mostly harmless...NOT

[Burkhard]

A fun youtube video, though some here might object against the way natural selections is portrayed. The panspermists have a lot to answer for, all I can say - but they now seem to have realised just how badly a mistake they made with earth...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcPqk-O-fD4

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

Burkhard is true to form in his tongue in cheek attack on directed panspermia,
taking you to a cynical, dystopian view of what humanity is like.

Of course, he knows that there is no reason to think that panspermists
who were active 3.5 billion years ago have living descendants today
in our corner of the galaxy.

But of course, Nick Roberts will demand that I answer both Burkhard and the
video point by point.... :-)

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

On 2/18/14 3:12 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Saturday, February 15, 2014 6:33:27 AM UTC-5, Burkhard wrote:
>> A fun youtube video, though some here might object against the way
>> natural selections is portrayed. The panspermists have a lot to answer
>> for, all I can say - but they now seem to have realised just how badly a
>> mistake they made with earth...
>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcPqk-O-fD4
>
> Burkhard is true to form in his tongue in cheek attack on directed panspermia,
> taking you to a cynical, dystopian view of what humanity is like.
>
> Of course, he knows that there is no reason to think that panspermists
> who were active 3.5 billion years ago have living descendants today
> in our corner of the galaxy.

He also knows there is no reason to think that there were any
panspermists active 3.5 billion years ago. Still, have they stopped
beating your wife?

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

Baloney. You'd have better luck convincing rational people that Burkhard
knows there is no reason to think there is a God or a life after death.

> Still, have they stopped
> beating your wife?

You are getting really weird in some of what you write, John. Careful--
you might wind up like Thrinaxodon some day.

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

On 2/18/14 7:28 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 18, 2014 9:50:07 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 2/18/14 3:12 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>>
>>> On Saturday, February 15, 2014 6:33:27 AM UTC-5, Burkhard wrote:
>>
>>>> A fun youtube video, though some here might object against the way
>>>> natural selections is portrayed. The panspermists have a lot to answer
>>>> for, all I can say - but they now seem to have realised just how badly a
>>>> mistake they made with earth...
>
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcPqk-O-fD4
>>
>>>
>>
>>> Burkhard is true to form in his tongue in cheek attack on
>>> directed panspermia, taking you to a cynical, dystopian view
>>> of what humanity is like.
>
>>> Of course, he knows that there is no reason to think that panspermists
>>> who were active 3.5 billion years ago have living descendants today
>>> in our corner of the galaxy.
>
>> He also knows there is no reason to think that there were any
>> panspermists active 3.5 billion years ago.
>
> Baloney. You'd have better luck convincing rational people that Burkhard
> knows there is no reason to think there is a God or a life after death.

I'm unable to disentangle that.

>> Still, have they stopped
>> beating your wife?
>
> You are getting really weird in some of what you write, John.

Sorry if I confused you. What I meant is that your statement assumes the
existence of active panspermists not in evidence and is therefore
analogous to a "beating your wife" question. Is that clear now?

[Walter Bushell]

In article <n5KdnSKfCJjCpZnO...@giganews.com>,

John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:

> > Baloney. You'd have better luck convincing rational people that Burkhard
> > knows there is no reason to think there is a God or a life after death.
>
> I'm unable to disentangle that.

Yes, that statement is all tied in nots. It seems to be a statement of
the difficulty of convincing "rational people" about the sufficiency
of Burkhard's knowledge about the existence of any possible reason to
believe in God or life after death.

One possible reason is pointing to some people who gave credit to
those beliefs for leading a saintly life. Sir Kenneth Clark in his
"Civilization" series talks about this in his section named "Grandeur
and Obedience." Youtube:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNIfYVy5-K0>

starting after 17:30 but the whole thing is worth watching.

--
Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greed. Me.

[Burkhard]

On Wednesday, February 19, 2014 3:43:59 PM UTC+1, Walter Bushell wrote:
> In article <n5KdnSKfCJjCpZnO...@giganews.com>,
>
> John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > > Baloney. You'd have better luck convincing rational people that Burkhard
>
> > > knows there is no reason to think there is a God or a life after death.
>
> >
>
> > I'm unable to disentangle that.
>
>
>
> Yes, that statement is all tied in nots.

And particularly odd coming from Peter. "X knows that Y" carries an
existential presupposition (that is, from "X knows that Y" you can infer
"Y") Which means the speaker of that messy sentence
(i.e.Peter) must presuppose that there is no reason to think that there
is a God or life after death, which
rather seems to contradict his usual position.

My own position would of course be that there are lots of gods, and we have
excellent reasons to believe that they exist, whereas the expression: "Life after
death" is a contradiction in terms and hence meaningless - life is the stuff
that happens between birth and death, whatever is before or after, if there is
anything, is hence not life.

[Nick Roberts]

In message <6ade6ed4-3c83-491f...@googlegroups.com>

Actually, I will do nothing of the kind - the post wasn't directed at
you.

This is rather different that you deciding that you didn't need to
bother to respond to number of challenges to your position. And you
deciding that an appropriate response on a challenge on your
contemptuous response is abuse.

But perhaps you need these things explained to you.

--
Nick Roberts tigger @ orpheusinternet.co.uk

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which
can be adequately explained by stupidity.

[James Beck]

On Wed, 19 Feb 2014 09:43:59 -0500, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com>
wrote:

On the other hand, paraphrasing the story by Roger Holcombe, two
mothers meet at a coffee shop, look at pictures, and talk about their
kids, as mothers do.

The first intoned, "My oldest son, Faisal, would have been 24 this
year. Now he's a martyr. And this is Ahmed. He'd be 22. He's a martyr,
too. Mustn't forget little Mohammed. He gave his life for the cause
this year. He was only 18 in this picture."

"Oh yes," agreed her friend. "They blow up so fast these days."

Consequently, maybe Clark's title should have been 'Grandiosity and
Obedience,' instead. Not that I dislike Clark particularly. He did
some excellent work. He wrote one of my favorite books and I enjoyed
the series of the same name. I just wouldn't attribute the positive
outcome of civilization to religion. Even way back, it was the
rational aspect of the mind that led to progress.

At 4:34, Clark asks rhetorically: "But was it (the Roman church) a
civilizing force? In England we tend to answer 'No.' We've been
conditioned by generations of liberal Protestant historians who tell
us that no society based on obedience, repression, and superstition
can be really civilized." He then appeals to outcomes to make the
opposite case.

I find his view fallacious. Notice that with an equally rational eye
to profit, you could build either a shopping mall or a creationist
theme park today. One might claim to be for the greater glory of an
alleged god, but the investment bankers nonetheless expect to be
repaid in the coin of the realm and at the same risk adjusted rate of
interest.

'Civilization' lies in the ability to complete transactions, not in
what labor we perform in exchange for our wages or in what we use them
to buy.

[Michael Siemon]

In article <0is9g9tfrsu4norgk...@4ax.com>,
James Beck <jdbec...@yahoo.com> wrote:

...

> 'Civilization' lies in the ability to complete transactions, not in
> what labor we perform in exchange for our wages or in what we use them
> to buy.

That is, possibly, the most bizarre statement I have read in
talk.origins.

Is this an example of how immersion in economics unhinges the brain?

[Mitchell Coffey]

Yes. He means trading stuff is more important than producing stuff. But
that's not a measure of civilization, it's a statement about how wealth
is accumulated. Civilization is the provision of clean water and cathedrals.

Mitchell

[Michael Siemon]

In article <le40jt$k2a$2...@dont-email.me>,

Or perhaps "cathedral equivalents" of sufficient generality (e.g., the
Bayon in Angkor Thom). Or non-religious instances such as the Coliseum
or Hippodrome).

Now, "trade" in the most general sense - mutual exchange by interested
parties -- is indeed of major importance in human history. I could be
persuaded that James is indulging in an extravagant overpraising of this.

But his statement of the thesis is grotesquely out of contact with
human reality. I'd (almost :-)) be interested in an attempt to treat
the productions of Michaelangelo, or Newton, or Gauss, or Stravinsky
in terms of "the ability to complete transactions" versus "what labor
we perform".

[Burkhard]

Mhhh, let me play devil's advocate here. If Michelangelo had just produced the
David etc, and then kept all the stuff for his own amusement in his basement,
and then burning the whole thing down as a funeral pyre, and if Newton had
just been happy to have figured out the gravity thingy for himself, but never
told anybody, would they still be "cultural" achievements?

You could argue that only when they were "traded" (and you can trade things
for values oner thank money - respect, fame etc) did they become
cultural, that is owned by (potentially) everybody and not just the
labourer.

[Robert Carnegie]

But that standard leaves most of us not participating in
"civilization", even as mere fiddlers playing Stravinsky's
tune, if there is a tune in that mess.

In fact "civilization" just means living in a city, literally,
and it's erroneous to think that this requires a cathedral,
although I hope we'll agree that a clean water supply is
pretty damn important. But not always provided.

I think it's better to talk of "social progress", even if
some of the old fellows will die in an apoplectic fit
because it sounds like Communist stuff. Well, good.
Human sacrifice for instance such as Stravinsky's scheme
of randomly selecting a virgin to be put to death can
be left behind - although some grand cities (for their time)
did not.

If we're considering the role of religion and religious people
in social progress, well, sometimes it represents making the
world a place more respectful of things that God apparently
appreciates, such as, discussed frequently in the bible,
having correct weights and measures and property boundary
markings and working conditions and so forth, that are
important to commerce, and to the national cuisine. And then
the religious people contribute to progress. While people
needing their weights and measures standardized may contribute
to the religion. But sometimes social progress involves things
that religious people can't approve of, such as respecting
other religions, or having fun on a Sunday, or homosexuality
outside the clergy, or no human sacrifice. And then
social progress is held back.

Being cynical, I believe that holy books don't really say
what the gods consider to be important, they say what someone
merely human who wrote the book considered to be important.

[eridanus]

El jueves, 20 de febrero de 2014 00:31:23 UTC, James Beck escribió:

>
> I find his view fallacious. Notice that with an equally rational eye
> to profit, you could build either a shopping mall or a creationist
> theme park today. One might claim to be for the greater glory of an
> alleged god, but the investment bankers nonetheless expect to be
> repaid in the coin of the realm and at the same risk adjusted rate of
> interest.
>
> 'Civilization' lies in the ability to complete transactions, not in
> what labor we perform in exchange for our wages or in what we use them
> to buy.

I would like you to develop the last paragraph. It is a little... weird.
What do you say is a civilization?

What is... or what should be... a civilization?
I ask this, for I felt tempted to look at the Oxford dictionary. But
perhaps this is not a good idea.

Eri

[eridanus]

has civilization means something related to "public works"? If not public
works, there is not civilization?
The amount of public works per capita can perhaps define a civilization.
Now, some nation can see his publics works falling into disrepair and
collapsing... are these putative signs of a falling civilization?

Eri

[eridanus]

I supposed economic trading existed before civilizations.

But public works... not. It is when are made some communal silos to store
grain or corn, by example, that a civilization starts. Where there are dig
public ditches, for draining excess water; or canals for watering cultures, or
canals for transportation, or the built of communal houses... that is when...
civilization starts. Those are mostly perishable signs of civilization till
those works started to be made in stone.

But the work of scientist are also, in their own right, public works, for
they serve to develop farther a way of thinking, or analyzing the meaning
of world around us. Then Newton and all scientists had been doing some
sort of public works, for the benefice of all.

Eri

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Wednesday, February 19, 2014 9:43:59 AM UTC-5, Walter Bushell wrote:
> In article <n5KdnSKfCJjCpZnO...@giganews.com>,
>
> John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:

> > > Baloney. You'd have better luck convincing rational people that Burkhard
> > > knows there is no reason to think there is a God or a life after death.

> > I'm unable to disentangle that.

John's problem is his inability to reason that the word "Baloney" refers
to something he wants to convince readers [whom he gives the benefit of
the doubt, by thinking them as rational] about, and that "Baloney"
thus makes a secure link between the rest of what I wrote, and what
John had written,

"[Burkhard] also knows there is no reason to think that there

were any panspermists active 3.5 billion years ago."

> Yes, that statement is all tied in nots. It seems to be a statement of
> the difficulty of convincing "rational people" about the sufficiency
> of Burkhard's knowledge about the existence of any possible reason to
> believe in God or life after death.

I don't see how this is any less tied in knots than the statement
of mine that it purports to untie. [Of course, "nots" may have been
a pun rather than a misspelling, but I only used one negative in my
whole sentence, an echo of John's own negative.]

> The possible reason is pointing to some people who gave credit to

> those beliefs for leading a saintly life.

"The" is bilge. There are lots of reasons why one might take the
existence of a God or a life after death seriously, and the one you
list is one of the least logical. Together, though, the reasons
give the thesis that Burkhard "knows" that neither God nor afterlife
exists a lot of obstacles to overcome.

Now, if people actually read what I've written in the FAQ drafts
about directed panspermia, never mind all the other posts I have done,
and tried to view the arguments there with an open mind, they might
notice that what Burkhard has written on the DP hypothesis hardly
touches more than one percent of it.

> Sir Kenneth Clark in his
> "Civilization" series talks about this in his section named "Grandeur
> and Obedience." Youtube:

> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNIfYVy5-K0>

> starting after 17:30 but the whole thing is worth watching.

I thought Youtube videos were timeless. What's this about 17:30?

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

On 2/20/14 8:30 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 19, 2014 9:43:59 AM UTC-5, Walter Bushell wrote:
>> In article<n5KdnSKfCJjCpZnO...@giganews.com>,
>>
>> John Harshman<jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>>>> Baloney. You'd have better luck convincing rational people that Burkhard
>>>> knows there is no reason to think there is a God or a life after death.
>
>>> I'm unable to disentangle that.
>
> John's problem is his inability to reason that the word "Baloney" refers
> to something he wants to convince readers [whom he gives the benefit of
> the doubt, by thinking them as rational] about, and that "Baloney"
> thus makes a secure link between the rest of what I wrote, and what
> John had written,

So like you to tell me I'm stupid rather than making any attempt to
explain what you meant. I know what you meant by "Baloney". It's the
rest of it that's unclear.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Wednesday, February 19, 2014 12:26:22 PM UTC-5, Burkhard wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 19, 2014 3:43:59 PM UTC+1, Walter Bushell wrote:
>
> > In article <n5KdnSKfCJjCpZnO...@giganews.com>,

> > John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:

> > > > Baloney. You'd have better luck convincing rational people that
> > > > Burkhard knows there is no reason to think there is a God or a life
> > > > after death.

> > > I'm unable to disentangle that.

> > Yes, that statement is all tied in nots.

> And particularly odd coming from Peter. "X knows that Y" carries an
> existential presupposition (that is, from "X knows that Y" you can infer
> "Y")

Now Burkhard shows how shallow his logic is. He should have been analyzing
"convincing Z that X knows Y" rather than his truncation, which renders his
whole "reasoning" pure GIGO.

> Which means the speaker of that messy sentence
> (i.e.Peter) must presuppose that there is no reason to think that there
> is a God or life after death, which
> rather seems to contradict his usual position.

No wonder Burkhard has me killfiled--he's seen how I dissect illogical
statements and doesn't want to have to think before formulating them.

Let's see whether any reader has the gumption to reply to this post,
leaving the above in, so that Burkhard has something of a chance to see it.

> My own position would of course be that there are lots of gods, and we have
>
> excellent reasons to believe that they exist

The way Burkhard talks about "life" below makes me wonder how he defines
the term "gods".

>, whereas the expression: "Life after
> death" is a contradiction in terms and hence meaningless - life is the stuff
> that happens between birth and death, whatever is before or after, if there
> is anything, is hence not life.

This is breathtakingly sophomoric. [It even is oblivious to the Hindu concept
of reincarnation, but that is not what makes it sophomoric.] Is there anyone
reading this who does not see the elementary fallacy in it?

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
nyikos @ math.sc.edu

[erik simpson]

As long as "we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen", let's consider the following hypothetical situation: suppose
we live on a planet perpetually shrouded by clouds. Using pure reason, would
we ever develop the idea of stars? Galaxies? Directed panspermia? I think we
would not. The possibility that we would ever come close to a realistic
cosmology under these circumstances is negligibly small. Without real data
(evidence), speculation is limited to amusement. The only exception I can
think of is the possibility that the speculation is of the sort that could
lead to gathering evidence.

"Life before birth", "life after death", directed panspermia, g[G]od(s), etc.
share the characteristic that data are problematic, if not nonexistent.

I will repeat what I said a while back: hasn't everything intelligent about
this already been said?

[Roger Shrubber]

erik simpson wrote:

> As long as "we look not at the things which are seen, but at the
> things which are not seen", let's consider the following hypothetical
> situation: suppose we live on a planet perpetually shrouded by
> clouds. Using pure reason, would we ever develop the idea of stars?

Without stars we would not have developed astrology and hence
the pick up line "what's your sign?" leading to a loss of
reproductive success and the extinction of our species.

[erik simpson]

My lack of God! I never realized that was a pick up line! What have
I been missing? Talk about socially oblivious...

[Mitchell Coffey]

On 2/20/2014 12:35 AM, Michael Siemon wrote:
> In article <le40jt$k2a$2...@dont-email.me>,
> Mitchell Coffey <mitchel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 2/19/2014 11:02 PM, Michael Siemon wrote:
>>> In article <0is9g9tfrsu4norgk...@4ax.com>,
>>> James Beck <jdbec...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>>> 'Civilization' lies in the ability to complete transactions, not in
>>>> what labor we perform in exchange for our wages or in what we use them
>>>> to buy.
>>>
>>> That is, possibly, the most bizarre statement I have read in
>>> talk.origins.
>>>
>>> Is this an example of how immersion in economics unhinges the brain?
>>
>> Yes. He means trading stuff is more important than producing stuff. But
>> that's not a measure of civilization, it's a statement about how wealth
>> is accumulated. Civilization is the provision of clean water and cathedrals.
>>
>> Mitchell
>
> Or perhaps "cathedral equivalents" of sufficient generality (e.g., the
> Bayon in Angkor Thom). Or non-religious instances such as the Coliseum
> or Hippodrome).

Note that we remember the Roman provision of clean water to all as a
great accomplishment of their civilization. And note the catechism of
"of course... except for..." from Life of Brian. They're all cathedral
equivalents.

> Now, "trade" in the most general sense - mutual exchange by interested
> parties -- is indeed of major importance in human history. I could be
> persuaded that James is indulging in an extravagant overpraising of this.

It's a bit more. There is a metaphysical observation in economics: I
grow two bushels of wheat, you two of barley; if we trade each other one
bushel of wheat for one of barley, our willingness to trade shows our
mutual standard of living has increased, even though there's just as
much grain as before. It's rather magical if you don't think of it.

Trade achieves additional benefits as it allows you to work more than
would be necessary merely to achieve subsistence and to concentrate on
what you do well. The point of all this is that civilization is a
product of economic surplus; trade creates economic surplus.

> But his statement of the thesis is grotesquely out of contact with
> human reality. I'd (almost :-)) be interested in an attempt to treat
> the productions of Michaelangelo, or Newton, or Gauss, or Stravinsky
> in terms of "the ability to complete transactions" versus "what labor
> we perform".

Beck confuses the creation of the surplus with what you do with it.

Mitchell

[Roger Shrubber]

Perhaps the confusion is my fault, the correct form is
"Hey Baby, what's your sign?" The proper salutation is required.
As pick-up lines go, it has the virtue of working well with those
who are quite willing to have it work, allowing you to focus further
resources where they will be most reproductive or seek prospects
elsewhere.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <36a58a34-06d6-4e36...@googlegroups.com>,

eridanus <leopoldo...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I supposed economic trading existed before civilizations.

Way before. IIRC, there were trade routes in early Paleolithic times,
for example, stones for toolmaking traveled long distances.

[jillery]

It's almost certain humans would have invented an astrological
equivalent based on the shape of clouds:

She: What's your sign?
He: A clowny face with big ears. What's yours?

Not as romantic as Orion or Gemini, but desperation would compensate.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <51e7023e-18fd-4dea...@googlegroups.com>,

nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

> "The" is bilge. There are lots of reasons why one might take the
> existence of a God or a life after death seriously, and the one you
> list is one of the least logical.

Logical what is illogical in believing those ideas that you see to
lead to a better life. This is certainly a pragmatic approach, and any
other approach would be irrational.

We accept the theories of science because of their results.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <51e7023e-18fd-4dea...@googlegroups.com>,
nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

> I thought Youtube videos were timeless. What's this about 17:30?

17 minutes and 30 seconds into the video.

[Arkalen]

This is just for the argument, in actual fact I think "civilization" has
many different meanings and connotations and pinning it down to a single
one doesn't have much point.

That said, "civilization" is often used to distinguish sedentary, dense
groups of people that build cities from more nomadic, scattered groups
of people. And both groups do trade. But being a sedentary, dense group
with division of labor does imply more production.

[Paul J Gans]

Aha! So we are half way there!

--
--- Paul J. Gans

[Paul J Gans]

PETER! You did not slam me in this post! You are slipping!!!

As for 17:30, it is the product of 37 and 47. Isn't that amazing?

[Paul J Gans]

Peter, once again you forgot to slam me. You KNOW that I'm
orchestrating all of this, feeding people detailed information,
and generally spending a lot of time on the Grand Plan.

One last thing: these days it is highly sophomoric to call
things sophomoric.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <j4mcg91rvs8k8sjqj...@4ax.com>,

jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:

> She: What's your sign?
> He: A clowny face with big ears. What's yours?

No Smoking

[eridanus]

like in cities, means some were rich and some poorer. "Public works" served
by to give employment to those that had not land, or means of subsistence.

Cathedrals, palaces, hippodromes, coliseums, aqueducts, roads, bridges, etc
were meant to give work, either to make them, either for maintenance,
painting, etc.

Eri

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Thursday, February 20, 2014 11:49:29 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 2/20/14 8:30 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> > On Wednesday, February 19, 2014 9:43:59 AM UTC-5, Walter Bushell wrote:
>
> >> In article<n5KdnSKfCJjCpZnO...@giganews.com>,
>
> >>
>
> >> John Harshman<jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> >
>
> >>>> Baloney. You'd have better luck convincing rational people that Burkhard
> >>>> knows there is no reason to think there is a God or a life after death.

> >>> I'm unable to disentangle that.

> > John's problem is his inability to reason that the word "Baloney" refers
> > to something he wants to convince readers [whom he gives the benefit of
> > the doubt, by thinking them as rational] about, and that "Baloney"
> > thus makes a secure link between the rest of what I wrote, and what
> > John had written,

> So like you to tell me I'm stupid

Not stupid, just chronically unable to think outside the box. And now
that I've shone a bright light on the open box lid, you have even less
excuse than usual for saying what you write next:

> rather than making any attempt to
> explain what you meant.

So like you to snip the words of yours to which I was making the
connection, and the long explanations to Walter that followed,
and to use their absence to lead into one of your
favorite gambits, that of accusing me of failing to make
an attempt to explain what I meant.

But then, as Tito-analogue of this newsgroup, it is your prerogative
to use words and expressions in ways typical of Humpty Dumpty.

I caught you using the word "paranoia" in a highly nonstandard way,
and you frequently use expressions like "failing to make
an attempt to explain" in a similarly "glory"-like way.

I showed you a better way on the thread on the FADC on directed panspermia yesterday, but you refuse to take it.

> I know what you meant by "Baloney". It's the
> rest of it that's unclear.

WAS unclear, you mean. Restore the words of yours that you snipped, and the
long explanations I subsequently made to Walter, and it should be clear
even to a hidebound "reasoner" like you.

By the way...I hate to talk about people behind their backs, so I am
informing you that I've talked about you in a reply to Shrubber on
another thread this morning.

_______________excerpt__________________________
> This is not good. Perhaps the worst
> aspect of it is that you delude yourself into thinking that
> your categorical archetypes are accurate and subsequently
> remap what people actually wrote into something that fits
> into your predefined categories.

+++++++++++++++++++++ John Harshman posting mode on

OK, this counts as stalking. You have entered a thread
where you made no previous posts, for the express purpose
of making off-topic, derogatory comments against someone
whom you have subjected to such comments in numerous
threads in the past.

+++++++++++++++++++++ John Harshman posting mode off

The above is a very close paraphrasal of an inaccurate [I *had*
posted to the thread earlier] charge Harshman once leveled at me.

Why did Harshman make it? Because jillery had cried "Wolf!" earlier,
accusing me of stalking her. Paul Gans, playing "good cop" to
jillery's "bad cop", pointed out that stalking is only a valid
accusation if the accused person consistently enters thread after
thread involving the plaintiff for the purpose of attacking the
plaintiff -- and he had seen no evidence of me doing that to her.

And I had made disparaging comments about jillery in the post
to which Harshman was following up.

So now, go ahead and accuse me of "self-delusion" for fitting your
behavior into the Harshman-preconfigured category of "stalking" as
applied to a single instance of the supposedly habitual behavior.

====================end of excerpt=====================

Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

On Thu, 20 Feb 2014 16:19:10 -0500, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com>
wrote:

>In article <j4mcg91rvs8k8sjqj...@4ax.com>,
> jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> She: What's your sign?
>> He: A clowny face with big ears. What's yours?
>
>No Smoking

He: Do you smoke after sex?
She: Gosh, I never looked.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Thursday, February 20, 2014 12:41:01 PM UTC-5, erik simpson wrote:
> On Thursday, February 20, 2014 9:11:01 AM UTC-8, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

> As long as "we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which
> are not seen", let's consider the following hypothetical situation: suppose
> we live on a planet perpetually shrouded by clouds. Using pure reason, would
> we ever develop the idea of stars? Galaxies? Directed panspermia?

Probably not, but since we do not live on such a planet, I fail to
see why you are bringing this up.

> I think we
> would not. The possibility that we would ever come close to a realistic
> cosmology under these circumstances is negligibly small.

The wonder is that we ARE able to get as much information as we have,
even without these handicaps. As the translation of a famous Einstein
quote by Gerald Holton goes:

"The eternally incomprehensible thing about the world is its
comprehensibility."
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein

> Without real data
> (evidence), speculation is limited to amusement. The only exception I can
> think of is the possibility that the speculation is of the sort that could
> lead to gathering evidence.

> "Life before birth", "life after death", directed panspermia, g[G]od(s), etc.
> share the characteristic that data are problematic, if not nonexistent.

The "odd man out" here is "directed panspermia." Unlike the others, it is
eminently testable in principle and may one day be amply tested in fact,
if human beings make serious attempts to find out whether there is life on other worlds.

For a discussion of this, see FAQ entry B8 in:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/bcWYrv-0cI8/KZgmxbWFjHQJ

> I will repeat what I said a while back: hasn't everything intelligent about
> this already been said?

And my answer continues to be negative. Have you even read what is available
on the website whose url I gave you just now?

And that's just one set of FAQ entries. There are four others.

Section A:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/bcWYrv-0cI8/bN96be4XyrcJ

Section C:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/307301249c231307?dmode=source
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/6fbd247e3493bd81?dmode=source

Section D:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/9cb2a04749b317c7?dmode=source
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/d3467b7189a9336a?dmode=source
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/3dd6a28d2665112b?dmode=source


Section E:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/bf6e20ddfd9fa137?dmode=source
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/a5cbc62c23f2f7af?dmode=source
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/54dee764c788cfdd?dmode=source

Also, there is plenty of ongoing discussion on the FADC thread, in which
you decided to put in only a token appearance. I think we have only
started to plumb the depths of the DP hypothesis.

Peter Nyikos

[Roger Shrubber]

nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Thursday, February 20, 2014 11:49:29 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:


> By the way...I hate to talk about people behind their backs, so I am
> informing you that I've talked about you in a reply to Shrubber on
> another thread this morning.

Turning things on their head given what I've accused you
of doing, I have my own little category I often lump comments
into. It the "I'm not prejudiced/racist/homophobic but ..."
category.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/I'm_not_prejudiced,_but...

To be as clear as possible, when Peter claims "I hate to talk about
people behind their backs" I'm struck by how often he seems to do
exactly what he claims to hate. Of course this goes beyond Peter.
I find the need to check myself quite often when I'm inclined to
complain about some behavior, asking if I'm indulging in the
self-same behavior I'm complaining about. And to complete the circle
of hypocrisy, Ray Martinez often accuses people of having some
perspective because their worldview could not allow them to interpret
data in any other way. I'm always struck the by apparently self-
referential nature of that claim. But it does support my own
perception that Ray is honest, if not working from an epistemology
that I recognize as especially virtuous. Just sharing in a
stream of consciousness manner. And I excuse my reference to Ray
in that I accuse him of honesty, in contrast to what Peter accuses
him of, even if also accuse him of an epistemology that is, in
my ultimate estimation, untenable.

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/20/14 2:48 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> By the way...I hate to talk about people behind their backs, [...]

LOL!!!!!!!!

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"It is certain, from experience, that the smallest grain of natural
honesty and benevolence has more effect on men's conduct, than the most
pompous views suggested by theological theories and systems." - D. Hume

[erik simpson]

Let me be blunt, if I may. Please try not to take offense, I don't want to
provoke any more of the growing rancor here.

The point of my little parable of a cloud-covered planet is that I believe
some of the 'wise men' living there would indeed concoct cosmologies and
'theories of everything'. These cosmologies would have little or no connection
to reality, but some would be very elaborate. I have read your FAQs on
directed panspermia, and they too discuss in detail things about which we know
little or nothing. As you say, in principle we may come to know more, and
serious efforts are being made to find evidence of life elsewhere, and as soon
as such life is (or if it is) discovered we will have lots of fun trying to
understand why it is or is not similar to life as we know it. Absent these
discoveries, we're still living on a cloudy planet.

As for plumbing the depths of the DP hypothesis, it seems to me that the
discussion had gone off track into depressingly familiar name-calling.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Thursday, February 20, 2014 3:34:55 PM UTC-5, Paul J Gans wrote:

> Peter, once again you forgot to slam me. You KNOW that I'm
> orchestrating all of this, feeding people detailed information,
> and generally spending a lot of time on the Grand Plan.

Sorry, you seem to be confusing me with Thrinaxodon. :-)

Actually, a more likely thing is that you are trying to smear me with innuendo
to the effect that I am like Thrinaxodon.

The most likely thing, though, is that you are indulging in sarcasm
designed to completely mislead people as to why I call you the most
cunningly dishonest person by far in this newsgroup, and why I say
you have so many people here eating out of your hand.

It has nothing to do with orchestrating things and everything to
do with taking advantage of numerous targets of opportunity, now
and then. People here know that you are highly experienced in polemic
and will trim their sails as needed to keep themselves high in your
esteem, ready to serve them at sporadic strategic moments.

That was the *modus operandi* of Chris Lyman ("Spartakus") too, and it
made him the mainstay of the abortion rights fanatics of talk.abortion.

You don't play such a big role here in talk.origins, partly because
John Harshman is an independent minded person and cannot generally be
counted on to trim his sails according to your desires.

The fanatics of talk.abortion became a much more close-knit group, once
some gigantic flamewars resulted in the "survival of the fittest."

Peter Nyikos

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Thursday, February 20, 2014 7:05:59 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 2/20/14 2:48 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
> >
>
> > By the way...I hate to talk about people behind their backs, [...]

> LOL!!!!!!!!

Yes, it's hard to believe, but I am constantly faced with a choice of
the lesser of two evils, and so I choose the thing I hate less over the
thing I hate more.

Let me put it this way: if I had the luxury of being attacked only by people
who are attacked by as many people as I am, THEN I would be able to always
notify people whom I am attacking *in absentia* the way I have notified
Harshman. that one person behind his back.

Your position is even more enviable: you are attacked by people who in
turn are attacked by far more people than you are, so it is well-nigh
impossible for you to even walk a few steps in my moccasins.

It's just a matter of a choice each of us made long ago: you came to
a newsgroup dominated by like-minded people, while I came to a newsgroup
where no one shares my opinions on directed panspermia and very few share
my attitude of suffering fools gladly, but knaves hardly if at all.

In College Station, Texas, there is a slogan: Aggies do not lie, cheat,
or steal, and they do not tolerate those who do. I am close to the Aggie
mentality, and perhaps Glenn is too, but you and a few dozen regulars are
very far from it.

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

On 2/20/14 2:48 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

> On Thursday, February 20, 2014 11:49:29 AM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 2/20/14 8:30 AM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>>
>>> On Wednesday, February 19, 2014 9:43:59 AM UTC-5, Walter Bushell wrote:
>>
>>>> In article<n5KdnSKfCJjCpZnO...@giganews.com>,
>>
>>>>
>>
>>>> John Harshman<jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:

>> I know what you meant by "Baloney". It's the
>> rest of it that's unclear.
>
> WAS unclear, you mean. Restore the words of yours that you snipped,
and the
> long explanations I subsequently made to Walter, and it should be clear
> even to a hidebound "reasoner" like you.

No, it wasn't. I still don't know what you were trying to say, and
didn't know after reading all that stuff. Maybe you could try
explaining. Oh, and explaining it to me rather than to someone else is a
better way to get my attention.

> By the way...I hate to talk about people behind their backs, so I am
> informing you that I've talked about you in a reply to Shrubber on
> another thread this morning.

You know a better solution? Not to talk about people behind their backs.
Your solution of talking and then telling me about it in an unrelated
thread is less optimal.

[jillery]

Except you just admitted to where you do just that. Which just shows
to go that you hate yourself.

[Burkhard]

On Thursday, February 20, 2014 9:34:55 PM UTC+1, Paul J Gans wrote:
<snip>

Yes mather, certainly mather, what was that mather? I should point out
that Scott Soames had sussed since the early 1980s how existential
presuppositions are inherited by complex sentences from its
constituent parts, so that there really was no need, just unnecessary
complications, to look at the longer sentence? Sure will do mather,
maybe with a small dig that I had simply assumed everybody knew this?

Very well mather, will that be all for tonight? What, you need yet another
brain? well, I'll do my very best...

[Roger Shrubber]

So the construct

PN> Baloney. You'd have better luck convincing rational people
PN> that Burkhard knows there is no reason to think there is a
PN> God or a life after death.

inherits presuppositions. Yet the ultimate presuppositions
seem entangled in the Burkhard knows presupposition. Moreover,
as existential presumptions that are false render statements
meaningless (canonically: "Have you stopped beating your wife?")
I get confused about where the whole of it just pops out of
existence. Moreso because Burkhard has never argued that there
is no reason to think there are gods.

Well let me just say, "eleventy-one years is far too short a
time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits.
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and
I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

[James Beck]

Wait ... are you saying that he has hairy feet and all his holes mean
comfort?

[Bob Casanova]

On Thu, 20 Feb 2014 18:17:33 -0800 (PST), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by nyi...@bellsouth.net:

<snip>

>In College Station, Texas, there is a slogan: Aggies do not lie, cheat,
>or steal, and they do not tolerate those who do. I am close to the Aggie
>mentality

Well, there goes the "do not lie" part.

>, and perhaps Glenn is too, but you and a few dozen regulars are
>very far from it.

And yet all, or nearly all, of them seem to tolerate you...
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/20/14 6:17 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Thursday, February 20, 2014 7:05:59 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 2/20/14 2:48 PM, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>>
>>> By the way...I hate to talk about people behind their backs, [...]
>
>> LOL!!!!!!!!
>
> Yes, it's hard to believe, but I am constantly faced with a choice of
> the lesser of two evils, and so I choose the thing I hate less over the
> thing I hate more.
>
> Let me put it this way: if I had the luxury of being attacked only by people
> who are attacked by as many people as I am, THEN I would be able to always
> notify people whom I am attacking *in absentia* the way I have notified
> Harshman. that one person behind his back.
>
> Your position is even more enviable: you are attacked by people who in
> turn are attacked by far more people than you are, so it is well-nigh
> impossible for you to even walk a few steps in my moccasins.
>
> It's just a matter of a choice each of us made long ago: you came to
> a newsgroup dominated by like-minded people, while I came to a newsgroup
> where no one shares my opinions on directed panspermia and very few share
> my attitude of suffering fools gladly, but knaves hardly if at all.

And it doesn't bother you that your strategy is counterproductive for
any positive product you care to name?

> In College Station, Texas, there is a slogan: Aggies do not lie, cheat,
> or steal, and they do not tolerate those who do. I am close to the Aggie
> mentality, and perhaps Glenn is too, but you and a few dozen regulars are
> very far from it.

Um, no. You do tolerate them. In fact, you go out of your way to spend
time with them, looking for excuses to pounce into their midst again and
again.

[Nick Roberts]

In message <iEF*NC...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>

I think the discovers at Gobekli Tepe would challenge the conventional
view that only sedentary (i.e. "civilised") groups with an agricultural
foundation can spare the effort for monumental construction.

That's not to say that civilisation (literal meaning) doesn't offer
more scope for such activity, just that it's not a hard and fast rule.
--
Nick Roberts tigger @ orpheusinternet.co.uk

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which
can be adequately explained by stupidity.

[William Hyde]

On Thursday, February 20, 2014 9:17:33 PM UTC-5, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

>
> In College Station, Texas, there is a slogan: Aggies do not lie, cheat,
>
> or steal, and they do not tolerate those who do. I am close to the Aggie
>
> mentality,

No insult intended, but this is hilarious. Have you ever lived in College Station or worked at Texas A&M? I have.


William Hyde

[Paul J Gans]

nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>On Thursday, February 20, 2014 3:34:55 PM UTC-5, Paul J Gans wrote:

>> Peter, once again you forgot to slam me. You KNOW that I'm
>> orchestrating all of this, feeding people detailed information,
>> and generally spending a lot of time on the Grand Plan.

>Sorry, you seem to be confusing me with Thrinaxodon. :-)

>Actually, a more likely thing is that you are trying to smear me with innuendo
>to the effect that I am like Thrinaxodon.

>The most likely thing, though, is that you are indulging in sarcasm
>designed to completely mislead people as to why I call you the most
>cunningly dishonest person by far in this newsgroup, and why I say
>you have so many people here eating out of your hand.

ME? Indulge in sarcasm? Say not so!

>It has nothing to do with orchestrating things and everything to
>do with taking advantage of numerous targets of opportunity, now
>and then. People here know that you are highly experienced in polemic
>and will trim their sails as needed to keep themselves high in your
>esteem, ready to serve them at sporadic strategic moments.

I am highly experienced in Polemic, the native language of
the Poles. And not to worry, everybody here is high in my
esteem, even you.

>That was the *modus operandi* of Chris Lyman ("Spartakus") too, and it
> made him the mainstay of the abortion rights fanatics of talk.abortion.

You only think it was "Chris Lyman". You never bothered to find
out whose nym that was. You think that this sort of thing is done
with only one level of indirection?

>You don't play such a big role here in talk.origins, partly because
>John Harshman is an independent minded person and cannot generally be
>counted on to trim his sails according to your desires.

Actually, John is my controller. It is OK to tell you because
you'll never believe it.

>The fanatics of talk.abortion became a much more close-knit group, once
>some gigantic flamewars resulted in the "survival of the fittest."

Ah yes. I know you've claimed victory here, but why are you afraid
to post your victory claims *there*?

[James Beck]

On Wed, 19 Feb 2014 22:18:06 -0800 (PST), Burkhard
<b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:

>On Thursday, February 20, 2014 6:35:05 AM UTC+1, Michael Siemon wrote:
>> In article <le40jt$k2a$2...@dont-email.me>,
>>
>> Mitchell Coffey <mitchel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> > On 2/19/2014 11:02 PM, Michael Siemon wrote:
>>
>> > > In article <0is9g9tfrsu4norgk...@4ax.com>,
>>
>> > > James Beck <jdbec...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> > >
>>

>> > > ...

True, but overly complicated. I'll come back to it below. In
Civilization Clark attributed something to Christianity that it never
claimed for itself. After all, early Christianity (especially
Gelasius) invented the notion of separation of church from the royal
estates, splitting spiritual from civil interest. The estates that
developed into the modern state looked after the body and property.
Care for the soul was a separate power from a very early on in the
history of organized Christianity.

Tacking civil interest onto the spiritual mission of Christianity is a
modern, if ahistorical, game even if the church at times used its own
estates to wield secular power. I only suggested that claiming
European civilization for Christianity comes with some very ugly
baggage. Self-proclaimed Christians can't have it both ways. On the
other hand, it is historically accurate to claim neither.

Particularly here in the US some modern Christians claim that the
Enlightenment's affirmation of the view of the early Church fathers
somehow abrogates the state's responsibility for instilling 'virtue'
and creates a sort of soulless materialism. OTOH, it's entertaining to
watch the pandemonium that ensues whenever the State tries to instill
'virtue,' whatever it might be. Instead, the power politics
surrounding civil interests enforces secular law du jour. That sets up
an interesting dichotomy here in the US of ubiquitous religion
combined with a sacrosanct separation.*

[*Early on that could not have been otherwise. The individual
religious colonies did not trust to the good intentions of their
neighbors. Their distrust had a sound historical basis and they wrote
it into the US Constitution. On the whole that model worked very well
until we ran out of frontier and it was no longer practical for the
local powers that be to show dissenters the door.]

Going back, what I said is that 'Civilization' lies in the ability to

complete transactions, not in what labor we perform in exchange for
our wages or in what we use them to buy.

It's worth looking at that in particular so here's a story. Ug and Er
are brothers. Both need houses to raise their families so Ug agrees to
help Er build his house if Er will help Ug build his. Notice that this
is competitive barter with implied enforcement. If Ug helps Er and Er
fails to reciprocate, Ug can kill Er and take his house. In other
words, neither has been unselfish.

In fact, both are equally selfish, but if Er is shortsighted he fails
to reproduce as a result. What really evolves then is not
unselfishness, but an attention span long enough to complete a
transaction.

Notice that in this case the brothers have the same idiosyncratic
goal, but that isn't necessary. Ug could agree to help Er build the
house he wants in exchange for anything Ug wants. Want is symmetric.
Both are selfish. The transactions may vary in detail, but they will
be the same in principle, and complex transactions will be
combinations of simple transactions.

Actual fratricide as a means of enforcement is extreme, but it won't
be necessary as long as the threat is credible. Ug could also try
persuasion or manipulation instead. Casting religion in that role
makes it resemble a submissive form of begging. Not that that's all
bad. Certainly we could find plenty of religious who agree including
the Franciscans and many Buddhists. What it doesn't do is get us past
the magisterium of civil interest as the completion of transactions.

While it may be true that man does not live by bread alone, but by the
word of god(s), the latter is a sufficiently inefficient governor of
the former to be considered unnecessary to it. That is while you can
observe a tiny marginal effect from begging, a credible threat works
much better. A modern economist would predict that begging will work
better than nothing, while active watching works better than begging,
audits better than just watching, and enforcement of consequences best
of all.

Maybe Gelasius was just a smart man who was ahead of his time. Then
again, maybe he took to heart Jesus' injunction to render unto Caesar.
Regardless, assigning civilization to the least effective mechanism
defies common sense, particularly when agents following their own
civil interest will form it more efficiently. In making treaties,
playing power politics, and waging war, even the Medieval and
Renaissance church in its guise as secular authority evidently agrees.

[Mitchell Coffey]

Yet most of what we consider civilization - cathedrals and clean water,
roads, sewers, public art, etc. - have been created or funded outside
classical markets.

Mitchell Coffey

[James Beck]

On Wed, 26 Feb 2014 15:03:45 -0500, Mitchell Coffey

First, why should such a narrow vision of 'classical markets' be taken
to determine anything in principle? For the most part only in parts of
Chicago, Austria, and until recently Catholic churches, am I asked to
submit to rou-rou to give my neighbor the opportunity to morally
abstain. Bad behavior stops when the victims have the transactional
power to say 'no.'

Second, 'classical markets' are based on the economist's version of
pure competition, a behavior you won't find in natural competition
because it depends on civil exchange. Civilization long pre-dates the
provision of public goods.

Third, even middle school civics disputes your answer. Civil law
focuses on redress of harm in conflicts between individuals and/or
organizations, hence the example I gave. As transactions beceome more
complex and the indirect consequences of offenses spill over to others
you expect to see arbiters, but that too is just another civil
transaction. Widespread harm leading to the instability of society
suggests the later rise of criminal law, which uses punishment to
deter offenders.

In that context the imposition of religious law reflects the rise of a
system of priest-kings, aka theocracy. Since that system was rejected
by early Christianity, we find ourselves back to where I started. That
is Pope Gelasius' declaration of the separation of the magisteria of
civil and spiritual interests.

In any event, as an atheist I'm inclined to give naysayers the
opportunity to demonstrate the divine inspiration that drove religious
wars, inquisitions, torture, political maneuvering, genocide, slavery,
molestation, mercantilism, simony, indulgences, and the like. How much
of that was a fair exchange for a few pretty churches with painted
ceilings? Keeping in mind that the Roman aqueducts and the furnaces
for their baths were built/manned by slaves, hypocrites like to take
credit for the latter as if they were not paid for by the former.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Friday, February 21, 2014 1:26:30 PM UTC-5, Bob Casanova wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Feb 2014 18:17:33 -0800 (PST), the following
>
> appeared in talk.origins, posted by nyi...@bellsouth.net:

> >In College Station, Texas, there is a slogan: Aggies do not lie, cheat,
> >or steal, and they do not tolerate those who do. I am close to the Aggie
> >mentality

> Well, there goes the "do not lie" part.

You are indulging in Truth by Blatant Assertion (TbBA). Just labeling something
a lie doesn't make it a lie, much as you might like to believe otherwise.

> >, and perhaps Glenn is too, but you and a few dozen regulars are
> >very far from it.

> And yet all, or nearly all, of them seem to tolerate you...

This is just frosting on the rotten cake of your TbBA.

By the way, the regulars seem to tolerate everyone except Thrinaxodon.
Yet I actually tolerate him when he posts on topic in sci.bio.paleontology,
as you can see from the following post:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/sci.bio.paleontology/gbMH5ZK4jMk/8wSdwdwzxk8J

Peter Nyikos

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Saturday, February 22, 2014 3:00:24 PM UTC-5, William Hyde wrote:
> On Thursday, February 20, 2014 9:17:33 PM UTC-5, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

> > In College Station, Texas, there is a slogan: Aggies do not lie, cheat

> > or steal, and they do not tolerate those who do. I am close to the Aggie
> > mentality,

> No insult intended, but this is hilarious. Have you ever lived in
> College Station or worked at Texas A&M? I have.

No, but I have visited there and hobnobbed with some of the mathematicians
there. And the slogan exists: I saw it in a bicycle shop while visiting
there.

By the way, welcome to talk.origins. It's quite a mixed bag of people, and
it takes a long time to get the hang of what the various people here are really
like. If you avoid putting your faith in hearsay and only consider what you
actually see people saying, you won't go far wrong.

Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

On Wed, 26 Feb 2014 18:45:45 -0800 (PST), nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

>By the way, the regulars seem to tolerate everyone except Thrinaxodon.
>Yet I actually tolerate him when he posts on topic in sci.bio.paleontology,
>as you can see from the following post:
>
>https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/sci.bio.paleontology/gbMH5ZK4jMk/8wSdwdwzxk8J

I hope you enjoy each other over there.

[nyi...@bellsouth.net]

On Sunday, February 23, 2014 10:20:20 PM UTC-5, Paul J Gans wrote:

> nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

> >It has nothing to do with orchestrating things and everything to
> >do with taking advantage of numerous targets of opportunity, now
> >and then. People here know that you are highly experienced in polemic
> >and will trim their sails as needed to keep themselves high in your
> >esteem, ready to serve them at sporadic strategic moments.

Today, for instance, I recounted how you came to the aid of
jillery, who reminds me a lot of your long-time faithful
minion Renia in soc.history.medieval. Renia always was high in
your esteem, and still is, no?

________________excerpt from reply to jillery______________
> In fact, jillery might have been disowned by [the New Class]
> >by now were it not for the support of Village Elder Gans and
> >Village Elder Isaak (though not against Harshman).

> Odd I don't feel not disowned.

Of course not, and one of the main reasons is the one I've given.
But you tested the limits of your New Class privileges in
the thread, "Turtle genome sequence and analysis" a bit less
than a year ago. While I stuck
to on-topic material, you and Ron O had an orgy of back and forth
malicious gossip about me, reinforcing each other in a spiraling
descent of more and more farfetched crap.

It got so bad that Burkhard plonked Ron O:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/_5VUAvu8FB4/10nhG4atasMJ

and Shrubber reprimanded Ron O several times, ending in:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/_5VUAvu8FB4/LwqMSTax_QAJ

and when you turned on Shrubber, he went "Double plonk":
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/_5VUAvu8FB4/RCA7rKC7jMYJ

If it had not been for Village Elder Isaak and
Village Elder Gans, and New Class members Robert Camp and eridanus
supporting you in the middle of that orgy, things might
have gone really badly for the two of you.

> Isaak is among many who once actively
> discouraged my participation, but now simply ignore me,

He didn't ignore you back then; in fact, his support of you was more
effective than that of Gans.
==================== end of excerpt from
Message-ID: <b9291e93-740e-4c74...@googlegroups.com>
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/IXyKRN-DKEQ/P2UvD-a6AWAJ

<amateurish pun followed by insincere comment, snipped>

> >That was the *modus operandi* of Chris Lyman ("Spartakus") too, and it
> > made him the mainstay of the abortion rights fanatics of talk.abortion.

And, like you do below, he took refuge in Dadaism when unable to deal
with the truth about him.

> You only think it was "Chris Lyman". You never bothered to find
> out whose nym that was. You think that this sort of thing is done
> with only one level of indirection?

Chris Lyman talked a lot about hobnobbing with abortionists in St. Paul,
Minn. Back in the days when they still had phone directories in airports,
I looked him up in one while waiting for a connecting flight in Minneapolis.
He was in there, all right.

> >You don't play such a big role here in talk.origins, partly because
> >John Harshman is an independent minded person and cannot generally be
> >counted on to trim his sails according to your desires.

> Actually, John is my controller. It is OK to tell you because
> you'll never believe it.

Nor will he, I wager.

> >The fanatics of talk.abortion became a much more close-knit group, once
> >some gigantic flamewars resulted in the "survival of the fittest."

> Ah yes. I know you've claimed victory here,

What claims are you babbling about? The events I related in the last
two lines above happened in my absence. When I left, james g. keegan jr.
was on the ropes, assailed regularly by quite a few of his fellow
abortion rights fanatics; when I returned over a decade later, he ruled
the roost and "Spartakus" was his main buttress.

I tried to find out from him how he had triumphed over the opposition,
but he refused to tell me. And by that time, all the reasonable old-timers
who could have told me had left in disgust.

> but why are you afraid
> to post your victory claims *there*?

You are really clueless, Gans.

Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

On Wed, 26 Feb 2014 19:22:31 -0800 (PST), nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:

>On Sunday, February 23, 2014 10:20:20 PM UTC-5, Paul J Gans wrote:
>> nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
>> >It has nothing to do with orchestrating things and everything to
>> >do with taking advantage of numerous targets of opportunity, now
>> >and then. People here know that you are highly experienced in polemic
>> >and will trim their sails as needed to keep themselves high in your
>> >esteem, ready to serve them at sporadic strategic moments.
>
>Today, for instance, I recounted how you came to the aid of
> jillery, who reminds me a lot of your long-time faithful
>minion Renia in soc.history.medieval. Renia always was high in
>your esteem, and still is, no?

Paul's post has nothing to do with my post. This is just more of your
stupid SPAM.

[Mark Isaak]

Peter my friend, in that thread I was not supporting jillery. I was
supporting *you*.

[Nick Roberts]

In message <ho8sg9p1ai31iv01k...@4ax.com>

I'm not sure I'd accept that early Christianity divorced itself from
civil interest (unless I'm misunderstanding your point, which is quite
possible).

Roman Catholocism circa 11th/12th/13th century was very much into
political power. When King John annoyed Innocent III, the Pope
supported Philip of France's plans to invade England - until John
arranged to hold England as a vassal of the Pope, and suddenly
Innocent told Philip to back off.

Not a whole lot of case for the soul there.

Plus, of course, the Church claimed for a long time that any monk or
priest who was accused of a crime could only he tried by Church
authorities, not civil ones, which effectively put them in the position
of a separate state.

[eridanus]

RCC was a virtual state. Most religions are virtual states.
And some political parties.
Eri

[Paul J Gans]

You feel that William Hyde is new here?

[jillery]

Based upon my review of your posts in Turtle Genome and Analysis, you
said nothing about me one way or the other. I leave as an exercise
whether you supported "peter". But the larger point is that the
discussion in that topic has no relevance to what he's discussing with
Paul Gans here. Most likely he's bringing up old arguments just to
deflect and distract and add obfuscating noise. That's what "peter"
does, then and now. I give him credit for consistency, but little
else.

[Paul J Gans]

Yup.

Among the things that you've never noticed, Renia and I did
not get along.

And I'm sorry all the old timers in talk.abortion have left.
Perhaps that was a condition of their surrender to the
women's choice faction.

And my plan is working.

[Paul J Gans]

It doesn't even rise to that level. It is a product of the
meanderings of a disturbed brain.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <f26cb2e0...@bc63.orpheusinternet.co.uk>,

Nick Roberts <tig...@orpheusinternet.co.uk> wrote:

> Plus, of course, the Church claimed for a long time that any monk or
> priest who was accused of a crime could only he tried by Church
> authorities, not civil ones, which effectively put them in the position
> of a separate state.

Benefit of clergy. The penalties were very much less harsh than the
normal courts. Like how the Church treats their malefactors today,
rather than handing them over to the civil authorities.

--
Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greed. Me.

[jillery]

If your're going to get technical, he has a brain?

[William Hyde]

On Wednesday, February 26, 2014 9:55:47 PM UTC-5, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> On Saturday, February 22, 2014 3:00:24 PM UTC-5, William Hyde wrote:
>
> > On Thursday, February 20, 2014 9:17:33 PM UTC-5, nyi...@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
>
>
> > > In College Station, Texas, there is a slogan: Aggies do not lie, cheat
>
> > > or steal, and they do not tolerate those who do. I am close to the Aggie
>
> > > mentality,
>
>
>
> > No insult intended, but this is hilarious. Have you ever lived in
>
> > College Station or worked at Texas A&M? I have.
>
>
>
> No, but I have visited there and hobnobbed with some of the mathematicians
>
> there.

Is Roger Smith still a math prof there? I know him from the chess club - he's a master - but I'm afraid I don't recall anything about his research. I was probably too busy learning chess from him to inquire.

And the slogan exists: I saw it in a bicycle shop while visiting
>
> there.

Indeed, it exists. It is the 19th century equivalent of "We are committed to excellence!".

> By the way, welcome to talk.origins.

Thanks, but I've been here before. I've even had discussions with you, though the only ones I recall are on soc.history.medieval, mostly on climate.

It's quite a mixed bag of people, and
>
> it takes a long time to get the hang of what the various people here are really
>
> like. If you avoid putting your faith in hearsay and only consider what you
>
> actually see people saying, you won't go far wrong.

I am a onetime veteran of rec.games.chess.politics, where I eventually decided there were no good guys, as one after another the people I had thought sensible or at least polite revealed themselves to be capable of he same lies, ad hominem arguments, and simple insults as their opponents (and I am pretty forgiving of such, as I know that on occcasion that which I write will, alas, mean something other than I intended).

I no longer take delight in 500 line posts with ten different arguments relying on points made, or not made, years ago. So crucial information buried at line 250 will go unread by me.

William Hyde

[William Hyde]

Google search isn't helping me much at the moment, but I think it has been nearly a decade since my last post here and even before then my posting history was sparse after about 2000. Even longer since I posted on s.h.m.

Glad to see some of the same names here.

William Hyde

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:leoi21$dce$5...@reader1.panix.com...

Peter apparently doesn't recall the name. This doesn't seem to be a matter
of "feeling". Is this also part of your alleged plan?

[John Harshman]

So who are you? I don't remember a Dr. Jekyll.

[James Beck]

On Thu, 27 Feb 2014 20:12:32 GMT, Nick Roberts
<tig...@orpheusinternet.co.uk> wrote:

>In message <ho8sg9p1ai31iv01k...@4ax.com>
> James Beck <jdbec...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>> On Wed, 19 Feb 2014 22:18:06 -0800 (PST), Burkhard
>> <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>> >On Thursday, February 20, 2014 6:35:05 AM UTC+1, Michael Siemon wrote:
>> >> In article <le40jt$k2a$2...@dont-email.me>,
>> >> Mitchell Coffey <mitchel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> > On 2/19/2014 11:02 PM, Michael Siemon wrote:
>> >> > > In article <0is9g9tfrsu4norgk...@4ax.com>,
>> >> > > James Beck <jdbec...@yahoo.com> wrote:

[snip]

>> True, but overly complicated. I'll come back to it below. In
>> Civilization Clark attributed something to Christianity that it never
>> claimed for itself. After all, early Christianity (especially
>> Gelasius) invented the notion of separation of church from the royal
>> estates, splitting spiritual from civil interest. The estates that
>> developed into the modern state looked after the body and property.
>> Care for the soul was a separate power from a very early on in the
>> history of organized Christianity.
>
>I'm not sure I'd accept that early Christianity divorced itself from
>civil interest (unless I'm misunderstanding your point, which is quite
>possible).

Interesting. Doesn't your common sense tell you that the leaders of a
persecuted religion would have at least pretended to have no interest
in civil matters? In any event, the statements of the early church
fathers are part of the historical record.

>Roman Catholocism circa 11th/12th/13th century was very much into
>political power.

That's eventually true, yes. However, other than the excommunication
of Emperor Theodosius for the unjust Massacre of Thessaloniki in the
4th century the early church steered clear of overt politics.
Politically the issue of separation concerned whether the church would
absorb the civil authority, become a vassal to it, or remain an
independent spiritual authority.

As King of the Romans Henry III attempted to "reform the church" by
forcing it to become his vassal. That was opposed by, among others,
Cardinal Bishop Humbert of Moyenmoutier, who called for a return to
the traditional emancipation of the Church from the control of the
secular power and for the free election of the pope. Hildebrand, a
follower of Humbert, became pope in 1073 taking the name Gregory VII.

Following attempts by Henry IV to force the church into his service
and an exchange of harsh correspondence, Gregory VII excommunicated
Henry and all of the bishops he had appointed. In addition, he took
the further step of absolving all of Henry's vassals of their
obligations to serve him. That had the effect of cutting Henry's lands
and power base in half. Henry relented in 1077. Against the advice of
his bishops, who thought that Henry would fail to honor any agreement
he might make with the church, Gregory VII absolved Henry. A long
period of civil war ensued.

In supporting Rudolph of Rheinfeldin in the Great Saxon Revolt,
Gregory overplayed his hand. His second excommunication of Henry in
1080 was interpreted as the political move it was and some of Henry's
former allies rejoined him rather than being picked off one by one.

Gregory VII survived as pope until his death in 1085, saved by the
advance of Robert Guiscard. Otto of Ostia became pope as Urban II in
the same year. With Norman support (Pope Alexander II had ratified the
Norman Conquest of England) Urban II excommunicated Henry IV again.
Henry was ex'ed yet again by Pope Paschal II. Henry's son, the future
Henry V rebelled against his father. Henry IV was deposed, then
reinstated, and finally died in 1106.

Alternate Timeline:

It's also possible that the Pope Alexander II set the chain of events
in motion by excommunicating Harold II of England prior to the 1066
invasions of Harald Hardrada (Norway) and William the Conqueror,
thereby pissing off the Saxons. In that case, it would be the church
that played the secular card first and provoked the reform movement
pushed by Henry IV.

It's also possible to argue that the church made a grab for secular
power as soon as it could. Its position was much stronger following
the division of Charlemagne's kingdom among his grandchildren.

>When King John annoyed Innocent III, the Pope
>supported Philip of France's plans to invade England - until John
>arranged to hold England as a vassal of the Pope, and suddenly
>Innocent told Philip to back off.

>Not a whole lot of case for the soul there.
>
>Plus, of course, the Church claimed for a long time that any monk or
>priest who was accused of a crime could only he tried by Church
>authorities, not civil ones, which effectively put them in the position
>of a separate state.

Superficially this sounds like a toughie. It's not really, but people
do like to claim it. At the discretion of the secular authority,
benefit of clergy (BoC) could be offered to any sufficiently literate
person who was willing to tonsure their hair. If granted it could
protect an offender from the state imposition of torture or capital
punishment. On the other hand...

Religious sanctuary wasn't free for lay offenders. Asylum seekers paid
their own way in addition to making restitution ('bot'). The state
permitted and even chartered sanctuary as a way to limit vigilante
justice and blood feuds. In effect sanctuary amounted to a form of
exile. By the 12th and 13th centuries abjuration, basically a plea of
no contest, meant permanent exile, the loss of all property, and
branding. The church did not as a rule turn people over to the secular
authority, but couldn't stop it from burning churches, from starving
the criminals out, or from entering the church and seizing them by
force.

Further, the Medieval church did not shield clerics in the way
implied. In fact, they were not only legally barred from abjuration,
but also they were compelled to surrender to the secular authorities
for all secular crimes. Under BoC the secular authority could then
remand offenders to the ecclesiastical court. Ecclesiastical penance
might have been better than torture and death, but it was no picnic.

By contrast, what the modern church did is much more heinous. They
knowingly shielded serial child molesters from secular justice by
concealing their identities and moving them to new posts, as well as,
by paying off/intimidating the victims. Nothing remotely like that
sort of shady dealing was sanctioned in the Middle Ages.

Instead a felonious cleric would have a limited set of options.
1) Abandon vows. Flee to church/chartered sanctuary. Make restitution.
2) Abandon vows. Flee to church/chartered sanctuary. Choose abjuration
and accept permanent exile, loss of property, and branding.
3) Maintain vows. Submit to secular authority and hope for BoC.
4) Run for it. Hope to avoid the angry family and the authorities.

Keeping in mind that most of the kids in a monastery school would not
have been Dickensian orphans and, given modern mores, I wouldn't bet
on the cleric's chances.

[Roger Shrubber]

Please, Bill can proudly wear a Ted Badge of Courage,
has confronted Lionel Tun. Few current posters can
boast of similar credentials.
For a glimpse into a glorious past, see

<https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!searchin/talk.origins/%22Yet$20Another$20Saturn$20Myth$20Variant%22/talk.origins/pnILPvsIA7o/IzhOrFCdsyEJ>
tiny http://tinyurl.com/mtnwj4b

Oh where or where have the Saturnists gone,
Oh where or where can they be
The lifting feats of Kazmaier
The felt effect of gravity (GRAV i Te EEE)

[Michael Siemon]

Not (at least directly) on topic for t.o., but an excellent summary.

In article <uecvg9t8pe5aqsij8...@4ax.com>,

[John Harshman]

Nothing about the flying chickens?

[Mitchell Coffey]

Second.

Mitchell Coffey

[Glenn]

"John Harshman" <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:wpidnbJmFMooXY3O...@giganews.com...

Whoever heard of such a thing!

[Nick Roberts]

In message <uecvg9t8pe5aqsij8...@4ax.com>

Perhaps this is the source of my confusion - I read your post as
implying that Christianity divorced itself from civil interest _and
stayed that way_. I have no issue with your claims about the very early
period, but my point was that the church didn't maintain that
disinterest, but turned into a fairly blatent imperial power.

Incidentally, my interest in history has never explicitly touched on
church history, so I only tend to read about incidents where church
history touched significantly on the state politics. That I have no
issue with your points about the early history would tend to support
your position that the church kept away from politics.

[William Hyde]

I usually debated Ted, as his lunacy frequently involved insane physics, but left the biological side largely to those with more knowledge thereof.

I don't remember a Dr. Jekyll.

I shared an office with a Ms J who became a Dr J, but alas I became a Dr first, ruining the joke.

William Hyde

[William Hyde]

Lionel Tun? I'd utterly forgotten him. I think that after meeting one particular poster on tamu.general, all others of that genre just began to seem pedestrian.

Yeah, that must be the reason.

I do remember Bob Bales, though. Tektronix didn't help him with his opinions.

William Hyde

[James Beck]

On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 18:26:52 GMT, Nick Roberts

Possibly, since I didn't say that at all. I said that Kenneth Clark
claimed civilization for the Catholic church, something it hadn't
claimed for itself. After Robert Guiscard rescued Gregory VII, he was
named Vexillifer Ecclesiæ, a plum military title that became much
abused over time, but the Gonfaloniers were secular leaders who used
the pretext of defending the church to expand their own power. That
inevitably led to corruption.

On the other hand, I don't see it as a problem for my position.
Christianity didn't create civil interest. As a spiritual authority,
early Christianity avoided politics or was shown the door e.g. Edict
of Paris 615. Meanwhile, people defending their civil interests
created civilization.

As you said, the behavior of the church in the late Medieval and
Renaissance didn't seem to have much to do with the soul. Then again,
to the extent that its political machinations kept Europe splintered,
it wasn't very civil either.

When did Christianity build civilization then? Surely not when it was
on the sidelines, and not when it was corrupt, depraved, perverse,
conniving, or when it denied that the common man has civil rights.
That brings us all the way up to the present.