Intelligent Design: Did you design yourself?

[Bob Kelso]

The rules apply to everyone is the official line....the reality is different.

Yeah, because we never ban atheist members for bad behavior.

Cthulhu, that's no fair. Using facts to slam a false complaint.

Leave that Christian alone! Persecution! Persecution!

[Jackalope]

Yeah, because we never ban atheist members for bad behavior.

Cthulhu, that's no fair. Using facts to slam a false complaint.

I even missed a few.

You know what, Heywood - I didn't even have to go deep to find them. Most of them above were regulars with more than a thousand posts, one with over 5000 and over 60 reputation.

So, please, take your accusations of inequity and shove them deep, I mean REALLY deep, up your backside.

[Esquilax]

So.... now this is a thread about how it's unfair to ban Artur, because Heywood didn't bother to acquaint himself with the man's entire posting history before commenting on an issue he doesn't know all the facts of?

Hmm, that's pretty much business as usual, then.

[Heywood]

So.... now this is a thread about how it's unfair to ban Artur, because Heywood didn't bother to acquaint himself with the man's entire posting history before commenting on an issue he doesn't know all the facts of?

Hmm, that's pretty much business as usual, then.

I never claimed Artur's ban was unfair. His unprovoked attack against Broken Quill was uncalled for so as far as I am concerned sanction warranted.

I commented on the fact that it is difficult to be an argumentative theist on an atheist forum. Artur needs to grow some skin if and when he comes back. He needs to realize A) people will ridicule him and B) Mods and their actions are not perfectly balanced...they're people after all. He should not let those two things get to him if he is to survive here.

[Jackalope]

So.... now this is a thread about how it's unfair to ban Artur, because Heywood didn't bother to acquaint himself with the man's entire posting history before commenting on an issue he doesn't know all the facts of?

Hmm, that's pretty much business as usual, then.

I never claimed Artur's ban was unfair. His unprovoked attack against Broken Quill was uncalled for so as far as I am concerned sanction warranted.

You might want to chose your words more carefully in the future, because "The rules apply to everyone is the official line....the reality is different." sounds suspiciously like an accusation of bias.

Just sayin'.

[Esquilax]

I never claimed Artur's ban was unfair. His unprovoked attack against Broken Quill was uncalled for so as far as I am concerned sanction warranted.

I commented on the fact that it is difficult to be an argumentative theist on an atheist forum. Artur needs to grow some skin if and when he comes back. He needs to realize A) people will ridicule him and B) Mods and their actions are not perfectly balanced...they're people after all. He should not let those two things get to him if he is to survive here.

But that's what I'm saying: Artur wasn't banned for insults alone. He was banned for a persistent refusal to respond to others, in addition to his trolling, which was often unprovoked in other threads. There's like five threads he's been active in recently, and all of them boil down to an evasive mix of strange invective and outright ignorance, both of which break forum rules.

To talk about just his actions in this thread is to miss most of the story.

[GrandizerII]

If human life can be created and designed without the need for God, then there is no reason why one must or should accept God's existence as an intelligent creator/designer of human life.

This is nonsense.

Suppose God and Zod exist. Both can create human life. God creates human life. This would be reason enough to accept God's existence as an intelligent creator/designer of human life.

Zod's existence and actions(or in action) have nothing to do with Gods existence and action.

But, as I said, this violates the principle of parsimony (or what some people refer to as Occam's razor). If a relatively simple being like Zod can do it, then why invoke God? Unless you have evidence that shows that God exists and was more likely to have started human life, we don't have a [good] reason to think God did it.

---

Your response has nothing to do with the statement. It is a complete non sequitur.

Negative Chas,

In my example God didn't need to create humans. Zod could have. The fact that God did create humans would be reason enough. If humans could have came to be naturally, but God created them anyways, the fact that God created them would be reason enough to acknowledge God as the creator of humans.

It all follows....you're just not that bright.

And, once again, that is why we have to keep things as simple as possible and use Occam's razor to rule all unnecessary explanations out. You don't just add/multiply entities when unwarranted by the evidence.

---

The rules apply to everyone is the official line....the reality is different. The reality is if I responded insult for insult, I or any argumentative theists would be labeled troll and quickly banned.

Its no big deal though Stimbo. This is an atheists forum. If argumentative theists want to discuss here....we got to play by your rules....even the unwritten ones.

Same would be true if you go to a religious forum.

At least he was given at least a warning. I can't even access as a guest the Christian forum I used to post at.

What I get everytime I go there is the following:

Sorry Guest, you are banned from using this forum!
Spam/Foul language
This ban is not set to expire.


Which, as far as I know, is either false or exaggerated. Count your blessings, that's all I can say.

[Cyberman]

Heywood, I really think you need to make it clear precisely what it is you think you're pointing out. You agree that Artur's behaviour warranted a sanction, yet at the same time you're complaining of bias and unfair treatment towards non-atheists; despite the evidence presented to you and the lack of awareness of behind-the-scenes deliberations. Cards on the table - in plain English, what exactly is the problem here and how do you propose we resolve it?

[pocaracas]

I know others have told you, but I haven't been around the PC all day and I'd like to reply, too!

I did criticize your argument when I mentioned that all you have is humans building living organisms, based on all the "rules" of living organisms that humans had discovered before. But it seems your comprehension is a bit slow... huh?.. others have told you exactly the same, and yet, you keep parroting that no one is addressing your argument.

Humans are pretty close to creating machine life too. Such an achievement will not be based on the rules of living organisms.

Machine life is way far out of our current scope...
Machine intelligence isn't that far out, but it's another beast altogether.

Also it is quite likely we will invent new rules of living organisms(actually we already have....watermarks).

watermarks? What do you mean? this DNA-based watermarks using the DNA-Crypt algorithm. )

You could have gone with the 6 letter genome that was presented a few weeks ago: http://www.livescience.com/45419-first-o...tters.html. That would've been a nice try... instead... meh.
Even if you had gone with the 6-letter genome, it would have been based on the currently known genomes.... and according to the study, these extra letters are there just for show, they don't seem to be encoding any proteins:

expanding that alphabet to include artificial letters could give organisms the ability to produce new proteins never seen before in nature.

The man-made DNA could be used for everything from the manufacture of new drugs and vaccines to forensics, researchers say.

"What we have done is successfully store increased information in the DNA of a living cell," study leader Floyd Romesberg, a chemical biologist at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, told Live Science. Yet many steps remain before Romesberg and his colleagues can get cells to produce artificial proteins.

But maybe they can... one day.

Even so, you're still only presenting humans as creators of something, from "basic" building blocks. And of course, we know humans can create things... Ever since the wheel was invented (and maybe before) that we've known this.
What we don't know is if there's anything else that has the same ability.

When you said "watermarks", were you wishing to claim there's some watermark on every earthling that shows that we're property of some extra-terrestrial entity?

[Bad Wolf]

Heywood, I really think you need to make it clear precisely what it is you think you're pointing out. You agree that Artur's behaviour warranted a sanction, yet at the same time you're complaining of bias and unfair treatment towards non-atheists; despite the evidence presented to you and the lack of awareness of behind-the-scenes deliberations. Cards on the table - in plain English, what exactly is the problem here and how do you propose we resolve it?

He's just butthurt.