My Story
Rubystars
abandoned the Bible, or that I decided to rebel and go my wicked way
for whatever reason. The only way anyone's going to understand is if I
post my story. Since I already typed it out onto a message board
yesterday, it's simple enough to paste it here too. It's long, so you
might not be able to read it all at once. It's kind of embarassing how
long it took me now that I look back on it but at least I am where I
am today.
I have been raised as a Christian, I wouldn't call it overly
fundamentalist, cause my parents did listen to rock music and such. I
showed an interest in animals from a very young age partially because
our first house had a big back yard that had lots of lizards, snails
with big shells, toads, frogs, earthworms, birds, squirrels, even
snakes sometimes.
I liked to explore the yard and find these animals and sometimes I'd
catch and hold some legless lizards (or maybe they were baby snakes)
that would sit in my hands and flick their tongues out, and little
anoles that would change color right before my eyes.
I always liked to watch "animal shows" on Discovery Channel and PBS
and National Geographic, where I could see even more animals and learn
about them.
When I got to be a little older I found out the people who studied
them were called biologists, and I wanted to be a biologist too. Since
around first grade, when someone asked me what I was going to be when
I grew up, I would always say "A scientist" or "a biologist studying
animals".
My parents never really had a problem with phrases like "dogs are
related to foxes". Maybe because this didn't seem so far fetched. They
also didn't have a problem with there being an old earth, though this
was never really crystallized, it just wasn't considered important.
I listened to a lot of creationists on tv when I was growing up,
mostly because they talked about "science" and I was always drinking
up everything I could that mentioned science. In seventh grade (second
grade of Jr. High) I was fascinated when I saw Carl Baugh on tv with a
human footprint that supposedly had a trilobite embedded into it. I
kind of shake my head at this now but I didn't think a Christian
leader would deliberately lie back then. I thought the fossil was real
and he had evidence that humans were around a long long time ago. I
didn't fully understand at that time that he was using it as evidence
of a young earth.
He was also kind of appealing in some ways cause he talked about how
he had evidence that dinosaurs might have been around as recent as
4000 years ago and he even claimed there were eye witnesses of
dinosaurs more recent than that. Lies, dirty lies, but that's how it
was. I thought it'd be really cool if dinosaurs were still alive
somewhere.
I didn't really fully understand the scientfic method nor did I
understand that eye witness testimony is not considered to be a good
source of information.
It was also in seventh grade that I was taking a life science course.
It was here that I got my first exposure to the nested hierarchy. We
were told about the Kingdoms: Monera, Protista, Fungi, Plantae,
Animalia, and lots of phyla. It was the phyla that gave me a good
first understanding of what would help me to accept evolution later.
In animals they started out with sponges, went up to jellyfish, etc.
This was also my first exposure to Euglena, which seems to show both
protozoan and algae traits. It all seemed like it fit together, but at
the time I was a creationist and I just thought God created them
separately. Evolution was barely touched on, never explained. Rare
mentions of "this evolved" but no support for that, and no explanation
of how evolution worked.
We watched a laser disc one day that casually mentioned evolution, I
challenged my teacher on that saying that I thought things were
created, not evolved. She just told me that the video said that was
how it might have happened. When I told her that humans weren't
animals, she got me to concede that scientifically, we do belong in
Animalia. She didn't help me quite as much as I needed it but I have
to thank her because she did help me to grow in the right direction.
She was very sweet and always answered questions I had.
I was having severe problems at school with the other kids at this
time, cussed at spit on, having every single book stolen from my
locker, having assignments stolen, being threatened with death, being
beaten up. Rumors were flying that I had been involved in all kinds of
things that weren't true and people hated me for things I'd never
done. So I went into home school to recover my sanity. I'm glad that I
did, it helped a lot, the only thing that was really lacking was in
the science area, but to be honest I don't think I was getting much
better education in evolution in public schools other than the casual
mention they gave it now and then.
When I chose to take biology in home school, I did learn a lot of good
information that was true, but I also had to write a paper on why
evolution was wrong. The section I had to study from contained a lot
of worn our arguments like the "second law" thing, and "goats don't
give birth to lizards". It was basically hovind-level crap.
I didn't agree with everything they said but I wrote the paper. I
asked my mom if it was right for A Beka to make us write it with that
position rather than deciding for ourself one way or another, and she
just asked me if I would rather have gone to public school and be
forced to write that God didn't create anything. Of course I said no
to that.
One thing I had a serious problem with was that they firmly declared
that there were two kindgoms, plants and animals. I knew from my
earlier class that this was wrong. I knew that bacteria and protists
and fungi were in different kingdoms. This was my first dose of
skepticism regarding creationists.
I began to gravitate toward Hugh Ross, I listened to him a lot, and I
actually did learn some stuff I didn't know before about the Big Bang
and such through listening to him. I had never really been a YEC
before, but Ross helped me realize that I was an old earther. One time
the nosy yuppie neighbor who didn't approve of home school started
trying to ask me what I was studying in school, I stunned him silent
parroting things about dimensions and time. He never asked about it
again. That's one of my fondest memories.
Hugh Ross was appealing because he made it seem like it was ok to
accept science, that science and the Bible really could come together.
His version of science was warped, but it was a step in the right
direction. It took me a long time to completely get over what I'd been
taught watching his program.
The next time evolution really came up was when I was 19 and just
starting college and in a Christian chat room at coolchat.com. I
debated atheists a lot and often they'd try to use evolution as a
proof of atheism. I would use some of the tired old arguments we
defeat every day here, and often I would win because they weren't
equipped to answer them. They confused abiogenesis with evolution, and
I did too, and I was able to defeat them when I showed them that it
wasn't proven. One day one of the atheists (nicknamed Drexl) from
Scotland came in that was a little better informed, we liked to spar
with each other, we were pretty much evenly matched. He too linked
evolution to atheism but he is the one that eventually led me out of
the dark of creationism.
He gave me a page that debunked Carl Baugh, and other creationists,
and the page also made the case for evolution of theropods into birds.
Drexl casually mentioned to me that people at the newsgroup
talk.origins would be able to answer any questions I might have.
I studied the page, it made me realize that Baugh wasn't quite honest,
I didn't believe him anymore, and I learned to be a lot more
questioning and skeptical regarding my sources, and I knew for a fact
then that I was an old earther and not a young earther after reading
the site's debunking of flood geology (which I'd never heard of before
in that term). I began to refer to myself as an old earth creationist.
I wasn't ready for talk.origins and wasn't sure how to get there
either, so I forgot about it for then, I wrote a question to the
person who authored the page and got a nasty response back in the
harshest filthiest language, which reinforced the idea that
evolutionists and atheists were evil. That killed that.
I didn't get close to accepting evolution again until I took my second
biology course in college. Again, I was presented with the nested
hierarchy that I'd learned back in seventh grade. It felt familiar and
I was excited to study it in more detail.
This was also the first class in which I was told how evolution works,
that it works on populations, not individuals, how natural selection
works, how genetic drift works, how sexual selection works. How
alleles change frequency in populations, how sympatric and allopatric
speciation work, how polyploidy works etc. More than anything though
it was the nested hierarchy I'd learned back in seventh grade, when it
was expanded into such detail in this college course, it was very hard
to deny that the organisms were related through common descent.
I didn't know how to deal with it, it was all making sense, all the
puzzle pieces were fitting together! I tried not to think about it, I
couldn't handle it so I blocked it out for a while.
I went on summer vacation, I was watching animal planet on tv, and
Gorillas in the Mist came on. I watched the movie, watched the
gorillas. Suddenly that biology class came back to haunt me. I had to
know! I couldn't deny it anymore, I couldn't compartmentalize anymore,
I had to know if there was any truth to creationism at all.
I reminded myself that a true scientist has to follow the evidence
wherever it leads.
Drexl's words from years ago came back to me "The people at
talk.origins will answer any questions you might have." I was scared..
things were falling apart, I wrote to creationist organizations, Hugh
Ross' site no longer had an e-mail address for questions, so I wrote
to AIG and other places like it. I wrote some serious questions, I got
answers back that were full of lies and I knew they were lies because
of what I'd learned in school. So I finally got up the courage to to
to talk.origins, I wrote "This is my last resort" in the subject line,
and they helped me.
I got some helpful and polite letters from the regulars (completely
unlike the caustic person who answered my inquiries to the site that
had been given me long ago), I found ways to debate and ask questions
of both sides, soon I came around to believing that God guided
evolution and then chose the first hominid that was fully human to be
Adam and then the story went from there. My interpretation of the days
of Genesis was still day-age (a carry over from Ross). I had no
problem with abiogenesis, because if God could guide biological
evolution then God could just as easily guide the formation of life
from chemical precursors. I was still awfully literalist, but I was
making progress. I was debating with creationists of both the young
and old earth persuasions, I began to refer to myself as a theistic
evolutionist.
Things were going great, though I fought with some feelings of guilt
and such sometimes, overall there was a tremendous release, I could
finally watch my favorite tv shows on Discovery without saying "no
that's not true".
The next step was I actually read Genesis again. I saw that the
serpent looked like it was cursed to go down on its belly and eat
dust. "But wait," I thought, "When did snakes appear in the fossil
record?" I studied it, I asked questions about it, and found out they
appeared in the Cretaceous, long before humans. This certainly threw a
wrench into my literalist machinery. I then took the entire account of
Genesis as symbolic. When I did, I began to discover meaning in it
that was lost to me before. I think the phrase of not having seen the
forest for the trees applies very well here.
I was probably around 23 1/2 by the time this happened. I'm 24 now.
I've learned more and more as time has gone on, I fully accept science
now and I'm very grateful to everyone who helped me along the way. I'm
just glad if I can help anyone else even a little, so that's why I'm
here and at other places online that deal with evolution.
Dave
POTM. Definitely. I like this so much because (1) my story is so similar,
and (2) I hope that more YECs take the same path.
Unfortunately it is very like the November POTM but just better....
BTW I was never a YEC, I started at the "Hugh Ross" stage, though my "Hugh
Rosses" were actually Alan Hayward and Glenn Morton. Even the age was the
same --- I was 23 1/2 when I made the final transition and am 24 now (and I
remember this age coming up in the November discussion).
Dave
Rubystars wrote:
--
Attack is not the best form of defense.
Ken Cope
"Dave" <d.philp.no....@mmb.usyd.edu.au> wrote in message
news:b046ev$kgr$1...@news.iucc.ac.il...
>
> POTM. Definitely. I like this so much because (1) my story is so similar,
> and (2) I hope that more YECs take the same path.
Heartily seconded.
> Unfortunately it is very like the November POTM but just better....
>
> BTW I was never a YEC, I started at the "Hugh Ross" stage, though my "Hugh
> Rosses" were actually Alan Hayward and Glenn Morton. Even the age was the
> same --- I was 23 1/2 when I made the final transition and am 24 now (and I
> remember this age coming up in the November discussion).
>
> Dave
>
>
> Rubystars wrote:
>
> > A lot of creationists I've spoken to seem to think that one day I just
> > abandoned the Bible, or that I decided to rebel and go my wicked way
> > for whatever reason. The only way anyone's going to understand is if I
> > post my story. Since I already typed it out onto a message board
> > yesterday, it's simple enough to paste it here too. It's long, so you
> > might not be able to read it all at once. It's kind of embarassing how
> > long it took me now that I look back on it but at least I am where I
> > am today.
[snip]
Richard Clayton
Rubystars, your PotM nomination has already been made and seconded, so
I'll settle for just saying this: Thank you for posting your story here.
You're one of my favorite posters in talk.origins, and you give me hope
for the many other "Confused Christians" (id est, creationists) I know.
--
The e-mail address above is a spam trap. To reply, take off every zig.
Mark Isaak
Rubystars, may I suggest you submit this to Glenn Morton's page of
personal stories, http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/person.htm
(go there to get his email address).
--
Mark Isaak at...@earthlink.net
Don't read everything you belive.
Rubystars
> and (2) I hope that more YECs take the same path.
>
> Unfortunately it is very like the November POTM but just better....
>
> BTW I was never a YEC, I started at the "Hugh Ross" stage, though my "Hugh
> Rosses" were actually Alan Hayward and Glenn Morton. Even the age was the
> same --- I was 23 1/2 when I made the final transition and am 24 now (and I
> remember this age coming up in the November discussion).
>
> Dave
Thanks so much for the nomination. :)
I was never really a YEC either but it wasn't until I got a little
older that the old earth position really became cemented. Before then
I listened to a lot of different creationists and didn't really
discriminate between young and old earthers.
I'm glad I'm not the only one to come around at such a late age though
I wish that I could've done it sooner.
-Rubystars
Pip R. Lagenta
(Rubystars) wrote:
[snip wonderful essay]
You mention the nested hierarchy. Since I came to understand it, I
have felt that it is a major key in unlocking the mysteries of
evolution. I never heard about it in school. The (twin) nested
hierarchy is impressive evidence for evolution. I wish I had a better
understanding of it.
內躬偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,
Pip R. Lagenta Pip R. Lagenta Pip R. Lagenta Pip R. Lagenta
�虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌
-- Pip R. Lagenta
President for Life
International Organization Of People Named Pip R. Lagenta
(If your name is Pip R. Lagenta, ask about our dues!)
Rubystars
> [story snipped; read the original]
>
> Rubystars, may I suggest you submit this to Glenn Morton's page of
> personal stories, http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/person.htm
> (go there to get his email address).
Ok thanks for the suggestion, I think I'll do that.
-Rubystars
Rubystars
> On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 16:04:23 +0000 (UTC), windst...@hotmail.com
> (Rubystars) wrote:
> [snip wonderful essay]
> You mention the nested hierarchy. Since I came to understand it, I
> have felt that it is a major key in unlocking the mysteries of
> evolution. I never heard about it in school. The (twin) nested
> hierarchy is impressive evidence for evolution. I wish I had a better
> understanding of it.
That was the part that made it all fit together. Especially when they
were showing us Urochordates, and other creatures that are similar to
early transitionals.
Without being able to visualize the hierarchy then terms like
"phylogeny", "common descent", and such wouldn't have made much sense.
In every chapter of the book there were pictures of family trees that
described how different organisms were related to each other. The book
even had it for plants. The ability to see it diagrammed in front of
me along with the education about how evolution works was really the
key combination.
-Rubystars
Greg
<SNIP POTM material>
I read many interesting things and can't wait to read the next post to
learn something else. When I read your post, I just had to sit and
think for a while. Sorta like the first time I saw Star Wars.
Keep up the good work. Thanks.
--
Greg
The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything,
and that all the pains I have so humbly taken to verify my notions
have only wasted my time. --George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
Dunk
But spelchek.
Rubystars
Ok :) I did fix at least one of the typos before I sent it off. :)
-Rubystars
Rubystars
> windst...@hotmail.com (Rubystars) wrote in message news:<669fe9ea.03011...@posting.google.com>...
> <SNIP POTM material>
>
> I read many interesting things and can't wait to read the next post to
> learn something else. When I read your post, I just had to sit and
> think for a while. Sorta like the first time I saw Star Wars.
>
> Keep up the good work. Thanks.
I'm glad that the post was entertaining. :)
-Rubystars
Dave
> Dave <d.philp.no....@mmb.usyd.edu.au> wrote in message
> news:<b046ev$kgr$1...@news.iucc.ac.il>...
>> POTM. Definitely. I like this so much because (1) my story is so
>> similar, and (2) I hope that more YECs take the same path.
>>
>> Unfortunately it is very like the November POTM but just better....
>>
>> BTW I was never a YEC, I started at the "Hugh Ross" stage, though my
>> "Hugh
>> Rosses" were actually Alan Hayward and Glenn Morton. Even the age was
>> the same --- I was 23 1/2 when I made the final transition and am 24 now
>> (and I remember this age coming up in the November discussion).
>>
>> Dave
>
> Thanks so much for the nomination. :)
>
> I was never really a YEC either but it wasn't until I got a little
> older that the old earth position really became cemented. Before then
> I listened to a lot of different creationists and didn't really
> discriminate between young and old earthers.
Kids don't. I didn't either, my first real understanding that there was a
difference came about 13 or 14, when I read a book criticising YECism. (By
Alan Hayward --- I now disagree with some of what he said, but I'd
recommend it to anyone as an introduction.)
In my experience of teaching, you can often teach people contradicting
"facts" for ages and they'll just believe everything you say. [I've never
had a kid,] but it seems that a kid could be learning science at school and
YECism at home and not pick up that there was a conflict until they
commented on something to Mum or Dad who then pointed out the difference.
In my case, I was hearing the YEC at church, but my father recommended
Hayward's book, so it was all rather comfortable for me.
> I'm glad I'm not the only one to come around at such a late age though
> I wish that I could've done it sooner.
There are people in this newsgroup over forty, and some even have
*grandchildren*. I reckon 24 is not quite pensionable.
ttfn
Dave
John Thomas Grisham
> The next step was I actually read Genesis again. I saw that the
> serpent looked like it was cursed to go down on its belly and eat
> dust. "But wait," I thought, "When did snakes appear in the fossil
> record?" I studied it, I asked questions about it, and found out they
> appeared in the Cretaceous, long before humans. This certainly threw a
> wrench into my literalist machinery. I then took the entire account of
> Genesis as symbolic. When I did, I began to discover meaning in it
> that was lost to me before. I think the phrase of not having seen the
> forest for the trees applies very well here.
O.K., but, now, you're not seeing the trees for the forest. You've
moved from one end of the spectrum to the other. If, there is truth,
then it lies in the whole, not at the extremes.
Why are literalists wrong (you should have asked)?
Literalists are wrong, because they refuse to understand that their
not reading the original text in the original language with the
constraints in the vocabulary of the period. You can only describe,
what you have words to convey. If , the word doesn't exist, you can't
convey what you're describing.
A good example of this was demostated in the book and film,
"Windtalkers", an account of a WWII code derived from the Navaho
language. They didn't have words for planes and tanks and battleships,
so, they created new words based on words for birds and turtles and
fish. Literally, that's what's happened to the text of the Bible over
5,000 years of reinterpretation, editing and translating.
The Serpent wasn't a snake, biologically. It couldn't be! It talked!
To my knowledge the existence of a talking snake certainly wasn't
apparent in the Cretaceous Period, or since. We're dealing with the
interpretation of something else that the vocabulary of the period had
no word to describe (Succubus, Demon, Angel, Bigfoot, Homo Habiticus,
Little Grey Men, whatever).
We take our vocabulary for granted. However, English is not a pure
language, it's a conglomeration of languages. The Celts were conquered
by the Vikings (Teutonic), Romans (Latin), Normans (French) and, then,
conquered the world, picking up bits and pieces of vocabulary over the
last 3,000 years. It's an ongoing process that hasn't stopped and
never will. To take an extreme literalist view that the Hebrew
language of 5,000 years ago stands on an equal footing with current
English vocabulary is completely without merit.
See the forest, see the trees, see the ground, see the sky ... now,
find the path.
Todd S. Greene
<669fe9ea.03011...@posting.google.com>):
> Dave <d.philp.no....@mmb.usyd.edu.au> wrote in message news
> <b046ev$kgr$1...@news.iucc.ac.il>:
Hi, guys.
Well, I *was* a YEC. Wholeheartedly! I was raised in the Church Of
Christ, and my father was a preacher in the COC. Been there, done that!
I still have the research paper I wrote for my English research paper
requirement my junior year of high school, in which I destroyed the
scientific conspiracy against the Bible and showed all of the problems
and inconsistencies with geology (in regard to the Earth's antiquity)
and with paleontology and evolutionary biology (in regard to evolution).
My paper was well-researched, with dozens of references to the
"literature" (i.e., YEC literature; Gish, thank you very much!). I got a
solid "A" on that paper! That was in my 1977/78 school year.
Shortly after this I attended a debate at Portland State University in
Portland, Oregon. The physics guy, a PSU professor focused almost his
entire discussion on isochron dating. To this day, I cannot remember who
exactly the YEC debator was, but it was an ICR rep, and I think it was
one of these guys: Gary Parker, Harold Slusher, Richard Bliss.
(Incidentally, I attended this debate with my dad.) I took a lot of
notes. Not only did I realize at the time that the ICR guy was not able
to counter what the PSU professor pointed out, but what that professor
said really nagged at me for a while.
But life goes on and things need to get done. Church activities, school,
work (to save money for college), fill out paperwork to get into
college.
In 1979/80 school year, I was attending Abilene Christian University
(declared major: "Biblical Studies") and took an astronomy course to
fulfill some science credit requirements. Dr. Charles Ivey was a great
teacher. I can't believe no one brought up YEC in the class, but if they
did, the professor must have given a very brief answer because I don't
remember anything like that. However, the man certainly taught genuine
astronomical science. Very interested and fascinating to me. It also
started to really, really bother me. YEC is incredibly weak on
astronomical science - still, now, even with crap like Humphreys
cosmology making the YEC circuit, but back then there was just nothing
except for the apparent age argument which we all know implicitly
acknowledges the scientific information in the first place.
In 1980/81 school year I attended a local community college (private
colleges are darned expensive). Literally got into an argument with a
Baptist YEC because I found him saying things I'd said just a few years
before but now knew were wrong and I told him so very forthrightly.
Hadn't "sat down with myself" on the issue up until this time, even
though various considerations about it were rumbling around in my head,
but after this argument I became very conscious of how far my position
(my thinking) had shifted away from YEC.
Wow! Realized that I was a "progressive creationist" (now called "old
earth creationist"). Not kosher! For someone raised on "This is what the
Bible says, this is God's Word, so it's the truth" and the related YEC
preaching/teaching of men in the Church Of Christ like Wayne Jackson,
Bert Thompson, James D. Bales, and Arlie J. Hoover, now I wasn't really
sure what to think about myself. Almost unconsciously I'd come to accept
that it was indeed a fact that the world was quite old. Well, if the
Bible was God's Word, then those guys just must be wrong about what the
Bible really teaches.
Never went back to Abilene Christian University. At the community
college, I realized I was more interested in math and science. Ended up
going to a state university (in Michigan, where my parents had moved).
Major: Math. Minor: Physics.
Very early in 1983, in the university library, my eye was caught by a
new book called *Creation and Evolution: Myth or Reality?* by Norman
Newell. What I came to find out was that some writers, prompted by the
Arkansas trial, had decided to speak out about young earth creationism.
Before this time, it's almost like scientists thought that writing about
creationism was somehow beneath them, as if they didn't think they
should waste their time. To me, Newell's book, and the other few books
that came out in that same timeframe, such as Philip Kitcher's *Abusing
Science: The Case Against Creationism* and Douglas Futuyma's *Science On
Trial: The Case For Evolution*, were like stumbling onto an oasis in the
desert. Here were some experts in relevant areas addressing YEC and
other creationist claims specifically and directly. Why didn't these
guys do this years before?
The summer of 1983 turned out to be rather agonizing for me, with
respect to my personal religious beliefs. Learning about all of these
serious problems, not just with YEC (which I was already aware of) but
with creationism in general, threw my understand of "The Bible is God's
Word" out of "taken for granted" mode and into "Gee, wait a minute, we
need to do a serious reevaluation of this" mode. And when I began to
reevaluate the Bible as being God's Word, that's what led me into
serious trouble...
"Jesus," in the movie *The Last Temptation of Christ*: "Thank you God
for leading me where I did not want to go."
Regards,
Todd S. Greene
http://www.creationism.cc/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/creationism/messages
-------------------------------------------
Divergence
by Todd S. Greene (Fall 1985)
Into further bondage I cannot go
as one who confidently claims to know --
meandering, lost, but afraid to tell,
asking not, to keep my unknowing well;
never questioning, never wondering,
always as growing in faith never shown.
Grappling with ideas that cannot be known,
not in rebellion -- in honesty grown;
ornate as faith is, I want what is true --
striking out on a path traversed by few,
touching ideas as never touched before,
ignoring all bounds on what I explore.
Calling for truth, I cry out for reason.
-------------------------------------------
Rubystars
> windst...@hotmail.com (Rubystars) wrote in message news:<669fe9ea.03011...@posting.google.com>...
>
> > The next step was I actually read Genesis again. I saw that the
> > serpent looked like it was cursed to go down on its belly and eat
> > dust. "But wait," I thought, "When did snakes appear in the fossil
> > record?" I studied it, I asked questions about it, and found out they
> > appeared in the Cretaceous, long before humans. This certainly threw a
> > wrench into my literalist machinery. I then took the entire account of
> > Genesis as symbolic. When I did, I began to discover meaning in it
> > that was lost to me before. I think the phrase of not having seen the
> > forest for the trees applies very well here.
>
> O.K., but, now, you're not seeing the trees for the forest. You've
> moved from one end of the spectrum to the other. If, there is truth,
> then it lies in the whole, not at the extremes.
I don't think I'm at either extreme.
> Why are literalists wrong (you should have asked)?
> Literalists are wrong, because they refuse to understand that their
> not reading the original text in the original language with the
> constraints in the vocabulary of the period. You can only describe,
> what you have words to convey. If , the word doesn't exist, you can't
> convey what you're describing.
Right. I also think that the authors had no way of knowing anything
about how life or the universe came about, so not only could they not
describe it, they didn't know anything about it themselves.
> A good example of this was demostated in the book and film,
> "Windtalkers", an account of a WWII code derived from the Navaho
> language. They didn't have words for planes and tanks and battleships,
> so, they created new words based on words for birds and turtles and
> fish. Literally, that's what's happened to the text of the Bible over
> 5,000 years of reinterpretation, editing and translating.
That makes a lot of sense.
> The Serpent wasn't a snake, biologically. It couldn't be! It talked!
The standard line I'd always learned about that was that it was
supposed to have a spirit doing the talking through it, not the snake
itself talking.
> To my knowledge the existence of a talking snake certainly wasn't
> apparent in the Cretaceous Period, or since.
Duh.
>We're dealing with the
> interpretation of something else that the vocabulary of the period had
> no word to describe (Succubus, Demon, Angel, Bigfoot, Homo Habiticus,
> Little Grey Men, whatever).
Well it's a symbol for evil, that's plain enough.
> We take our vocabulary for granted. However, English is not a pure
> language, it's a conglomeration of languages. The Celts were conquered
> by the Vikings (Teutonic), Romans (Latin), Normans (French) and, then,
> conquered the world, picking up bits and pieces of vocabulary over the
> last 3,000 years. It's an ongoing process that hasn't stopped and
> never will. To take an extreme literalist view that the Hebrew
> language of 5,000 years ago stands on an equal footing with current
> English vocabulary is completely without merit.
Of course languages evolve.
> See the forest, see the trees, see the ground, see the sky ... now,
> find the path.
What I don't see is where you think I am and where you think I should
go.
-Rubystars
Frank J
> POTM. Definitely. I like this so much because (1) my story is so similar,
> and (2) I hope that more YECs take the same path.
>
(snip)
Andrew Arensburger
> Dave <d.philp.no....@mmb.usyd.edu.au> wrote in message news:<b046ev$kgr$1...@news.iucc.ac.il>...
>> POTM. Definitely.
I read the "last resort" thread on Google a while back, and
IIRC she mentioned specifically asking what a "kind" was, and not
getting a coherent answer. Too bad she left that out of this article;
that was my favorite bit.
> I was never really a YEC either but it wasn't until I got a little
> older that the old earth position really became cemented. Before then
> I listened to a lot of different creationists and didn't really
> discriminate between young and old earthers.
> I'm glad I'm not the only one to come around at such a late age though
> I wish that I could've done it sooner.
Some things shouldn't be rushed. As far as I can tell from
reading what you've posted, you've gained knowledge without
sacrificing faith, which I gather matters to you. If you had been
exposed to, say, Kent Hovind in secondary school, maybe you would have
thrown the baby out with the bath water.
Wasn't there a line in "Snow Crash" along the lines of, "most
people realize that 99% of religion is bullshit, and erroneously
conclude that the remaining 1% is bullshit too"?
--
Andrew Arensburger, Systems guy University of Maryland
arensb.no-...@glue.umd.edu Office of Information Technology
Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain.
Andrew Arensburger
> In my experience of teaching, you can often teach people contradicting
> "facts" for ages and they'll just believe everything you say. [I've never
> had a kid,] but it seems that a kid could be learning science at school and
> YECism at home and not pick up that there was a conflict until they
> commented on something to Mum or Dad who then pointed out the difference.
Yup. A friend of mine didn't realize until High School that
the Egypt she was learning about in history class was the same Egypt
that had all those plagues and such, according to her Sunday school
teachers. It came as a bit of a shock to realize that they weren't in
separate universes or anything like that.
--
Andrew Arensburger, Systems guy University of Maryland
arensb.no-...@glue.umd.edu Office of Information Technology
"He's like an idiot savant without the savant" -- Crow T. Robot
Pip R. Lagenta
<todd.NOS...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
[snip]
Todd, I want to thank you and Wendy Rubystars for your personal essays
of growth and change. I found them fascinating and moving.
Rubystars
> On 1/16/03 Rubystars <windst...@hotmail.com> wrote (msg-id
> <669fe9ea.03011...@posting.google.com>):
Thanks for posting this Todd, I could really relate to a lot of what
you said even though I wasn't ever really a YEC. When I read things
like this it makes me think of all the people who are still listening
to creationists, still taking what they say for granted.
It's not easy to make the transition to thinking in a different way,
because people are basically programmed into creationism. It's
literally brainwashing, and this is made evident in the way that some
Christian schools force kids to write papers with a pre-set point of
view on the matter, as if they couldn't be Christian and have another
opinion.
Did you ever fight with any feelings of guilt? Even though I knew that
physical reality was on my side in my acceptance of evolution, and I
knew that I didn't believe in a God that could lie by making things
look that way, it took a while before I stopped feeling uneasy and was
very secure about it all just due to the fact that I knew my mom was
very disappointed in me and that many other Christians kept giving me
a lot of flak over it. I just held to my position in accepting science
because I knew that I was right and eventually it wasn't so hard
anymore.
-Rubystars
Rubystars
> Rubystars <windst...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Dave <d.philp.no....@mmb.usyd.edu.au> wrote in message news:<b046ev$kgr$1...@news.iucc.ac.il>...
> >> POTM. Definitely.
>
> I read the "last resort" thread on Google a while back, and
> IIRC she mentioned specifically asking what a "kind" was, and not
> getting a coherent answer. Too bad she left that out of this article;
> that was my favorite bit.
>
Yes Zoe helped me quite a bit with that one. (Thanks Zoe!) Again it's
the hierarchy that helped me to realize that there are no clear kind
boundaries. Dogs are related to foxes, but both are related to bears,
and all three are related to all other carnivores etc.
> > I was never really a YEC either but it wasn't until I got a little
> > older that the old earth position really became cemented. Before then
> > I listened to a lot of different creationists and didn't really
> > discriminate between young and old earthers.
>
> > I'm glad I'm not the only one to come around at such a late age though
> > I wish that I could've done it sooner.
>
> Some things shouldn't be rushed. As far as I can tell from
> reading what you've posted, you've gained knowledge without
> sacrificing faith, which I gather matters to you.
I came really close at one point to losing it (this is one reason why
I don't like creationists, they drive people away) but I was lucky
enough to have had some experiences that I remembered that I still
can't explain. Without those experiences I would be an atheist, no
doubt about it.
>If you had been
> exposed to, say, Kent Hovind in secondary school, maybe you would have
> thrown the baby out with the bath water.
Yes, fortunately the first time I heard about Hovind was shortly after
I accepted evolution (though in retrospect I strongly suspect some of
the stuff in the YEC high school book I read came from him). The first
time I saw him was when he was on tv debating Ross, and I noticed how
Ross was thrashing him on some points, and how Hovind had the nerve to
call Ross a heretic for merely having a different interpretation.
It looked like this:
Hovind: I'm a creationist
Ross: I'm a creationist, but of a different sort
Hovind: Heretic!
Since then I never had any kind feelings toward Hovind, suffice it to
say that was a very bad first impression. The more I see of him and
read about him the less I like him.
I can see though that many people who were rooting for him in that
debate would have had it ingrained further into their minds that a
Christian must be a YEC, and if they ever learn that evolution is
true, they are very likely to "throw the baby out with the bath
water".
> Wasn't there a line in "Snow Crash" along the lines of, "most
> people realize that 99% of religion is bullshit, and erroneously
> conclude that the remaining 1% is bullshit too"?
Well I tell you what, I was lucky in a lot of ways as far as the fact
that my parents never lied to me about imaginary creatures like Santa
Claus or the tooth fairy (unless you consider God to be one, but even
then they weren't willfully lying). It never took away from the fun of
the holiday or getting money for baby teeth for them to be honest with
me. I think that's a very important factor.
I think that many doctrines are BS, but those are doctrines. This may
be cliche but I think the true religion has to involve a personal
relationship with God, not holding to non-salvational doctrines A B
and C.
-Rubystars
Rubystars
> Rubystars wrote:
>
> > Dave <d.philp.no....@mmb.usyd.edu.au> wrote in message
> > news:<b046ev$kgr$1...@news.iucc.ac.il>...
> >> POTM. Definitely. I like this so much because (1) my story is so
> >> similar, and (2) I hope that more YECs take the same path.
> >>
> >> Unfortunately it is very like the November POTM but just better....
> >>
> >> BTW I was never a YEC, I started at the "Hugh Ross" stage, though my
> >> "Hugh
> >> Rosses" were actually Alan Hayward and Glenn Morton. Even the age was
> >> the same --- I was 23 1/2 when I made the final transition and am 24 now
> >> (and I remember this age coming up in the November discussion).
> >>
> >> Dave
> >
> > Thanks so much for the nomination. :)
> >
> > I was never really a YEC either but it wasn't until I got a little
> > older that the old earth position really became cemented. Before then
> > I listened to a lot of different creationists and didn't really
> > discriminate between young and old earthers.
>
> Kids don't. I didn't either, my first real understanding that there was a
> difference came about 13 or 14, when I read a book criticising YECism. (By
> Alan Hayward --- I now disagree with some of what he said, but I'd
> recommend it to anyone as an introduction.)
Yeah, I never really had a coherent picture of the past, I
compartmentalized a lot, on the one hand I believed that dinosaurs
died out a long time before people came (fact I'd learned from tv),
but on the other hand I thought everything was created in one week
(what I was taught to be true). I'm not even sure how I pulled that
off, but then again I was very young and didn't really notice the
inconsistency.
What concerns me is that people bring this doublethink into adulthood!
I got the wrinkles ironed out by listening to Ross as a teen, finally
having a consistently old earth position.
> In my experience of teaching, you can often teach people contradicting
> "facts" for ages and they'll just believe everything you say. [I've never
> had a kid,] but it seems that a kid could be learning science at school and
> YECism at home and not pick up that there was a conflict until they
> commented on something to Mum or Dad who then pointed out the difference.
That doesn't always work, sometimes I did pick up on differences but
just didn't know how to reconcile them, but you're right that it's
easy to do that especially with children who trust those in authority.
> In my case, I was hearing the YEC at church, but my father recommended
> Hayward's book, so it was all rather comfortable for me.
I had to go this alone. My dad and sister didn't really have much of a
problem with it when I told them how I felt because they knew I just
had a different interpretation and wasn't abandoning the faith
(They're probably still creationists, not sure), but my mom wasn't
happy at all about it, we had to agree not to talk about that
particular subject (it still comes up now and then).
> > I'm glad I'm not the only one to come around at such a late age though
> > I wish that I could've done it sooner.
>
> There are people in this newsgroup over forty, and some even have
> *grandchildren*. I reckon 24 is not quite pensionable.
True, but still, for someone who was interested in science for so
long, someone who intends to pursue it as a career, to have remained
in the dark for so long is frustrating. I don't know whether to blame
the poor educational system of the U.S. (I think it's wrong that I
never learned how evolution worked until college level Biology 2), or
if the popular idea of evolution is just too skewed for me to have
embraced it before I learned what it really was.
-Rubystars
Nathan Urban
> Hovind: I'm a creationist
> Ross: I'm a creationist, but of a different sort
> Hovind: Heretic!
Time for a repost. :)
I was walking in San Francisco along the Golden Gate Bridge when I
saw a man about to jump off. I tried to dissuade him from committing
suicide and told him simply that God loved him. A tear came to his
eye. I then asked him, "Are you a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu, or
what?" He said, "I'm a Christian." I said, "Me, too, small
world. Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me
too, what franchise?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Well, me
too. Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?" He
said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Well, call Ripley!
Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist or Northern
Conservative Reformed Baptist?" He said, "Northern Conservative
Reformed Baptist." I said, "Remarkable! Northern Conservative
Reformed Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative
Reformed Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative
Reformed Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "It's a miracle!
Northern Conservative Reformed Baptist Great Lakes Region 1879 or
Northern Conservative Reformed Baptist Great Lakes Region of 1912?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Reformed Baptist Great Lakes Region
of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" and pushed him over.
Pip R. Lagenta
I heard that joke on an Emo Philips album. Good joke.
John Wilkins
The funnier thing is, if he had said "Jew" or "Hindu" then they probably
would have had a sane conversation over coffee, without much violence,
at least for a while...
--
John Wilkins
"Listen to your heart, not the voices in your head" - Marge Simpson
Rubystars
Thanks for posting that, it gave me a good laugh. It's also sad,
because it's not much of an exaggeration.
-Rubystars
Walter Bushell
> Dave <d.philp.no....@mmb.usyd.edu.au> wrote:
> > In my experience of teaching, you can often teach people contradicting
> > "facts" for ages and they'll just believe everything you say. [I've never
> > had a kid,] but it seems that a kid could be learning science at school and
> > YECism at home and not pick up that there was a conflict until they
> > commented on something to Mum or Dad who then pointed out the difference.
>
> Yup. A friend of mine didn't realize until High School that
> the Egypt she was learning about in history class was the same Egypt
> that had all those plagues and such, according to her Sunday school
> teachers. It came as a bit of a shock to realize that they weren't in
> separate universes or anything like that.
I think the two Egypt's were in different universes.
--
Sartre was an optimist. He thought Hell was _other_ people.
Walter
Aron-Ra
another forum dealing with this topic
http://www.cephas.info/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=2
where the posters are the most ignorant of any collection I've ever seen
anywhere, and could certainly benefit from your story.
Aron-Ra
Rubystars
I hope they can benefit from it :)
Maybe some of them aren't so stupid but the hurdle they need to get
over is more emotional than anything else? I was primed to accept
things based on physical evidence only because of my interest in
science and the way I was learning how science worked.
Other people might find it more challenging to use that part of the
scientific method to solve problems.
-Rubystars
Matt Silberstein
john.w...@bigpond.com (John Wilkins):
And if he had said "Jew" and ended up with something like
"Northern Conservative Reformed Baptist Great Lakes Region of
1912" they still would have disagreed.
Time for my joke.
Issac is visiting a new synagogue. At one point in the service
about half the congregation stands up to pray, the other half
stays seated. Pretty soon the people standing tell those sitting
to stand up. The people sitting reply telling those standing to
sit. Some more sits and stands and a full argument breaks out.
Eventually the rabbi calms things down and the services continue.
After services Issac seeks out, Samuel, the oldest member. He
asks him: "you have been here for many years, is it the tradition
of this synagogue to stand during that prayer?"
"No," says Samuel.
"Well, is it the tradition to sit?" asks Issac?
"No"
"Well, then, why do people yell and argue and make such a fuss?"
"That's the tradition." replies Samuel.
Or, to put it another way. If two Jews are washed to a deserted
island they would make three synagogues. One the first goes to,
one the second goes to, and a third neither would go to.
--
Matt Silberstein
Stupendous -
The only word that starts off as an insult and ends up as a compliment...
Except, of course, for "Jerking"
Tony Martin
Dave
<snip>
> Or, to put it another way. If two Jews are washed to a deserted
> island they would make three synagogues. One the first goes to,
> one the second goes to, and a third neither would go to.
In Talk Origins, the number of opinions is roughly proportional to the
number of people, maybe slightly less. (I.e. N^0.8 or something.) In any
case, some people agree some of the time.
In Israel, the number of opinions is proportional to N^2 or maybe worse,
because
(1) everybody has a different opinion
(2) everybody has an opinion on everybody else's opinion
(3) ...
Matt Silberstein
<d.philp.no....@mmb.usyd.edu.au>:
Here is a question for t.o. Israel clearly has an unworkable
political system, a system that contributes to difficulty in
solving the Palestinian conflict. I challenge people here to
propose a better system given the political realities (size,
diversity of opinion, etc.). I am not asking for a solution that
is achievable, that is, don't bother to try to figure out how to
get the system adopted, just propose a better system. As an
example, the U.S. has geographic representation as does England.
England uses a parliament, the U.S. has a "directly" elected
leader with a geographic legislature. So what should Israel have?
Dave
Oh dear, we're not going to bring *that* up again are we? :-{} --- he
says, listening to 'Hatikvah' on the radio --- late night on the
spectrometer.... I hope they don't play it all night.
I've never heard a critic of Israel propose a serious answer to that
question. Some background from my point of view:
As I understand,
* Israel has 'ideological' representation in one house only.
* the UK has geographic representation in one house and the other is a
house of review.
* the US has approx ideological representation in one house (the Senate),
geographical in one house, and a directly elected leader.
* Australia has the same Senate + Reps as the US but a non-elected Governor
General who can (in principle) act as a reviewer.
The Australian Senate is less geographical than the US Senate (my
interpretation) because we have more seats per state. Tasmania does seem
to call a lot of shots, though, good on them.
US politicians cross the floor more often than their Australian
counterparts, which has pros and cons: conscience votes are more acceptable
(pro), and the lobbying of particular politicians is more important (con).
The US Supreme Court is basically a Republican rubber stamp in my view.
(Irrelevant but I like pointing it out.)
The Australian thing with no President is a good thing, though the Prime
Minister takes a Presidential role if he can. But he has less power.
The Israeli High Court is more active than the others (my impression) and
this is a good thing because they seem to be reasonably fair.
The Israeli President (idea) is pretty good too, though with direct election
of the Prime Minister, it seems that the PM is pretty Presidential.
The Australian Senate has Greens and Democrats holding the balance of power,
so no bill can pass without Govt + one of (Opposition or Dem or Green).
This is a really nice arrangement.
The Israeli (ideologically elected) house is seriously damaged by having a
perpetually minority Government with religious parties holding the balance
of power.
The UK, US, and Israeli 'first past the post' voting system is seriously
inferior to the Australia 'preferential' system. If I vote for Fred, and
Fred doesn't get elected, but I prefer Millicent to Igor, then I am counted
as voting for Millicent, rather than my vote not being counted. (But Fred
still gets a dollar or so for my vote, for his campaign next time.) In
the context of the last US Presidential election:
1) Nader would have gotten a bigger vote in the US and therefore a chance
of being elected
2) Gore would have flattened Bush even if he'd come second on the primary
vote, he would have won on 'preferences'.
Basically it is a way of ensuring that independents and minor parties have a
chance of getting up. It also gives them a tiny bit of power through
'directing their preferences' but the voter always has the ultimate say.
So... my solution? Not really sure, but here goes. I think the biggest
problem is that there is only one house and the balance of power is held by
the religious parties. So for serious parties, you're either in government
or you're irrelevant. The solution is to get influential green, social
democrat, etc., parties, and to do so: (1) Use preferential voting. (2) Go
for a Senate + Reps arrangement. (3) Keep the active High Court. (4)
Allow conscience votes.
The problem is that I think the Israeli public doesn't really want the
'left' influence. They have begun to see war as a way of life --- who can
blame them? They tried peace and were punished for it. (That's mainly
flamebait for our mates.)
Not really well thought out and I'm sure there are a thousand --- a
thousand? no, five million! --- reasons why it wouldn't work. But go for
it...
ttfn
Dave
Matt Silberstein
Nor a friend. I suspect the problem is unsolvable in any
realistic manner.
>Some background from my point of view:
>
>As I understand,
> * Israel has 'ideological' representation in one house only.
I prefer "party" to ideological. The parties that exist do tend
to be ideological, but that is not necessarily so. Ideological
representation is the reality, party is the system.
> * the UK has geographic representation in one house and the other is a
>house of review.
> * the US has approx ideological representation in one house (the Senate),
>geographical in one house, and a directly elected leader.
I would describe this differently. The U.S. has two houses party
election with different geographic representation. Also the U.S.
has a two phase election process (primaries). The U.K. and,
AFAIK, Australia have only one election.
> * Australia has the same Senate + Reps as the US but a non-elected Governor
>General who can (in principle) act as a reviewer.
>
>The Australian Senate is less geographical than the US Senate (my
>interpretation) because we have more seats per state. Tasmania does seem
>to call a lot of shots, though, good on them.
You elect several senators from the same area? That is less
geographic. Our house is elected from smaller areas than our
senate.
>US politicians cross the floor more often than their Australian
>counterparts, which has pros and cons: conscience votes are more acceptable
>(pro), and the lobbying of particular politicians is more important (con).
>
>The US Supreme Court is basically a Republican rubber stamp in my view.
>(Irrelevant but I like pointing it out.)
;-(
>The Australian thing with no President is a good thing, though the Prime
>Minister takes a Presidential role if he can. But he has less power.
>
>The Israeli High Court is more active than the others (my impression) and
>this is a good thing because they seem to be reasonably fair.
>
>The Israeli President (idea) is pretty good too, though with direct election
>of the Prime Minister, it seems that the PM is pretty Presidential.
That said, they changed the system in Israel and then, almost
immediately, changed back.
>The Australian Senate has Greens and Democrats holding the balance of power,
>so no bill can pass without Govt + one of (Opposition or Dem or Green).
>This is a really nice arrangement.
>
>The Israeli (ideologically elected) house is seriously damaged by having a
>perpetually minority Government with religious parties holding the balance
>of power.
The problem is that there is a parliamentary system with a
fractured electorate. Religious or not, small parties will
control in that case.
>The UK, US, and Israeli 'first past the post' voting system is seriously
>inferior to the Australia 'preferential' system. If I vote for Fred, and
>Fred doesn't get elected, but I prefer Millicent to Igor, then I am counted
>as voting for Millicent, rather than my vote not being counted. (But Fred
>still gets a dollar or so for my vote, for his campaign next time.)
I like the idea even though it is not "fairer" in general.
Arrow's Theorem tells us that. The question is which is better
for the given political situation. I could design a system for
Israel that, given the current electorate, would elect Labor,
Likud, or even some minor party. My question what is fair, not
what delivers the result I/you happen to want.
Israel has a tiny crowded electorate. You can't do geographic
representation. Not and get fairness. Geographic systems exist
for two reason. One, to just break up the electorate. The other
is to give representation to various areas. This makes sense if
there is a geographic distribution of interests. Such does not
exist in Israel in any meaningful way.
So the question is what basis do you divide the populace to deal
with preference. You can do some arbitrary geographic, but this
will like lead to two parties in the Likud and an almost random
choice given the current electorate. You can set a limit to the
number of parties in the Likud. That is a version a minimum
representation requirement which they have.
>In
>the context of the last US Presidential election:
> 1) Nader would have gotten a bigger vote in the US and therefore a chance
>of being elected
> 2) Gore would have flattened Bush even if he'd come second on the primary
>vote, he would have won on 'preferences'.
>Basically it is a way of ensuring that independents and minor parties have a
>chance of getting up. It also gives them a tiny bit of power through
>'directing their preferences' but the voter always has the ultimate say.
It is not, repeat not, generally more fair. Preferences can
return unfair results as well. (Don't ask me how, I forget the
example.)
>So... my solution? Not really sure, but here goes. I think the biggest
>problem is that there is only one house and the balance of power is held by
>the religious parties. So for serious parties, you're either in government
>or you're irrelevant. The solution is to get influential green, social
>democrat, etc., parties, and to do so: (1) Use preferential voting. (2) Go
>for a Senate + Reps arrangement. (3) Keep the active High Court. (4)
>Allow conscience votes.
A second house might be interesting, but with such a small
country how do you do it? Possibly have one by preference and one
with a different election system. Or would that simply confuse
people.
>The problem is that I think the Israeli public doesn't really want the
>'left' influence. They have begun to see war as a way of life --- who can
>blame them? They tried peace and were punished for it. (That's mainly
>flamebait for our mates.)
I agree that this is a current issue. Those on the left feel
astoundingly betrayed. They feel they took a big risk with Barak
and got hundreds of dead as payback.
>Not really well thought out and I'm sure there are a thousand --- a
>thousand? no, five million! --- reasons why it wouldn't work. But go for
>it...
Me, I have no solution. This was semi-serious question in that I
feel some system would be better, but I have no idea which. It is
also a good way for people to explore some of the complexity of
the issues involved in both electoral system and Israeli
politics.
David Jensen
Matt Silberstein <mat...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in
<jg6m2v0ihv6dq90ft...@4ax.com>:
Either a single transferable vote (also known as 'instant runoff') for
each seat (or seat cluster by region) or a 5-7% minimum for a party list
to win any seats with the current proportional representation system.
Matt Silberstein
<da...@dajensen-family.com>:
I can see the value of the minimum. It would reduce the number,
and hopefully the power, of the minor parties. I thought they had
one, raising the value might work better. I suspect that there
still would be 4-5 parties and no clear majority. What does the
transferable vote do?
Todd S. Greene
<669fe9ea.03011...@posting.google.com>):
> Todd Greene wrote in message news:<l8ug2vcbh20kkjlht...@4ax.com>...
>> On Jan. 16, 2003, Rubystars wrote (msg-id
>> <669fe9ea.03011...@posting.google.com>):
> <snip great story>
>
> Thanks for posting this Todd, I could really relate to a lot of what
> you said even though I wasn't ever really a YEC. When I read things
> like this it makes me think of all the people who are still listening
> to creationists, still taking what they say for granted.
>
> It's not easy to make the transition to thinking in a different way,
> because people are basically programmed into creationism. It's
> literally brainwashing, and this is made evident in the way that some
> Christian schools force kids to write papers with a pre-set point of
> view on the matter, as if they couldn't be Christian and have another
> opinion.
Hi, Rubystars
I am convinced that the vast majority of YECs, as they're growing up,
get to a certain point in their lives where they realize, based on the
YEC thinking ingrained in their minds, that they have two ways to go:
1. Stay a YEC, but don't pay close attention to science.
YEC propaganda stuff from the ICR, CRS, AiG, and the like
is really good for these Christians. Religious belief is
very important to them, and the YEC framework shoves
science aside necessarily such that according to that
framework if you accept religious belief then you must
reject science (though, of course, according to the
propaganda you'll never acknowledge as much), but on the
other hand if you accept the scientific understanding
then you must reject religious belief. Since religious
belief is important to most people and especially to
people who are adherents of young earth creationism in
the first place, they can't bear to abandon religious
belief, no matter what, so science goes by the wayside
in their minds.
2. Accept the scientific understanding of the real world,
and thus abandon YEC, yet still do things according to
the YEC framework in the sense that abandoning YEC also
means abandoning the Bible altogether. The YEC framework
is that the Bible teaches that the world was created
about six to ten thousand years ago *and* that the Bible
is God's Word and since it is God's Word it is
infallible. But the obvious corollary of this is that if
the Bible teaches what is wrong (and since it is an
unequivocal fact that the world is ancient, so if the
Bibles teaches a young earth/young universe then it most
certainly is teaching something false), *then* it can't
be God's Word.
Of course, there is also "the third path" that I believe most YECs who
reject YEC actually take: They abandon the YEC framework altogether,
accept the fact that the world is ancient (and possibly also accept some
form of biological evolution), then accept some non-YEC interpretation
of the Bible and thus still follow the Christian belief that the Bible
is inspired by God. (Now, I realize that there are forms of belief about
biblical inspiration that don't necessarily entail the idea of biblical
infallibility, but that's a rarer animal and thus it's complications
don't usually need to be discussed.)
>
> Did you ever fight with any feelings of guilt? Even though I knew that
> physical reality was on my side in my acceptance of evolution, and I
> knew that I didn't believe in a God that could lie by making things
> look that way, it took a while before I stopped feeling uneasy and was
> very secure about it all just due to the fact that I knew my mom was
> very disappointed in me and that many other Christians kept giving me
> a lot of flak over it. I just held to my position in accepting science
> because I knew that I was right and eventually it wasn't so hard
> anymore.
>
> -Rubystars
In my previous post on this, I wrote:
>> The summer of 1983 turned out to be rather agonizing for me, with
>> respect to my personal religious beliefs. Learning about all of
>> these serious problems, not just with YEC (which I was already
>> aware of) but with creationism in general, threw my understanding
>> of "The Bible is God's Word" out of "taken for granted" mode and
>> into "Gee, wait a minute, we need to do a serious reevaluation of
>> this" mode. And when I began to reevaluate the Bible as being God's
>> Word, that's what led me into serious trouble...
First of all, I was upset about what I felt was being lied to by
creationist writers. They can dance around pretending "I didn't know
this, I didn't know that" only for so long and then you realize this "I
didn't know the details" thing is a an intentional part of their
behavior. They don't dig into the details - in other words, they aren't
really interested in the truth - because they absolutely fear the truth.
It's a siege mentality. You can only get by with spreading
misinformation due to your own ignorance about the matters you're
spreading misinformation on only so much before you cross the line from
being innocently ignorant to being intentionally ignorant, and at that
point you are just as much a liar as any other liar.
Second, because my whole life was oriented around my conservative
Christian faith, I felt depressed about this whole thing for quite a
while. I first left the conservative church I was a member of (the
Church Of Christ; and recall that I mentioned that my father was a
preacher in the Church of Christ - not a very comfortable personal
situation!)
Did I feel guilt? While I was upset about my personal situation, I don't
ever recall feeling guilty about it. Guilt wouldn't have made any sense
to me. I had studied the crap out of this stuff, and I *knew* for a
*fact* that young earth creationism was an absolute crock. While I
wasn't necessarily convinced about a thoroughgoing Darwinian evolution
for a while, starting in 1983 I realized that evolution made a whole of
sense and I understood the fallacious nature of many of the creationist
arguments (both young earth and old earth varieties) against evolution.
But as I intimated in my previous comments, that whole creationism stuff
in my life caused me to go into a "reset/reevaluation" mode toward my
religious belief in general, and when I did that, I really couldn't find
any good "traction" for this idea that the Bible came from God. Things
like the slaughter (the Bible's word!) of the people of Ai (Joshua 8),
which are stories that being raised in Christian churches we're just
brought up taking for granted, now really caused philosophical problems
for me. What makes this God any different than any other parochial
tribal God? People slaughter animals as sacrifices to God? Come on, this
is stupid! This is Primitive God(s) of Our Tribe 101! And this Bible is
supposed to reflect the communication of the Creator God of our Universe
of Billions of Galaxies? And how is this, exactly? The whole thing no
longer made any sense to me. It just didn't make any sense. Having
broken out of the taken-for-granted presumptions of my youth, I could no
longer see how "The Bible is God's Word" made any sense. Besides, why
does God need a book made up of documents written by men and selected by
men in order to communicate to human beings. Why does God need to be so
distant and secretive such that He makes His communication follow the
channels of human politics? How convenient for the humans who happen to
be in religious charge!
Regard,
Bigdakine
>From: "Pip R. Lagenta" morbiu...@attbi.com
>Date: 1/18/03 8:30 AM Hawaiian Standard Time
>Message-id: <3l7j2vcsuf68aq2kh...@4ax.com>
I was thinking to myself, George Carlin..
oh well..
Stuart
Dr. Stuart A. Weinstein
Ewa Beach Institute of Tectonics
"To err is human, but to really foul things up
requires a creationist"
Bigdakine
>Date: 1/19/03 11:32 AM Hawaiian Standard Time
>Message-id: <jg6m2v0ihv6dq90ft...@4ax.com>
How about a game of Dreidel among all the parties?
Don't know that it will solve anything. But it might be cheaper and boost
falafel sales..
Nick Keighley
> windst...@hotmail.com (Rubystars) wrote in message
> news:<669fe9ea.03011...@posting.google.com>...
> > The next step was I actually read Genesis again. I saw that the
> > serpent looked like it was cursed to go down on its belly and eat
> > dust. "But wait," I thought, "When did snakes appear in the fossil
> > record?" I studied it, I asked questions about it, and found out they
> > appeared in the Cretaceous, long before humans. This certainly threw a
> > wrench into my literalist machinery. I then took the entire account of
> > Genesis as symbolic. When I did, I began to discover meaning in it
> > that was lost to me before. I think the phrase of not having seen the
> > forest for the trees applies very well here.
>
> O.K., but, now, you're not seeing the trees for the forest. You've
> moved from one end of the spectrum to the other. If, there is truth,
> then it lies in the whole, not at the extremes.
well I don't accept that peoples' views fit on a simple spectrum,
but if I did why *necessarily* must truth not reside at one or
other end?
> Why are literalists wrong (you should have asked)?
> Literalists are wrong, because they refuse to understand that their
> not reading the original text in the original language with the
> constraints in the vocabulary of the period. You can only describe,
> what you have words to convey.
is this called Worf's hypothesis? Just because we don't have a word for
something doesn't mean we can't describe it. Why does the bible
say six days to create the earth? Why not many many years?
> [...] If , the word doesn't exist, you can't
> convey what you're describing.
according to you new concepts could never arise.
> A good example of this was demostated in the book and film,
> "Windtalkers", an account of a WWII code derived from the Navaho
> language. They didn't have words for planes and tanks and battleships,
> so, they created new words based on words for birds and turtles and
> fish. Literally, that's what's happened to the text of the Bible over
> 5,000 years of reinterpretation, editing and translating.
yes, so Navaho *can* introduce new concepts.
> The Serpent wasn't a snake, biologically. It couldn't be! It talked!
how come religious people can swallow camels, but strain at gnats?
If god can create the entire universe, then a talking snake's going
to be pretty easy isn't it?
> To my knowledge the existence of a talking snake certainly wasn't
> apparent in the Cretaceous Period, or since.
right. We have extensive recordings from the creteceous period...
<snip>
> We take our vocabulary for granted. However, English is not a pure
> language, it's a conglomeration of languages.
like every other language.
> [...] The Celts were conquered
> by the Vikings (Teutonic), Romans (Latin),
your ordering is a bit odd...
> [...] Normans (French) and, then,
> conquered the world, picking up bits and pieces of vocabulary over the
> last 3,000 years. It's an ongoing process that hasn't stopped and
> never will. To take an extreme literalist view that the Hebrew
> language of 5,000 years ago stands on an equal footing with current
> English vocabulary is completely without merit.
that's not really the point. Could a better job have been in Hebrew.
Probably yes. Unless you consider the bible to be a collection of
myths...
> See the forest, see the trees, see the ground, see the sky ... now,
> find the path.
--
Nick Keighley
"Astrology is based on scientific fact:
there's one born every minute"
-- Patrick Moore
David Jensen
IIRC the minimum for a party list is about 2% right now.
> I suspect that there
>still would be 4-5 parties and no clear majority. What does the
>transferable vote do?
Transferrable vote would probably make the system more like the American
one. It makes each candidate get 50% of the vote for the seat (or
cluster) with seats assigned by geography (the voters vote for their
candidates in order of preference, lowest vote is thrown out and the
votes are reassigned to remaining candidates). Religious enclaves may
still send members of a religious party, but ego-driven politicians with
a small national following would not have the votes to get seated unless
they joined with larger parties.
Matt Silberstein
I worry about something like that because it has the possibility
of creating an apparent solid majority, even super majority when
nothing of the sort exists. IOW just a different kind of tyranny
of the minority. But I will think about it.
Matt Silberstein
Ok, if you are going that way, I do happen to be a big fan of the
Tibetan system. Which is almost a Platonic system. Pick someone
young and train them to serve the state. Tibet did well the last
time, I have no idea if it has long term promise. Of course it is
a little late for the Middle East. But maybe both sides will
agree to stop violence for the 20 or so years it would take them
to bring up their new leader. ;-)
John Wilkins
> jgri...@scu.k12.ca.us (John Thomas Grisham) wrote...
...
> > Why are literalists wrong (you should have asked)?
> > Literalists are wrong, because they refuse to understand that their
> > not reading the original text in the original language with the
> > constraints in the vocabulary of the period. You can only describe,
> > what you have words to convey.
>
> is this called Worf's hypothesis? Just because we don't have a word for
> something doesn't mean we can't describe it. Why does the bible
> say six days to create the earth? Why not many many years?
No, Worf's hypothesis was that non-Klingons might be as honourable in
their own way as Klingons...
Whorff's hypothesis was that language constrains thought.
David Jensen
The UK is an example of that problem without transferrable votes. The
winning party gets massive majorities in Commons with 40% of the
electorate, when the <liberal party name of the year> is probably the
second choice of almost everyone in the UK, but gets few seats.
A country of Israel's size might need multi-member clusters, e.g. divide
the Knesset into 15 districts with 7 members from each district, each
person gets seven votes and preferences by party or candidate from a
local list. Popular candidates from less popular parties could still be
elected, but there would most likely be a party that controls the
Knesset because it is the first or second choice of the majority of
people. It would also encourage the splinter parties to join together
with the main left or right parties if they want any influence as in
Europe, possibly with the swing liberals still in the middle and small
radical parties on the left and on the right that everyone ignores.
Nick Keighley
> Nick Keighley <nick.k...@marconi.com> wrote:
> > jgri...@scu.k12.ca.us (John Thomas Grisham) wrote...
> > > Why are literalists wrong (you should have asked)?
> > > Literalists are wrong, because they refuse to understand that their
> > > not reading the original text in the original language with the
> > > constraints in the vocabulary of the period. You can only describe,
> > > what you have words to convey.
> >
> > is this called Worf's hypothesis? Just because we don't have a word for
> > something doesn't mean we can't describe it. Why does the bible
> > say six days to create the earth? Why not many many years?
>
> No, Worf's hypothesis was that non-Klingons might be as honourable in
> their own way as Klingons...
>
> Whorff's hypothesis was that language constrains thought.
> ...
I was close!
--
Nick Keighley
Dave
> A country of Israel's size might need multi-member clusters, e.g. divide
> the Knesset into 15 districts with 7 members from each district, each
> person gets seven votes and preferences by party or candidate from a
> local list. Popular candidates from less popular parties could still be
> elected, but there would most likely be a party that controls the
> Knesset because it is the first or second choice of the majority of
> people. It would also encourage the splinter parties to join together
> with the main left or right parties if they want any influence as in
> Europe, possibly with the swing liberals still in the middle and small
> radical parties on the left and on the right that everyone ignores.
Sounds like a neat system. Tasmania has something similar, 5 clusters with
5 members each. They seem to have a good mix of a bit of everything in
their parliament. And Tasmania has a population of about 150 000 so Israel
could easily sustain a parliament that size.
Dave
Dave
Yep.
>>Some background from my point of view:
>>
>>As I understand,
>> * Israel has 'ideological' representation in one house only.
>
> I prefer "party" to ideological. The parties that exist do tend
> to be ideological, but that is not necessarily so. Ideological
> representation is the reality, party is the system.
>
>> * the UK has geographic representation in one house and the other is a
>>house of review.
>> * the US has approx ideological representation in one house (the Senate),
>>geographical in one house, and a directly elected leader.
>
> I would describe this differently. The U.S. has two houses party
> election with different geographic representation. Also the U.S.
> has a two phase election process (primaries). The U.K. and,
> AFAIK, Australia have only one election.
Agree WRT US, yes WRT Australia, except that only half of the Senate is
elected at each election.
>> * Australia has the same Senate + Reps as the US but a non-elected
>> Governor
>>General who can (in principle) act as a reviewer.
>>
>>The Australian Senate is less geographical than the US Senate (my
>>interpretation) because we have more seats per state. Tasmania does seem
>>to call a lot of shots, though, good on them.
>
> You elect several senators from the same area? That is less
> geographic. Our house is elected from smaller areas than our
> senate.
Six per state per election + two per territory (ACT and NT) per election.
It works quite nicely: two from one major party, three from the other and
one cross bench.
<snippage>
>>The Australian Senate has Greens and Democrats holding the balance of
>>power, so no bill can pass without Govt + one of (Opposition or Dem or
>>Green). This is a really nice arrangement.
>>
>>The Israeli (ideologically elected) house is seriously damaged by having a
>>perpetually minority Government with religious parties holding the balance
>>of power.
>
> The problem is that there is a parliamentary system with a
> fractured electorate. Religious or not, small parties will
> control in that case.
It might be solved with geographical representation, because the religious
parties would get a huge vote in their enclave but no seats from anywhere
else.
>>The UK, US, and Israeli 'first past the post' voting system is seriously
>>inferior to the Australia 'preferential' system. If I vote for Fred, and
>>Fred doesn't get elected, but I prefer Millicent to Igor, then I am
>>counted
>>as voting for Millicent, rather than my vote not being counted. (But Fred
>>still gets a dollar or so for my vote, for his campaign next time.)
>
> I like the idea even though it is not "fairer" in general.
> Arrow's Theorem tells us that. The question is which is better
> for the given political situation. I could design a system for
> Israel that, given the current electorate, would elect Labor,
> Likud, or even some minor party. My question what is fair, not
> what delivers the result I/you happen to want.
:-) I think it is better in the important special cases, i.e. it would
improve the quality of the elected people in my view. "Fairer" and
"better" are not the same thing, especially when the voting public are
often not very "fair' themselves.
The challenge is not to arrange it so that "the public gets exactly what
they want", but so that the politicians are unable to direct exactly what
the public wants. The interlocking system of two houses elected
differently means that a geographical message cannot be entirely
successful, nor can an ideological message.
> Israel has a tiny crowded electorate. You can't do geographic
> representation. Not and get fairness. Geographic systems exist
> for two reason. One, to just break up the electorate. The other
> is to give representation to various areas. This makes sense if
> there is a geographic distribution of interests. Such does not
> exist in Israel in any meaningful way.
Well maybe one house should be elected by people in a different taxable
income bracket. I don't know, but I think that it is pretty important to
split the election.
The German Federal govt has two houses, at least one of which is elected
partly geographically, partly otherwise, I don't know if that would be a
good idea?
> So the question is what basis do you divide the populace to deal
> with preference. You can do some arbitrary geographic, but this
> will like lead to two parties in the Likud and an almost random
> choice given the current electorate. You can set a limit to the
> number of parties in the Likud. That is a version a minimum
> representation requirement which they have.
Didn't really get that.
>
>>In
>>the context of the last US Presidential election:
>> 1) Nader would have gotten a bigger vote in the US and therefore a chance
>>of being elected
>> 2) Gore would have flattened Bush even if he'd come second on the primary
>>vote, he would have won on 'preferences'.
>>Basically it is a way of ensuring that independents and minor parties have
>>a
>>chance of getting up. It also gives them a tiny bit of power through
>>'directing their preferences' but the voter always has the ultimate say.
>
> It is not, repeat not, generally more fair. Preferences can
> return unfair results as well. (Don't ask me how, I forget the
> example.)
I'm sure, but I still think they're better. Basically if you're trying to
green Israeli politics, I suggest preferences. And I suggest that greening
it would be a very good thing.
>>So... my solution? Not really sure, but here goes. I think the biggest
>>problem is that there is only one house and the balance of power is held
>>by
>>the religious parties. So for serious parties, you're either in
>>government
>>or you're irrelevant. The solution is to get influential green, social
>>democrat, etc., parties, and to do so: (1) Use preferential voting. (2)
>>Go
>>for a Senate + Reps arrangement. (3) Keep the active High Court. (4)
>>Allow conscience votes.
>
> A second house might be interesting, but with such a small
> country how do you do it? Possibly have one by preference and one
> with a different election system. Or would that simply confuse
> people.
That could be really neat. Two houses is no problem NSW has the same
population as Israel and has two houses. The upper house is very small,
but that's OK too.
>>The problem is that I think the Israeli public doesn't really want the
>>'left' influence. They have begun to see war as a way of life --- who can
>>blame them? They tried peace and were punished for it. (That's mainly
>>flamebait for our mates.)
>
> I agree that this is a current issue. Those on the left feel
> astoundingly betrayed. They feel they took a big risk with Barak
> and got hundreds of dead as payback.
Lots of Israelis say "I don't believe in peace any more, I voted Left last
election but I'm forced to vote Right now".
<snip>
> --
>
> Matt Silberstein
>
> Stupendous -
>
> The only word that starts off as an insult and ends up as a compliment...
>
> Except, of course, for "Jerking"
>
> Tony Martin
I do like this sig.
Matt Silberstein
<d.philp.no....@mmb.usyd.edu.au>:
>David Jensen wrote:
Ok, maybe the problem is solvable in some way. I kept on thinking
that geographic division was unusable, but apparently I was
wrong.
Sigh. Now we have to figure out how to get them to change the
system.
Dave
> In talk.origins I read this message from Dave
> <d.philp.no....@mmb.usyd.edu.au>:
>
>>David Jensen wrote:
>>
>>> A country of Israel's size might need multi-member clusters, e.g. divide
>>> the Knesset into 15 districts with 7 members from each district, each
>>> person gets seven votes and preferences by party or candidate from a
>>> local list. Popular candidates from less popular parties could still be
>>> elected, but there would most likely be a party that controls the
>>> Knesset because it is the first or second choice of the majority of
>>> people. It would also encourage the splinter parties to join together
>>> with the main left or right parties if they want any influence as in
>>> Europe, possibly with the swing liberals still in the middle and small
>>> radical parties on the left and on the right that everyone ignores.
>>
>>Sounds like a neat system. Tasmania has something similar, 5 clusters
>>with
>>5 members each. They seem to have a good mix of a bit of everything in
>>their parliament. And Tasmania has a population of about 150 000 so
>>Israel could easily sustain a parliament that size.
>
> Ok, maybe the problem is solvable in some way. I kept on thinking
> that geographic division was unusable, but apparently I was
> wrong.
>
> Sigh. Now we have to figure out how to get them to change the
> system.
Well we'd better get a wriggle on, the election's in one week. You persuade
the Arabs, I'll persuade the mainstream Israelis, and Phil Deitker can
persuade the settlers, they'll like his attitude.
Mitchell Coffey
Israel needs to adopt a rule as in Germany, where a party needs 5% of
the vote in order to receive any representation in its parliament. In
Israel the threshold is 1.5% Until about ten years ago it was 1.1%
This low a threshold, while naively more democratic, encourages
narrow-issue parties, uninterested in governing, by giving them
influence far beyond their popular support. In Israel's case, they
have maintained unpopular, trouble-making laws and institutions, and
have allowed the creation of otherwise unworkable governments because
narrow-issue parties have been willing to go into coalition with any
party willing to go along on their issues, damn all else.
I don't believe a system that over-represents political minorities,
and consistently prevents the reform of unpopular policies, is either
representative or fair. A moderately high theshold would prevent some
of the perversities of the current system, while allowing just
representation of political minorities.
See: http://www.aceproject.org/main/english/es/esf.htm
Mitchell Coffey
Bob Jenkins
> Matt Silberstein wrote:
>
> > I like the idea even though it is not "fairer" in general.
> > Arrow's Theorem tells us that. The question is which is better
> > for the given political situation. I could design a system for
> > Israel that, given the current electorate, would elect Labor,
> > Likud, or even some minor party. My question what is fair, not
> > what delivers the result I/you happen to want.
>
> :-) I think it is better in the important special cases, i.e. it would
> improve the quality of the elected people in my view. "Fairer" and
> "better" are not the same thing, especially when the voting public are
> often not very "fair' themselves.
>
> The challenge is not to arrange it so that "the public gets exactly what
> they want", but so that the politicians are unable to direct exactly what
> the public wants. The interlocking system of two houses elected
> differently means that a geographical message cannot be entirely
> successful, nor can an ideological message.
Arrow's theorem only shows that no system is perfectly fair. Some
systems are still allowed to be fairer than others. For example,
approval is fairer than first-past-the-post. I don't know how IRV
ranks, I'm working on it. (By "fair" I mean "maximizing voter
happiness".)
Correct, being immune to influence is a separate property.
First-past-the-post and approval are influenced by who the voters
believe the frontrunners are. (FPTP is very influenced, approval
slightly.) Condorcet is not influenced by that; maybe it can be
influenced other ways. I don't know about IRV.
And congresses! Tricky. I like what you say about different houses
with different structures. It reminds me of cryptography, where we
combine operations from different fields in hopes that no nice math
from any one field is preserved. Hum. Conducting unbiased surveys
seems like it would run into the same issues. Are there any results
from the math of statistics there?
Danny niccoli
Danny
(Iron Maiden)
"Aron-Ra" <ilc...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3e2a...@newsroom.utas.edu.au...
Danny niccoli
about how life or the universe came about, so not only could they not
describe it, they didn't know anything about it themselves."
so? - one cane agure this both ways.... for one.... they may have been
infulenced by god...( assume he exists ), yet interprate it anther way, or
in there way!
in fact me and you and others.... are doing it rigth now on some level!
also, what about Galeao's arguement, that the bible was writen so we can
reach the heaven, not how the heavens work!
then and yes this is pro theist....and can go agansit.....take the socal
envirmement into account!! - ppl want to bring ppl into there "fold" and
the best way to do this is make it appeal to the masses.....and or... make
it easier or via methpur, simbolism.... etc etc.... and even a mix
Dave
> Dave <d.philp.no....@mmb.usyd.edu.au> wrote in message
> news:<b0jch4$a83$1...@news.iucc.ac.il>...
>> Matt Silberstein wrote:
>>
>> > I like the idea even though it is not "fairer" in general.
>> > Arrow's Theorem tells us that. The question is which is better
>> > for the given political situation. I could design a system for
>> > Israel that, given the current electorate, would elect Labor,
>> > Likud, or even some minor party. My question what is fair, not
>> > what delivers the result I/you happen to want.
>>
>> :-) I think it is better in the important special cases, i.e. it would
>> improve the quality of the elected people in my view. "Fairer" and
>> "better" are not the same thing, especially when the voting public are
>> often not very "fair' themselves.
>>
>> The challenge is not to arrange it so that "the public gets exactly what
>> they want", but so that the politicians are unable to direct exactly what
>> the public wants. The interlocking system of two houses elected
>> differently means that a geographical message cannot be entirely
>> successful, nor can an ideological message.
>
> Arrow's theorem only shows that no system is perfectly fair. Some
> systems are still allowed to be fairer than others. For example,
> approval is fairer than first-past-the-post. I don't know how IRV
IRV? Approval = preferential?
> ranks, I'm working on it. (By "fair" I mean "maximizing voter
> happiness".)
Oh... please define happiness? :-) That's quite a serious point, though I
don't expect you to succeed! Obviously there are many cultural aspects
there too, like how unhappy a population is living under a govt they did
not vote for.
> Correct, being immune to influence is a separate property.
> First-past-the-post and approval are influenced by who the voters
> believe the frontrunners are. (FPTP is very influenced, approval
> slightly.) Condorcet is not influenced by that; maybe it can be
> influenced other ways. I don't know about IRV.
Condorcet?
> And congresses! Tricky. I like what you say about different houses
> with different structures. It reminds me of cryptography, where we
> combine operations from different fields in hopes that no nice math
> from any one field is preserved. Hum. Conducting unbiased surveys
> seems like it would run into the same issues. Are there any results
> from the math of statistics there?
Gosh, I don't know!!
You can see that I'm basically trying to say that more conservative / slow
process is usually better. The point about different houses with different
structures is that one of the houses should function a bit like the High
Court in reviewing the law, but it is meant to catch problems *before*
rather than *after* they arise. Personally I wouldn't mind if the upper
house wasn't elected, as long as they were a group of people that felt
above party politics and/or were able to ignore their personal interest in
a matter. Green minor parties often do the former fairly well, the House
of Lords *seems* to me to do the latter OK. Personally I'd compose the
upper house of retired judges and academics!
On another note, I've tended to think that having old guys in power (Sharon
and Arafat aren't exactly young) tends to be a bad thing because they
cannot expect to suffer from bad long-term policies. I'd happily limit the
PM's age to 45.
Rubystars
> so? - one cane agure this both ways.... for one.... they may have been
> infulenced by god...( assume he exists ), yet interprate it anther way, or
> in there way!
Well what's interesting is that a lot in Genesis can be traced back to
other stories, I think these stories were adapted to monotheism and
changes were made to them resulting in Genesis.
As far as the authors getting inspiration and then changing it to suit
their own wants, that may be true to some degree, anything written by
people isn't going to be completely infallible.
> in fact me and you and others.... are doing it rigth now on some level!
Ten people can read the same novel and come away with ten different
ideas about it. Everyone's mind works a little differently, they see
different sides of things.
> also, what about Galeao's arguement, that the bible was writen so we can
> reach the heaven, not how the heavens work!
I haven't heard of that argument before, but it's interesting.
> then and yes this is pro theist....and can go agansit.....take the socal
> envirmement into account!! - ppl want to bring ppl into there "fold" and
> the best way to do this is make it appeal to the masses.....and or... make
> it easier or via methpur, simbolism.... etc etc.... and even a mix
Yeah, the story as written definitely has more appeal to most people
thousands of years ago (and even today), than "Let there be quarks and
leptons".
-Rubystars
Matt Silberstein
<d.philp.no....@mmb.usyd.edu.au>:
>Bob Jenkins wrote:
Sometimes better, sometimes worse. I don't think either slow or
fast is "generally" better. And there is a worse aspect. Suppose
system X is good as a slow process, system Y as a fast. (Think
democracy vs. dictatorship if you must.) The "opponents" of the
system will react to the strengths and weaknesses of the system.
Systems good at quick work will find slow problems and visa
versa.
> The point about different houses with different
>structures is that one of the houses should function a bit like the High
>Court in reviewing the law, but it is meant to catch problems *before*
>rather than *after* they arise. Personally I wouldn't mind if the upper
>house wasn't elected, as long as they were a group of people that felt
>above party politics and/or were able to ignore their personal interest in
>a matter.
And how would you get such a group.
>Green minor parties often do the former fairly well, the House
>of Lords *seems* to me to do the latter OK. Personally I'd compose the
>upper house of retired judges and academics!
Who have a vested interest in "the way things are" and in
abstract impractical solution.
>On another note, I've tended to think that having old guys in power (Sharon
>and Arafat aren't exactly young) tends to be a bad thing because they
>cannot expect to suffer from bad long-term policies. I'd happily limit the
>PM's age to 45.
OTOH, the young, especially young males, think they will live
forever.
My personal feeling is that you want a system with some depth,
some levels of action and interaction. The U.S. system works not
because the three branches are inherently the right division, or
that a federal system is ordained, but because the system forces
politics to occur. And politics, the give and take of various
groups and needs, is a Good Thing (tm). I approve of systems that
allow this to occur.
Matt Silberstein
<d.philp.no....@mmb.usyd.edu.au>:
>Matt Silberstein wrote:
>
[snip]
>> is to give representation to various areas. This makes sense if
>> there is a geographic distribution of interests. Such does not
>> exist in Israel in any meaningful way.
>
>Well maybe one house should be elected by people in a different taxable
>income bracket. I don't know, but I think that it is pretty important to
>split the election.
>
>The German Federal govt has two houses, at least one of which is elected
>partly geographically, partly otherwise, I don't know if that would be a
>good idea?
>
>> So the question is what basis do you divide the populace to deal
>> with preference. You can do some arbitrary geographic, but this
>> will like lead to two parties in the Likud and an almost random
>> choice given the current electorate. You can set a limit to the
>> number of parties in the Likud. That is a version a minimum
>> representation requirement which they have.
>
>Didn't really get that.
Probably because I wrote "Likud" rather than "Knesset". I
suspected that a geographic voting would cause problems. People
have given examples otherwise and I withdraw that.
[snip]
>> I agree that this is a current issue. Those on the left feel
>> astoundingly betrayed. They feel they took a big risk with Barak
>> and got hundreds of dead as payback.
>
>Lots of Israelis say "I don't believe in peace any more, I voted Left last
>election but I'm forced to vote Right now".
Yep. And it is really hard to make an argument against that. The
Right is wrong, but no other option seems right either. I really
feel that nothing can be done until Arafat dies a natural death.
>>
>> Stupendous -
>>
>> The only word that starts off as an insult and ends up as a compliment...
>>
>> Except, of course, for "Jerking"
>>
>> Tony Martin
>
>I do like this sig.
Thanks. I now have to change it. I will come up with a new one
soon.
Dave
> In talk.origins I read this message from Dave
> <d.philp.no....@mmb.usyd.edu.au>:
>>You can see that I'm basically trying to say that more conservative / slow
>>process is usually better.
>
> Sometimes better, sometimes worse. I don't think either slow or
> fast is "generally" better. And there is a worse aspect. Suppose
> system X is good as a slow process, system Y as a fast. (Think
> democracy vs. dictatorship if you must.) The "opponents" of the
> system will react to the strengths and weaknesses of the system.
> Systems good at quick work will find slow problems and visa
> versa.
Fair enough. Personally I would prefer to live under a slow regime in
Australia, but that might be a bit impractical in places where the
political climate was a bit hotter.
>> The point about different houses with different
>>structures is that one of the houses should function a bit like the High
>>Court in reviewing the law, but it is meant to catch problems *before*
>>rather than *after* they arise. Personally I wouldn't mind if the upper
>>house wasn't elected, as long as they were a group of people that felt
>>above party politics and/or were able to ignore their personal interest in
>>a matter.
>
> And how would you get such a group.
>
>>Green minor parties often do the former fairly well, the House
>>of Lords *seems* to me to do the latter OK. Personally I'd compose the
>>upper house of retired judges and academics!
>
> Who have a vested interest in "the way things are" and in
> abstract impractical solution.
As a Government in their own right, they would be hopeless. Certainly they
would not form part of an executive. But as a house of review i.e. power
to reject only, they might be brilliant. I'd have senior academics and
judges elect them.
>>On another note, I've tended to think that having old guys in power
>>(Sharon and Arafat aren't exactly young) tends to be a bad thing because
>>they
>>cannot expect to suffer from bad long-term policies. I'd happily limit
>>the PM's age to 45.
>
> OTOH, the young, especially young males, think they will live
> forever.
Sure, but by the time they get to 35-50 they seem to get over this.
> My personal feeling is that you want a system with some depth,
> some levels of action and interaction. The U.S. system works not
Chez Watt? Does it work? :-)
> because the three branches are inherently the right division, or
> that a federal system is ordained, but because the system forces
> politics to occur. And politics, the give and take of various
> groups and needs, is a Good Thing (tm). I approve of systems that
> allow this to occur.
Yes, I guess it does. But if you had a Government with a run-away majority,
I think your system would not continue to 'force the politics to occur'.
You did ask the question in the abstract, and I'm just trying to find a way
of addressing the Israeli problem, that the public is too inclined to
follow Govt propaganda. The point is that if you can interlock the power
structure of parliament better, no single message can succeed at every
level of the structure.
Bob Jenkins
>
> IRV? Approval = preferential?
IRV: Instant Runoff Voting; what they use in Australia.
Approval: yes/no, vote yes for as many as you like.
FPTP: yes/no, vote yes for (at most) one.
Mike the Vike
> The US Supreme Court is basically a Republican rubber stamp in my view.
> (Irrelevant but I like pointing it out.)
>
Not to hear the Republicans tell it....
>
> Dave
>
> --
>
> Attack is not the best form of defense.
>
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David Jensen
"Mike the Vike" <tui...@attbi.com> wrote in
<klGY9.36635$6G4.8499@sccrnsc02>:
><snip>
>
>> The US Supreme Court is basically a Republican rubber stamp in my view.
>> (Irrelevant but I like pointing it out.)
>>
>
>Not to hear the Republicans tell it....
It's interesting how the language of politics has become much more
radical, yet the politics itself seems to be played out on an ever
smaller stage. Democrats aren't trying to explain why there are social
and economic benefits to limited degrees of income redistribution. They
aren't trying to show people how they would benefit from a basic health
care program for all citizens. Republicans are a bit more conservative,
and they are violating civil liberties in the context of war, but the
courts have been willing to tolerate those same violations in the past,
too.