ThinkingBlue: HERE COME THE JUDGE! Maybe we ain't the crazy ones.

HERE COME THE JUDGE, HERE COME THE JUDGE,
ORDER IN THE COURT NOW, HERE COME THE JUDGE!

Today, all of us WHO THINK, can finally rest easy, WE NOW KNOW WE ARE NOT THE CRAZY ONES !!! Thanks to one "HERE COME THE JUDGE" for saving our sanity. The Dover Pa. lawsuit in which some brave THINKING people, put their foot down and said NO WAY ARE YOU GOING TO TRY AND BRAINWASH MY CHILDREN WITH YOUR BELIEF SYSTEM! These brave people threw down the gauntlet to tell the "Bush"-whacked (because DUBYA emboldened these lunatic fringed folks) school board members to keep your religious tentacles off my child's brain. Thank goodness, Judge Jones was a member of the THINKING CLASS, and politely told this inane, misguided crew that perhaps they were a bit NON COMPOS MENTIS in their way of thinking about science. Ergo, in no way can you teach a belief system as bona fide scientific theory.

non compos mentis adj. Not of sound mind and hence not legally responsible; mentally incompetent.

Please click this link Scientific Laws,
Hypotheses, and Theories

And then, let us read a little bit about BELIEF SYSTEMS

From the perspective that all Reality is the product of consciousness, it should be clear that a person's beliefs are very important because those beliefs define the limits of their experience in
this realm.

Most humans currently live their lives in this realm around the belief systems of others, be that of their parents', peers', mentors' or society's and because of this they inadvertently give up their ability (and responsibility) to define their reality and have control over their lives.

With this in mind, it is very important that each individual comes to his/her own conclusions about all matters in general and spirituality in particular, rather than blindly embracing the views of others. The purpose of Creation in general and Human 'Beings' in particular is for SOURCE to 'experience' - nothing more and nothing less. In other words, the sole purpose of 'being' human is to bring to the 'CREATOR' (or God for want of a better name) our 'individual' perceptions and consciousness around the experiences we create. The more conscious humans become of this process, the richer the experience. It is for this reason most mystics throughout the ages have said the same thing regarding the sacred task facing all Human Beings - namely that they learn to know themselves. (i.e. "Know Thyself") - meaning humans are to explore and exercise their God given creativity from within this realm for the purpose of experience and
through this process eventually find the flaw in the Game and 're-discover' (sic) that they are an individualised, but inseparable aspects of God. (i.e. their Source)

William Blake (18 century poet and philosopher) summed it up perfectly with the following lines from his epic poem 'Jerusalem' in which he said:

"I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Man's;

I will not Reason and Compare;

my business is to Create."

The author Robertson Davies was even more brutally honest in his book 'The Deptford Trilogy ' (p477), when he said:

"Be sure to choose what you believe and know why you believe it, because if you don't choose your beliefs, you may be certain that some belief, and probably not a very creditable one, will choose you."

(Click here to read more on this subject)

Anyway, chalk one up for reality this time, I know this won't end the debate because people who have turned their minds over to some unrealistic mindset (or mind-set n. 1. A fixed mental attitude or disposition that predetermines a person's responses to and interpretations of situations.) will continue to blare out "MY BELIEF IS THE ONLY BELIEF AND MY GOD IS THE ONLY GOD AND YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE THE WAY I DO AND YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT MY GOD AS YOUR GOD!" in order to justify their own reasonings or better put their unreasonings. Amen I am outta here,
Thinkingblue

PS: KEEP THOSE EYES READING, THEY ARE YOUR BEST TOOLS FOR ENLIGHTENMENT.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THIS PAGE

Darwin Victorious

TIME's Michael Lemonick assesses the theory of evolution after Intelligent Design is defeated in Pennsylvania

By MICHAEL LEMONICK

"Breathtaking inanity" is how U.S. District Judge John Jones characterized the Dover, PA school board's attempt to cast doubt on the theory of evolution—but in fairness, the recently ousted members of that board were relative unsophisticates, snookered by the intellectual scam that calls itself "intelligent design," or ID.

Where to begin? Well, first of all, proponents of ID point to what they insist are serious flaws in Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. The truth is that the theory is not only an overwhelmingly powerful explanation for how life on Earth manages to come in such a bewildering array of different types, but the only such theory in science. Like any scientific theory, it can't explain how every aspect of every organism came to be, but each time scientists find new evidence—fossils of dinosaurs bearing feathers; fossils of the mammals whose descendants are whales; the molecular structure DNA that carries traits from one generation to the next; the mutations that can alter DNA to introduce new traits—the case for Darwin's theory has gotten stronger.

Do any gaps remain? Sure. Shall we throw up our hands and say "Since we don't know all the details at this moment, God"—oops, I mean, "an Intelligent Designer must be invoked?" The Discovery Institute, a pro-ID think tank favors teaching the controversy over evolution, but that's the scam. There is no controversy, or at least, not the scientific controversy Discovery says there is..

That's not to say there isn't a tiny handful of actual scientists who back ID. Yes, evolution explains a lot, they say, but some things—the eye, for example, or the whip-like tails on some bacteria—are just too complex to have evolved. To which the vast majority of biologists say nonsense. We don't have remotely enough information to make such a statement. Moreover, if ID is a valid theory on its own, it has to make
testable predictions. "It's too complex to explain" is not a prediction.

So ID isn't science, and by that measure alone the Dover school board's attempts to make it so were indeed inane. But beyond that the board insisted that by leaving out the G-word you remove the religious connotation from ID, thus evading a 1987 Supreme Court ban on religion in science classrooms. Again, the board bought the story of people like Lehigh University biologist Michael Behe, an ID proponent, who says that ID doesn't assume the existence of God (although Behe admitted he thinks
the Intelligent Designer is God). Judge Jones didn't buy that loophole (and for that matter the Discovery Institute stayed out of this case entirely, evidently realizing that it was a legal stinker).

Alas, ID isn't going away. The Kansas school board recently endorsed new educational standards that downplay evolution, and new assaults on Darwin's brilliant and unsettling idea are sure to continue. Meanwhile, there are still gaps in Einstein's theory of relativity and the germ theory of disease and the theory of plate tectonics. However, none of these contradict the sacred text of any religion—and so no school board is likely to be looking for some way to counter them.

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Frankincense In Aisle Five!

O ye of little faith, who believe that somehow the birth of Christ is dependent upon recognition in a circular from OfficeMax!

By Anna Quindlen Newsweek Dec. 26, 2005 - Jan 2, 2006 issue -

According to the story, a little more than 2,000 years ago a baby was born in a stable in Bethlehem while his young parents were in town for a nationwide census. Because of the influx of visitors, there were no rooms available in the more traditional places. Humble beginnings notwithstanding, the story continues, the baby grew to be a man who healed the sick, raised at least one friend from the dead, was crucified by the ruling powers and was then himself resurrected. His name was Jesus.

Depending on where you stand, that story is the tale of a prophet, a political agitator or the Messiah, the son of God made man. It is either a myth or the great news, either ancient history, fiction or Gospel. What's beyond dispute is that it has endured through the ages, while the pantheistic stories of other great civilizations became lost to all except those studying the classics. Horrific wrongdoing by the people who embraced the story has not been able to kill it: the Inquisition, the Holocaust. The many schisms among its followers have not destroyed it: Luther's manifesto, Henry VIII's marriages. And today it cannot be tarnished by sheer foolishness, much as some of its loudest champions seem willing to try.

If God is watching us, as some believers suggest, as though we were a television show and God had a lot of free time, the deity would surely be bemused by how dumbed-down devotion has sometimes become in this so-called modern era. How might an omnipotent being with the long view of history respond to those who visit the traveling exhibit of a grilled-cheese sandwich, sold on eBay, that is said to bear the image of the Virgin Mary? It certainly argues against intelligent design, or at least intelligent design in humans.

Or what about the statue in California currently said to be crying bloody tears? On the Gulf Coast thousands are still living with wrenching dislocation during this holiday season, and throughout the country the cold and hungry will pour into soup kitchens and shelters for a Christmas meal. Why worry about the alleged weeping of a plaster effigy when so many actual human beings have reason to cry?

According to the story, the Messiah was sent to save us from our sins, but clearly not our silliness. Right after Election Day, which apparently is a holiday you can find in Leviticus, Pat Robertson, the host of "The 700 Club," rained down rage on the citizens of Dover, Pa. The townspeople had elected a slate of school-board members who supported the teaching of evolution, apparently believing that science should be taught in science classes. Robertson brought dire warnings of divine tit for tat: "If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God; you just rejected him from your city." I wonder: if God were to deign to speak to us through a cable-TV-show host, would it be Pat Robertson, who once predicted Orlando, Fla., could be hit by a meteor for flying the gay-pride flag? Wouldn't it be more likely to be Jon Stewart, or even Rachael Ray? Surely the audience share would be larger.

The cycle of the devotional year has once again wound around to the anniversary of the Nativity, and now the foolishness is all fa-la-la-la-la. It is surprising to discover that some believe the enduring power of the story of the child born in Bethlehem to be so shaky that it must be shored up by plastic creches in town squares and middle-school concerts. Apparently, conservative critics are also exercised by the fact that various discount stores have failed to pay homage to the baby in the manger, in their advertisements, their labeling and even their in-store greetings.

It is hard for me to figure out how a snub by a home-improvement center can diminish Christmas one iota. A flu epidemic carried off as many as 50 million people around the world in the early part of the 20th century, surely a disaster to shake the faith of even the most devout. Yet the holy day endured. Through plague and war, famine and invasion, the tale was told and the lesson learned, of love for neighbors, of charity toward the poor. Carols were sung in foxholes and prisons.

O ye of little faith, who believe that somehow the birth of Christ is dependent upon acknowledgment in a circular from OfficeMax! According to the story, Jesus threw the money-changers out of the temple, saying that they'd made his father's house into a den of thieves. By any stretch of the imagination, does that person sound like someone who would hanker to be formally recognized at Sears and Walgreens, as though his legacy depended upon being given pride of place among redundant hand appliances and teddy bears in Santa hats?

Target is not a temple (although I do pray that the Isaac Mizrahi line of cheap chic will be expanded), and the star of Bethlehem was nothing like a blue-light special. As the pope recently noted, "commercial pollution" is contrary to the spirit of the season and the message of Christmas. For those things, see Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the greatest story never sold. It's an insult to the power and the glory of faith to seek it in fried foods, statuary or the perfunctory greetings of overworked store clerks. If I ever go to Costco looking for religion, I'll know my Christmas goose is cooked.

MORE THINKING BLUE LINKS

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For whom the bell tolls a poem
(No man is an island) by John Donne
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

The words of the original passage Click Here