Dawkin's response to Stein's twisting of his comments in the 'Expelled' 
movie:

<< If we were visited by aliens from a distant planet, would we fall on our 
knees and worship them as gods? The difficulty of getting here from even our 
nearest neighbor, the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, constitutes a filter 
through which only beings with a technology so advanced as to be god-like 
(from our point of view) could pass. The capabilities and powers of our 
interstellar visitors would seem more magical to us than all the miracles of 
all the gods that have ever been imagined by priests or theologians, mullahs 
or rabbis, shamans or witch doctors.

Arthur C. Clarke, who died last month, said, "Any sufficiently advanced 
technology is indistinguishable from magic." If we could land a jumbo jet 
beside a medieval village, would we not be worshiped as gods? The technology 
of interstellar travel, and the scientific knowledge on which it would be 
based, are as far beyond us as our present-day knowledge surpasses that of 
Dark Age peasants. Parting the Red Sea -- or splitting the moon in two as 
Muhammad is alleged to have done -- would be child's play to those who 
command forces powerful enough to propel them from star to star.

But now the question arises: In what sense would the god-like aliens not be 
gods? Answer: In a very important sense. To deserve the name of God, a being 
would have to have designed more than just a jumbo jet or even a starship. 
He would have to have designed the universe. And therein lies a fundamental 
contradiction. Entities capable of designing anything, whether they be human 
engineers or interstellar aliens, must be complex -- and therefore, 
statistically improbable. And statistically improbable things don't just 
happen spontaneously by chance without an explanation trail. That is what 
"improbable" means, as creationists never tire of assuring us (they wrongly 
think Darwinian natural selection is a matter of chance).

In fact, natural selection is the very opposite of a chance process, and it 
is the only ultimate explanation we know for complex, improbable things. 
Even if our species was created by space alien designers, those designers 
themselves would have to have arisen from simpler antecedents -- so they 
can't be an ultimate explanation for anything. No matter how god-like our 
interstellar aliens may be, and no matter how vast and wonderful their 
starships, they cannot have designed the universe because, like human 
engineers and all complex things, they are late arrivals in it.

Intelligent design "theorists" (a misnomer, for they have no theory) often 
use the alien scenario to distance themselves from old-style creationists: 
"For all we know, the designer might be an alien from outer space." This 
attempt to fend off accusations of unconstitutionally importing religion 
into science classes is lame and disingenuous. All the leading intelligent 
design spokesmen are devout, and, when talking to the faithful, they drop 
the science-fiction fig leaf and expose themselves as the fundamentalist 
creationists they truly are.

Nevertheless, despite their notorious dishonesty, I sometimes hand an olive 
branch to these people by pretending to take their "space aliens" political 
ploy seriously. Unrealistic as the space alien theory is, it constitutes 
intelligent design's best shot.

The distinguished molecular biologists Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel 
advanced a version of the notion, probably tongue in cheek, called "Directed 
Panspermia." Life, they argued, could have been "seeded" on the early Earth 
by a spacecraft packed with bacteria. Maybe little cellular machines like 
the bacterial flagellar motor were designed by ingenious nano-technologists 
from Betelgeuse. But you still have to explain the prior existence of the 
Betelgeusians and how they became so advanced and god-like. Even if 
Betelgeusian life was, in turn, seeded by another rocket from Aldebaran 4 
billion years earlier, eventually we have to terminate the regress.

We need a better explanation, such as evolution by natural selection or an 
equally workable account of the painstaking R&D that must underlie complex, 
statistically improbable things. Gods, if they are complex enough to be 
capable of designing anything, are, by virtue of their very complexity, not 
in a position to design themselves.

Theologians attempt two (mutually incompatible and pathetically inadequate) 
answers to this unanswerable point. Some say their God is not complex but 
simple. This obviously won't wash. No simple god could design bacterial 
flagellar motors or universes, let alone forgive sins or impregnate virgins. 
Presumably recognizing the justice of that, other theologians go to the 
opposite extreme. They admit that their god is complex but assert that he 
had no beginning: He was always there and always complex. But if you are 
going to resort to that facile cop-out, you might as well say flagellar 
motors were always there. You cannot have it both ways. Visitations from 
distant star systems are improbable enough to attract ridicule, not least 
from the advocates of intelligent design themselves. A creator god who had 
always existed would be far more improbable still.

This technique of arguing against a theory by setting up its most plausible 
version and dismissing it is commonly used in science and philosophy. The 
late, great evolutionist John Maynard Smith used it in his 1964 attack on 
the then-popular theory of "group selection." He set himself the task of 
devising the best possible argument for group selection. The details don't 
matter; he called it the Haystack Model. He then proceeded to show that the 
assumptions that the Haystack Model needed to make were highly unrealistic.

Everybody understood that this was an argument against group selection. 
Nobody twisted it to trumpet to the world, "See? Maynard Smith believes in 
Group Selection after all, and he thinks it happens in Haystacks, ho ho ho!" 
Creationists, by contrast, never miss a trick. When I have raised the 
science-fiction olive branch to try to argue against them, they have twisted 
it -- most recently in a movie scheduled to open this week -- in order to 
proclaim loudly, "Dawkins believes in intelligent design after all." Or 
"Dawkins believes in little green men in flying saucers." Or "Dawkins is a 
Raelian." It's called "lying for Jesus," and they are completely shameless. 
 >>

On Apr 23, 11:23 pm, "PG"  wrote:
> Dawkin's response to Stein's twisting of his comments in the 'Expelled'
> movie:
>
> << If we were visited by aliens from a distant planet, would we fall on our
> knees and worship them as gods? The difficulty of getting here from even our
> nearest neighbor, the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, constitutes a filter
> through which only beings with a technology so advanced as to be god-like
> (from our point of view) could pass. The capabilities and powers of our
> interstellar visitors would seem more magical to us than all the miracles of
> all the gods that have ever been imagined by priests or theologians, mullahs
> or rabbis, shamans or witch doctors.
>
> Arthur C. Clarke, who died last month, said, "Any sufficiently advanced
> technology is indistinguishable from magic." If we could land a jumbo jet
> beside a medieval village, would we not be worshiped as gods? The technology
> of interstellar travel, and the scientific knowledge on which it would be
> based, are as far beyond us as our present-day knowledge surpasses that of> Dark Age peasants. Parting the Red Sea -- or splitting the moon in two as
> Muhammad is alleged to have done -- would be child's play to those who
> command forces powerful enough to propel them from star to star.
>
> But now the question arises: In what sense would the god-like aliens not be
> gods? Answer: In a very important sense. To deserve the name of God, a being
> would have to have designed more than just a jumbo jet or even a starship.> He would have to have designed the universe. And therein lies a fundamental
> contradiction. Entities capable of designing anything, whether they be human
> engineers or interstellar aliens, must be complex -- and therefore,
> statistically improbable. And statistically improbable things don't just
> happen spontaneously by chance without an explanation trail. That is what
> "improbable" means, as creationists never tire of assuring us (they wrongly
> think Darwinian natural selection is a matter of chance).
>
> In fact, natural selection is the very opposite of a chance process, and it
> is the only ultimate explanation we know for complex, improbable things.
> Even if our species was created by space alien designers, those designers
> themselves would have to have arisen from simpler antecedents -- so they
> can't be an ultimate explanation for anything. No matter how god-like our
> interstellar aliens may be, and no matter how vast and wonderful their
> starships, they cannot have designed the universe because, like human
> engineers and all complex things, they are late arrivals in it.
>
> Intelligent design "theorists" (a misnomer, for they have no theory) often> use the alien scenario to distance themselves from old-style creationists:> "For all we know, the designer might be an alien from outer space." This
> attempt to fend off accusations of unconstitutionally importing religion
> into science classes is lame and disingenuous. All the leading intelligent> design spokesmen are devout, and, when talking to the faithful, they drop
> the science-fiction fig leaf and expose themselves as the fundamentalist
> creationists they truly are.
>
> Nevertheless, despite their notorious dishonesty, I sometimes hand an olive
> branch to these people by pretending to take their "space aliens" political
> ploy seriously. Unrealistic as the space alien theory is, it constitutes
> intelligent design's best shot.
>
> The distinguished molecular biologists Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel
> advanced a version of the notion, probably tongue in cheek, called "Directed
> Panspermia." Life, they argued, could have been "seeded" on the early Earth
> by a spacecraft packed with bacteria. Maybe little cellular machines like
> the bacterial flagellar motor were designed by ingenious nano-technologists
> from Betelgeuse. But you still have to explain the prior existence of the
> Betelgeusians and how they became so advanced and god-like. Even if
> Betelgeusian life was, in turn, seeded by another rocket from Aldebaran 4
> billion years earlier, eventually we have to terminate the regress.
>
> We need a better explanation, such as evolution by natural selection or an> equally workable account of the painstaking R&D that must underlie complex> statistically improbable things. Gods, if they are complex enough to be
> capable of designing anything, are, by virtue of their very complexity, not
> in a position to design themselves.
>
> Theologians attempt two (mutually incompatible and pathetically inadequate> answers to this unanswerable point. Some say their God is not complex but
> simple. This obviously won't wash. No simple god could design bacterial
> flagellar motors or universes, let alone forgive sins or impregnate virgins.
> Presumably recognizing the justice of that, other theologians go to the
> opposite extreme. They admit that their god is complex but assert that he
> had no beginning: He was always there and always complex. But if you are
> going to resort to that facile cop-out, you might as well say flagellar
> motors were always there. You cannot have it both ways. Visitations from
> distant star systems are improbable enough to attract ridicule, not least
> from the advocates of intelligent design themselves. A creator god who had> always existed would be far more improbable still.
>
> This technique of arguing against a theory by setting up its most plausible
> version and dismissing it is commonly used in science and philosophy. The
> late, great evolutionist John Maynard Smith used it in his 1964 attack on
> the then-popular theory of "group selection." He set himself the task of
> devising the best possible argument for group selection. The details don't> matter; he called it the Haystack Model. He then proceeded to show that the
> assumptions that the Haystack Model needed to make were highly unrealistic> Everybody understood that this was an argument against group selection.
> Nobody twisted it to trumpet to the world, "See? Maynard Smith believes in> Group Selection after all, and he thinks it happens in Haystacks, ho ho ho> Creationists, by contrast, never miss a trick. When I have raised the
> science-fiction olive branch to try to argue against them, they have twisted
> it -- most recently in a movie scheduled to open this week -- in order to
> proclaim loudly, "Dawkins believes in intelligent design after all." Or
> "Dawkins believes in little green men in flying saucers." Or "Dawkins is a> Raelian." It's called "lying for Jesus," and they are completely shameless>  >>

The logic of which will fly right over the head of the typical
AmeriKKKan Fundy Fuckwit

'In fact, natural selection is the very opposite of a chance process,
and it is the only ultimate explanation we know for complex, improbable
things. '

REPLY:  If its 'the opposite of chance processes'  , then its willfully
guided from an intelligent source...and that implies a Creator.
According to Darwinnian Evolution,  there is NO intelligence involved  ;
yet a process going from less complex to greater complexity  goes
strictly against the established second law of thermdynamics which
EVERYTHING is subject to in the Universe.   Dawkins knows this which is
why he like atheist cofounder of the DNA structure, Dr. Crick, pretends
aliens brought first life to earth.  

The desperations of the Atheism Faith -- (smokescreens to afford maximum
lifestyle liberation).

The message <48102776$0$904$ba4acef3@news.orange.fr>
from "PG"  contains these words:

> When I have raised the 
> science-fiction olive branch to try to argue against them, they have
> twisted 
> it -- most recently in a movie scheduled to open this week -- in order to 
> proclaim loudly, "Dawkins believes in intelligent design after all." Or 
> "Dawkins believes in little green men in flying saucers." Or "Dawkins is a 
> Raelian." It's called "lying for Jesus," and they are completely shameless. 

I see the idiot has found another load of rubbish from Coral Ridge
Ministries.  

New York, NY, August 22, 2006 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today
blasted a television documentary produced by Christian broadcaster Dr.
D. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries that attempts to link Charles
Darwin's theory of evolution to Adolf Hitler and the atrocities of the
Holocaust. ADL also denounced Coral Ridge Ministries for misleading Dr.
Francis Collins, the director of the National Human Genome Research
Institute for the NIH, and wrongfully using him as part of its twisted
documentary, "Darwin's Deadly Legacy."

After being contacted by the ADL about his name being used to promote
Kennedy's project, Dr. Collins said he is "absolutely appalled by what
Coral Ridge Ministries is doing. I had NO knowledge that Coral Ridge
Ministries was planning a TV special on Darwin and Hitler, and I find
the thesis of Dr. Kennedy's program utterly misguided and inflammatory,"
he told ADL.

ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman said in a statement:"This is an
outrageous and shoddy attempt by D. James Kennedy to trivialize the
horrors of the Holocaust. Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his
heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people. Trivializing the
Holocaust comes from either ignorance at best or, at worst, a mendacious
attempt to score political points in the culture war on the backs of six
million Jewish victims and others who died at the hands of the Nazis.

"It must be remembered that D. James Kennedy is a leader among the
distinct group of 'Christian Supremacists' who seek to "reclaim America
for Christ" and turn the U.S. into a Christian nation guided by their
strange notions of biblical law."

It is, of course utter nonsense as Germany's anti Semitism long predates
Darwin and nothing Darwin wrote has any connection whatsoever with the
Holocaust.

That they should try to peddle such rubbish shows how corrupt and
dishonest are these liars for Jesus but after our experience of them
here it is not exactly a surprise!

-- 
********
David WG
********

On Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:20:06 +0100, David Wynne-Griffiths
 wrote:

>The message <48102776$0$904$ba4acef3@news.orange.fr>
>from "PG"  contains these words:
>
>> When I have raised the 
>> science-fiction olive branch to try to argue against them, they have
>> twisted 
>> it -- most recently in a movie scheduled to open this week -- in order to 
>> proclaim loudly, "Dawkins believes in intelligent design after all." Or 
>> "Dawkins believes in little green men in flying saucers." Or "Dawkins is a 
>> Raelian." It's called "lying for Jesus," and they are completely shameless. 
>
>I see the idiot has found another load of rubbish from Coral Ridge
>Ministries.  
>
>New York, NY, August 22, 2006 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today
>blasted a television documentary produced by Christian broadcaster Dr.
>D. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries that attempts to link Charles
>Darwin's theory of evolution to Adolf Hitler and the atrocities of the
>Holocaust. ADL also denounced Coral Ridge Ministries for misleading Dr.
>Francis Collins, the director of the National Human Genome Research
>Institute for the NIH, and wrongfully using him as part of its twisted
>documentary, "Darwin's Deadly Legacy."

Kennedy is a psychopath. You just have to listen to his ranting
attacks.

In this case he is in denial about nearly two millennia of Christian
anti-Semitism ordered by both Protestant and Catholic church fathers
who describes what Hitler actually did.

Dave in Lake Villa wrote:
> 'In fact, natural selection is the very opposite of a chance process,
> and it is the only ultimate explanation we know for complex,
> improbable things. '
>
> REPLY:  If its 'the opposite of chance processes'  , then its
> willfully guided from an intelligent source...and that implies a
> Creator. According to Darwinnian Evolution,  there is NO intelligence
> involved  ; yet a process going from less complex to greater
> complexity  goes strictly against the established second law of
> thermdynamics which EVERYTHING is subject to in the Universe.
> Dawkins knows this which is why he like atheist cofounder of the DNA
> structure, Dr. Crick, pretends aliens brought first life to earth.
>
> The desperations of the Atheism Faith -- (smokescreens to afford
> maximum lifestyle liberation).

I'm going against the grain this once and replying to you Dimwit: I'm going 
to ask you some questions: If you don't answer them or avoid the issue in 
your reply it proves that you either can't answer them or won't. If this 
should be the case then you will be agreeing that you have nothing to bring 
to this group and therefore quit posting here forthwith and forever.

So talking about smokescreens; I'd like to ask you to quote in full the 
Second Law of Thermodynamics without omission.

Secondly; since you believe that humans were created by an all-powerful 
superintelligent omnipresent god; then since everything, according to you, 
is created; why don't you worship his creator?

Your answer to the first question must be totally correct in every way order 
to carry any credibility for yourself and your posts. It will help if you 
could expand upon the subject with a factual explanation of the principle.

Your answer to the second question can be of whatever nature you wish, on 
the proviso that every statement, quotation, and opinion, is backed up by 
solid undeniable fact(s): No airy-fairy bullshit imaginings, just facts, 
truth, (I know that may be difficult.) and reality.

-- 
http://www.kustomkomputa.co.uk
- Personalised Desktop Computers

"Dr.Hal0nf1r£$" <femail@nospam.kustomkomputa.co.uk.invalid> wrote
Dave the idiot wrote
>> Dawkins knows this which is why he like atheist cofounder of the DNA
>> structure, Dr. Crick, pretends aliens brought first life to earth.
>>
>> The desperations of the Atheism Faith -- (smokescreens to afford
>> maximum lifestyle liberation).
>
> I'm going against the grain this once and replying to you Dimwit: I'm 
> going to ask you some questions:

It really is a waste of time. Dave has such a lack of understanding that he 
continues to call Francis Crick a co-founder of DNA. If that were true then 
maybe it is he we should be worshipping !

Natural selection, Dave, is the substitute for intelligence. Natural 
selection does the 'picking and choosing' which means an intelligence isn't 
required. Natural selection, because it 'selects' the survivors means it 
isn't down to chance alone. The survivors genes get passed on. Success gets 
passed down the line so the next generation may be better able to survive.

Steve M

"Christopher A. Lee"  wrote

> Kennedy is a psychopath. You just have to listen to his ranting
> attacks.

Not really.  (He died last year. )

It doesn't surprise me there are such nuts in the world. What surprises me 
is the number of people that follow these dreadful 'leaders'.

Steve M

The message 
from "Steve Marshall"  contains these words:

> Natural selection, Dave, is the substitute for intelligence. Natural 
> selection does the 'picking and choosing' which means an intelligence isn't 
> required. Natural selection, because it 'selects' the survivors means it 
> isn't down to chance alone. The survivors genes get passed on. Success gets 
> passed down the line so the next generation may be better able to survive.

I think the idea is well beyond his comprehension.  He prefers his
imaginary goddidit.   The personal, intelligent or theistic creator is
supposed to be the explanation despite a total lack of any evidence for
the existence of such a magical being.  The constant references to Jesus
are signs of the extreme paranoia.  The poor chap probably never existed
and the fairy stories in the gospels written up to a century later are
almost entirely bogus. 
-- 
********
David WG
********