is the
complimentary color of the surface the shade falls on, subject to the opacity
of the object and the color of the light striking it.>>
This is overall true, but it gets kind of complicated when your subject is a
cool color, say, a blue-green dragon...you can't just throw a red-orange shadow
in there, it might "pop out" visually & push the blue-green colors into the
background. Mixing the complimentary colors together works out well, so you'd
end up with a warmer version of blue-green that looks kind of violet-y.
I don't grey out too much, especially when working with black, white, or grey
subjects...I tend to use surprisingly strong shades of blue & violet for the
shadows, (or highlights, if I am painting a black animal) but in the finished
project, it doen't end up looking like a purple animal...errrgh. I'll be
getting my site up soon...it's so hard to talk about this & make it sound
sensible without saying, "hey! look, see, this is what I mean.." {-;
Farlo
Keith Wood did speaketh thus:
>Ah, you just failed the AFF reading test.
>
>"look it up" assumes that you are literate and have access to some
>source for definitions of words.
>
>And, to further compound your error, there are many religions which do
>NOT fit the definition.
>
And, "Never bet with a Sicilian when *DEATH* is on the line..."
.... quote from "The Princess Bride"
Herman Miller
On Mon, 01 Jun 1998 09:12:18 -0400, Micole Khemarrica <NoS...@MyPlace.com>
wrote:
>Farlo wrote:
>> Anyone want to share their tips with the rest of us on basic figure
>> drawing? A beginner's primer for drawing the anthropomorphic form?
>
>As it has often been debated, you can look at 'basic figure drawing' for
>zoiomorphs from two different angles: drawing people first, and drawing
>animals first. Personally, in my opinion, one should learn both but the
>priority should be on learning people as that is the predominant 'shape'
>you draw zoiomorphs from.
>
>Now, regarding human 'basic figure drawing', there are a couple of good
>books like "Drawing the Marvel Way" which gives you good 'hacks' on
>illustrating without having to learn the entire formal process.
Jack Hamm's _Drawing the Head & Figure_ is another good one to start with.
I've looked at a number of animal drawing books, but unless you want to
draw lots of horses, cows, deer, dogs, and cats, they're not directly
useful. The deer illustrations come in handy when drawing Kereziriai
(deer-centaurs), but most of the species I like to draw are rodents or
other small mammals, and it's not easy finding good pictures of mice faces
and hands (forget about non-mammal species like lizards and
grasshoppers...)
>Formal and informal styles have some techniques that are good to learn;
>the 'head-height' measurement, action lines, perspective and
>forshortening -- learning these simple techniques greatly improve the
>quality of the artpiece and bring life to it.
I know that humans are supposed to be around seven heads tall, but I find
that a figure of five or six heads high looks about right for many of my
characters. Another modification to the typical humanoid form I like to
use for furry species is narrowing and rounding the shoulders a little,
which I think looks better with the animal heads than a more human shape
would.
There are some problems of furry anatomy that neither a human or "popular
mammals" art book will solve, like designing a satisfactory digitigrade leg
for a biped.
--
alien/fairy/furry art--> +----------<http://www.io.com/~hmiller/>----------
Thryomanes /"If all Printers were determin'd not to print any
(Herman Miller) / thing till they were sure it would offend no body,
moc.oi @ rellimh <-/ there would be very little printed." -Ben Franklin
When sending email, please include the password GERBIL in the Subject line
to avoid the junk mail filter (http://www.io.com/~hmiller/junkmail.html).
Paul R. Bennett
In article <bgarrett-ya0240800...@news.tds.net>, bgar...@indy.tds.net writes:
> In article <896653...@jimx.demon.co.uk>, Ja...@jimx.demon.co.uk wrote:
>
> >first-hand knowledge. I'm glad that, in the UK, at least, the various
> >Christian churches don't feel obliged to force the general public to
> >accept their creeds.....
> >
> Unfortunately, the USA traces its European ancestry to the Puritans, who I
> believe were booted out of England for being, shall we say, unneighborly.
> To no one's surprise, they came to North America and, quickly becoming
> bored with persecuting the Native Americans, began to persecute each other.
> And now their descendants (ideological descendants, at least) continue to
> drive the rest of us crazy.
>
> *sigh*
> Derlin
Might want to take another look. While the Puritans no doubt got the attention,
however at about the same time or earlier you have Jamestown (also English).
Roanoke(about 1580? and admittedly disappeared). The Georgia colonies, Again,
St. Augustine, Spanish, 1560's (and still going). Somewhat(but not much)later
New Amsterdam (New York City today). Not to forget the French in the south
east and Canada. How wide and to what degree did "Puritan" influence really
spread? Particularly in view of how well they did (or didn't) get along with
their neighbors in Europe. I suspect that the label got hung on our society
and is a handy one to use but I am not sure it is really appropriate.
Paul
Micole Khemarrica
Sordes wrote:
> <<Actually, if you watch cats you can see that the joint is flexible
> enough to rise to be perpendicular to the rest of the spine... but
> you're right, it still _looks_ odd on a zoiomorph image. :3
> >>
> Sure, kitties often carry their tails perpendicularly, not folded up against
> their spine. A *furry* carrying its tail perpendicular to the spine would have
> a tail that went straight-out, parallel to the ground.
True... I had later gone back and re-read the original comment and
figured out that I was misunderstanding your comment in the first
place... oops.
> <<Actually, to be more accurate, the best color for shading is the
> complimentary color of the surface the shade falls on, subject to the opacity
> of the object and the color of the light striking it.>>
>
> This is overall true, but it gets kind of complicated when your subject is a
> cool color, say, a blue-green dragon...you can't just throw a red-orange shadow
> in there, it might "pop out" visually & push the blue-green colors into the
> background. Mixing the complimentary colors together works out well, so you'd
> end up with a warmer version of blue-green that looks kind of violet-y.
Well, in general you don't want to use the same saturation levels from
the main color to the shadow or your eyes will get confused which is the
dominant pattern (the negative space syndrome). So if I were to make a
cool Copenhagen Blue dragon (for example), I won't go using Vermillion
as the shadow but I would use Burnt Umber as a start.
Understand that _most_ of my characters are black or white, so in
general I get wierd doing the shading. Micole is often seen as being
with blue or blue-grey shading because she is most often in a happy mood
and this allows the subtle khromat-colorshift concept to be present
while still causing the thinking that she's 'white'.
> I don't grey out too much, especially when working with black, white, or grey
> subjects...I tend to use surprisingly strong shades of blue & violet for the
> shadows, (or highlights, if I am painting a black animal) but in the finished
> project, it doen't end up looking like a purple animal...errrgh. I'll be
> getting my site up soon...it's so hard to talk about this & make it sound
> sensible without saying, "hey! look, see, this is what I mean.." {-;
Actually, when I get off my tail and work on my "Art: Theory And
Practice" section of my website, I was going to go into stuff like that
(by request). But I do have a few images floating around online that are
examples of my colorwork -- sadly, the scans don't do justice to the
original prismacolor, but the computercolor pieces come out decently.
http://www.FurNation.com/Khromat
Keith Wood
In article <35763280...@192.0.2.3>,
wulf...@netcom.com (Dennis Bieber) wrote:
[On Wed, 03 Jun 1998 23:19:23 +0100, kei...@SKIPTHESP.AM.bctv.com (Keith
[Wood) declaimed the following in alt.fan.furry:
[
[
[> source for definitions of words. If you had done so, you would have
[> And, to further compound your error, there are many religions which do
[> NOT fit the definition.
[>
[
[ Without digging up the dictionary, let me guess...
[
[ A cult has some charismatic leader at its core, perhaps claiming
[some aspect of divinity to him(her)self.
This is one of the definitions fitting Christianity in general. Also,
"A system of religious worship."
[ On that basis, Christianity is a cult, and likely one could
[claim Islam and Buddhism.
Yep. But many of the Pagan religions don't fit.
Wanderer
Sean Malloy wrote in message <35760d6a....@news.concentric.net>...
>"Wanderer" <wand...@applink.net> wrote:
>>Yet another alternative, listed in the Hindu religion, is that there are
>>three gods in charge of existence: Rama, Krishna, and Shiva. It works
like
>>this:
>>
>>grows tired of it, and sleeps again.
>>
>>At this time, Krishna awakes, and runs the universe for whatever span of
>>time he chooses, until he, too, grows tired of it and sleeps again.
>>
>>Then Shiva awakes. Seeing the world and not being interested in it, he
>>destroys it, to get it out of the way. Once he's had his fun, he goes
back
>>to sleep.
>
>and Shiva. Krishna is one of the avatars of Vishnu. Rama is a prince,
>the eldest son of Dasharatha, King of Aydohya, and is the main
>character in the _Ramayana_, a Hindu epic that illustrates the
>adherence to dharma.
>
<chuckle> I'm a Protestant werewolf located on the outskirts of Dallas, TX.
I'm lucky I came as close as I did.:>
Yours truly,
The wolfish,
Wanderer
Keith Wood wrote in message ...
>"Wanderer" <wand...@applink.net> writes:
>[
>[ 5.) Mormons a cult? I suppose, technically, they are.
>
>All Christian religions are "cults' -- look it up.
>
Okay, let me see ... <flipflipflip> ...
cult: [Fr. culte, L. cultus, worship, from colo, cultum, to till, worship] Homage; worship; a system of religious belief and worship; the rites and ceremonies employed in worship.
Well, that's what it says in my Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary (1940), anyway.:) So I guess all forms of religion and worship are cults, by the classical definition.
Wanderer
Keith Wood wrote in message ...
>Pretty cool trick -- The Book of Mormon was published in March 1830,
>and Brigham Young didn't read it until TWO YEARS later.
>
>BTW, you are mixing up your prophets -- it was Moses who had the Ten
>Commandments on two stone tablets. Joseph Smith, Jr, translated the
>Book of Mormon from a stack of plates which was described by witnesses
>in a sworn statement as containing "many leaves" with the "appearance
>of gold."
>
Fur some odd reason, Brigham's the only one that sticks in my head fur any
length of time.
But I *know* I heard the part about the two plates on "Unsolved Mysteries",
so I can blame their research staff fur that one.:>
Yours truly,
The sometimes-wrong,
Mark Atwood
"Wanderer" <wand...@applink.net> writes:
>
> But I *know* I heard the part about the two plates on "Unsolved Mysteries",
> so I can blame their research staff fur that one.:>
Two plates? More like a bound "book" of them. It's a pretty common
construct for really really LONG term record storage. You can find
similar stacks of plates in antiquity museums around the world.
Syke
Keith Wood wrote:
Something to think about: Will a person die and go through serious torture
if what they are
saying is a lie? Would ANYONE die for a lie that they know is a lie?
--
Keith Wood
In article <6l6heq$646$2...@news.onramp.net>,
"Wanderer" <wand...@applink.net> wrote:
[Keith Wood wrote in message ...
[(re: my Mormon post)
[>Pretty cool trick -- The Book of Mormon was published in March 1830,
[>and Brigham Young didn't read it until TWO YEARS later.
[>
[>BTW, you are mixing up your prophets -- it was Moses who had the Ten
[>Commandments on two stone tablets. Joseph Smith, Jr, translated the
[>Book of Mormon from a stack of plates which was described by witnesses
[>in a sworn statement as containing "many leaves" with the "appearance
[>of gold."
[>
[<rolls eyes> Okay, I'll grant you that I forgot all about Joseph Smith, Jr.
[Fur some odd reason, Brigham's the only one that sticks in my head fur any
[length of time.
[But I *know* I heard the part about the two plates on "Unsolved Mysteries",
[so I can blame their research staff fur that one.:>
I find it hard to believe that even an NBC crew could make such a
mistake, but I guess I'll have to accept it.
? the platypus {aka David Formosa}
In <01bd8e59$cc9d5b20$8f301bc6@spgspare> "Allen Kitchen" <all...@blkbox.com> writes:
[...]
>This can be seen with the computer simulation LIFE.
>Lots of patterns create the odd pattern known as a
>BULLET.
[Nods] Von Numon was very interested in this idear and investagated
Cellure Automata to discover self repoductive deviceses. He even
suggested the Idear of building devices capaerable of such things to solve
difficat tasks.
--
I'm a perl programer; if you need perl programing, hire me.
Please excuse my spelling as I suffer from agraphia; see the url. Support NoCeM
http://www.cit.nepean.uws.edu.au/~dformosa/Spelling.html http://www.cm.org/
I'm sorry but I just don't consider 'because its yucky' a convincing argument
Elf Sternberg
In article <v67m2xy...@colon.dev.ampersand.com>
Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> writes:
>"Wanderer" <wand...@applink.net> writes:
>>
>> But I *know* I heard the part about the two plates on "Unsolved Mysteries",
>> so I can blame their research staff fur that one.:>
>Two plates? More like a bound "book" of them. It's a pretty common
>construct for really really LONG term record storage. You can find
>similar stacks of plates in antiquity museums around the world.
You don't even have to go that far. In most of the Jewish
synagogues I've been in, they use exactly that format for a couple of
things. The temple I go to sometimes nearby has two sets-- one for
the list of donors who helped build the temple, and one for the local
members to list family who died in the Holocaust.
Elf
--
Elf M. Sternberg - www.halcyon.com/elf
The view of programming as language-as-text gives the patience to look
slowly through the code. In the end, the overall "productivity" of a
system, the fact that it comes into being at all, is the handiwork
not of tools that seek to make programming seem easy, but the work
of engineers who have no fear of "hard."
Drew A Rhine
Time for all good things to end. could you guys drop this subject.
please
Drew A Rhine
Captain Packrat
On 03 Jun 1998 11:34:34 GMT, sor...@aol.com (Sordes) wrote:
>One thing I see a LOT that really bugs me is the way many furry artists deal
>with tails. Most furries have tails, right? But a lot of people insist on
>drawing the tail parallel to the character's spine, as if the end of the tail
>was superglued to a spot between the character's shoulder blades.
And another thing, the tail does NOT come out of the creature's butt! I've
seen several drawings where the tail is in the middle of, or in one really
bad case, completely BELOW the character's buttocks. :P
The tail is an extension of the spine, and should extend from the body
beginning just above the natal cleft.
Bob Clevenger
>Micole Khemarrica <NoS...@MyPlace.com> wrote:
>> This is overall true, but it gets kind of complicated when your subject is a
>> cool color, say, a blue-green dragon...you can't just throw a red-orange shadow
>> in there, it might "pop out" visually & push the blue-green colors into the
>> background. Mixing the complimentary colors together works out well, so you'd
>> end up with a warmer version of blue-green that looks kind of violet-y.
>
>Well, in general you don't want to use the same saturation levels from
>the main color to the shadow or your eyes will get confused which is the
>dominant pattern (the negative space syndrome). So if I were to make a
>cool Copenhagen Blue dragon (for example), I won't go using Vermillion
>as the shadow but I would use Burnt Umber as a start.
Yes, this is a phenomenon that is well established and well known if you
delve into the physics behind colour perception and especially colour
photography. The shadow *appears* to be opposite to the colour of the
subject, but of much subdued saturation. If the lighting is of sufficient
intensity and contrast (very unusual), then the shadows appear to be black,
which gives a stark effect that is quite unreal-looking.
Wow! I contributed to an art thread and didn't make a fool of myself --
did I? :-)
-=Bob=-
RAM disk is *not* an installation procedure.
Micole Khemarrica
Bob Clevenger wrote:
> >Micole Khemarrica <NoS...@MyPlace.com> wrote:
> >> This is overall true, but it gets kind of complicated when your subject is a
> >> cool color, say, a blue-green dragon...you can't just throw a red-orange shadow
> >> in there, it might "pop out" visually & push the blue-green colors into the
> >> background. Mixing the complimentary colors together works out well, so you'd
> >> end up with a warmer version of blue-green that looks kind of violet-y.
> >
> >Well, in general you don't want to use the same saturation levels from
> >the main color to the shadow or your eyes will get confused which is the
> >dominant pattern (the negative space syndrome). So if I were to make a
> >cool Copenhagen Blue dragon (for example), I won't go using Vermillion
> >as the shadow but I would use Burnt Umber as a start.
>
> Yes, this is a phenomenon that is well established and well known if you
> delve into the physics behind colour perception and especially colour
> photography. The shadow *appears* to be opposite to the colour of the
> subject, but of much subdued saturation. If the lighting is of sufficient
> intensity and contrast (very unusual), then the shadows appear to be black,
> which gives a stark effect that is quite unreal-looking.
It has a lot to do with the fact that light contains all colors and
shadows are occulting that light so that not all colors get through. It
also has to do with the occulting objects translucency to the light and
any reflecting surfaces near the object and all that -- it gets really
technical, but can be a fascinating sideline of research. Suffice to say
that in general when coloring an illustration that a subdued version of
the object's complimentary color makes a more 'natural' shadow than
black does. :3
Obviously, from the above example of intense high-contrast light, the
natural outcome would _look_ unnatural to our eyes... best example I
know is to look up into tree leaves when the sun is not quite at zenith
-- the layers of the leaves will shift from translucent yellow-green to
the 'leaf' green to black where the other leaves prevent the shadowed
leaves from getting any sun. :3
> Wow! I contributed to an art thread and didn't make a fool of myself --
> did I? :-)
Congratulations! You knew your photographic experience would come in
handy someday, didn't you?
<GRIN!>
Sordes
{{And another thing, the tail does NOT come out of the creature's butt! I've
seen several drawings where the tail is in the middle of, or in one really
bad case, completely BELOW the character's buttocks. :P
The tail is an extension of the spine, and should extend from the body
beginning just above the natal cleft.}}Cap'n Packrat
I love that phrase..."natal cleft"..."natal" from the Latin "nates", meaning
"buttocks"....(3 years of Latin & this is what I got to show for it).
This is my take on the whole tail thing, but of course since we're discussing
imaginary critters here, your opinion & drawing style & preferences may
vary....I like to draw convincingly viable-looking sorts of creatures, so I try
to adhere (at my convenience of course) to somewhat realistic sorts of
physiognomies...or, to give that impression, anyway.
Tail carriage relative to species is an important feature to note...a cat, for
instance, may well have a tail that goes everywhichway, but an otter's tail for
the most part is not as flexible, & would follow the spine & appear to be set
lower & hang almost parallel to the legs, I think...which can be interesting
(read: "hard") to draw if the figure is the trim & muscular sort with muscular
buttocks (as many furries seem to be inclined to draw). If the tail is a thick
& muscular appendage as in the case of otters, it may be difficult to
accommodate a tail & a set of buns without giving the impression that the tail
is pinned on like Eeyore's. & to accommodate such a tail in a realistic way,
you'd have to move the anal opening to a slightly more forward position between
the legs, & move the ol'sexual apparatus up a couple inches, too (in the case
ofa male, anyway), which I've seen a lot of furs draw in a convincing manner.
A greyhound's tail, by comparison, is very thin & carried low, almost between
the buttocks mostly (do other dogs have butt-cheeks like an ex-racing greyhound
does?).
Hmm....I've been having trouble drawing heads lately...balancing the fine line
between the "animal mask over a human-shaped head look" versus "this
naturalistic animal head doesn't have enough of a brain-case to be
intelligent". & all the heads I've been drawing lately are either long-nosed
dog-or-deer-looking, or short-nosed & feline-looking...my hand just falls into
that convenient set pattern & it's infuriating...& I like to have their heads
set a little thrust-forward rather than just stuck on top of their necks like a
lollipop on a stick, but I am drawing-impaired lately. Grrr. I think only a
pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia Frozen Yogurt can pull me outta this
drawing slump....P-;