I'm waiting for my religious faith to be, if not verified, then proven.

Other religious people I've talked about faith/science have been mostly unconcerned with proof, some saying it's beside the point, others saying the absence of proof is part of the point.

It all depends on the experience you're looking for/getting from your religion.

Pewter Octopus Wine Aerator, for the wine lover on your Cephalopodmas list!

I meant that in the sense of the afterlife, ita. Sorry. I should have been more specific. It was just supposed to be a cute rejoinder, not an expression of an earnest expectation.

I've never read a single piece of ID propaganda that didn't boil down, at its core, to "This evolution stuff sounds really complicated. Maybe it was godaliens!" (Dembski in particular is brilliant at couching this in pseudoscientific language, but the man wouldn't recognize an actual biology text if it evolved teeth and bit him.)

So much of what comes from either evolution supporters or ID supporters reads like propaganda to me, that they all lose me. Just curious, did you read Dembski's response to Orr?

I've never read a single piece of ID propaganda that didn't boil down, at its core, to "This evolution stuff sounds really complicated. Maybe it was godaliens!"

It's the "God in the Gaps" argument only made more scientific sounding. If there isn't a complete explanation for how X evolved, then a supernatural entity must have made it happen through some unknown mechanism. So you end up arguing that blood clotting couldn't have evolved and then a bunch of people come up with explanations. Okay, then you move on to something else like the eye and there are more explanations. Then you move on to bacterial flagellum (the timeline isn't correct, I'm just making an example) and people can explain it but you find an aspect that isn't fully explained. So forth and so on...

Pewter Octopus Wine Aerator, for the wine lover on your Cephalopodmas list!

Sweet Jesus, I clicked on that link and thought, "That's the most frightening sex toy I've ever seen." I blame all of you, because I had a clean mind before I showed up here.

Just curious, did you read Dembski's response to Orr?

I'm reading it now, and it makes me clench my fists. The objections are not sound. He's not a scientist. For example, the fact that you don't have every single organism that represents an example of the evolution of a trait is not at all damning, and to expect it is ridiculous.

Just curious, did you read Dembski's response to Orr?

Yes, and it matches what I've seen of his before -- since he doesn't have a fucking clue what he's talking about, he pulls out the standard list of ID talking points. (Blah blah flagellum blah blah randomness hey look over there something shiny! inconclusionwewinkthxbye)

I can't help flashing back to that early episode of Friends where Ross and Phoebe debate evolution, which led to gems such as:

ROSS: Ok, Pheebs. See how I'm making these little toys move? Opposable thumbs. Without evolution, how do you explain opposable thumbs?
PHOEBE: Maybe the overlords needed them to steer their spacecrafts.

They shut the doors to the elevator lobby to block out the construction noise. Now every time someone uses the door, which is approximately every five seconds, the door shuts with a rattle-rattle-slam.

I barely noticed the construction noise. Rattling door slamming? Driving. Me. Apeshit.

I'd like to request some buffista Car-ma, as I'm in the final stages of buying a new (to me) car. Loan's approved, insurance is mostly ready; now I just need to close and register. If everything just goes smoothly, I will be a very happy car owner by tomorrow; however, there's some residual crap with the title of my last car (the one that got stolen and junked) that I thought had gone away, but apparently hasn't (it looks likes it's still in my name, but not at my address). I just hope that can be dealt with separately and won't hold up getting this one registered and on the road.