Jayjay4547 wrote:
Nope, I’m arguing that the understanding and presentation of evolution has been influenced and damaged by atheist ideology.

Got any evidence for this claim above? Because so far the extent of your "evidence" for this, appears to be anyone who disagrees with your hypothesis. Despite the fact that your hypothesis appears to be born out of a considerable degree of ignorance about the natural world an alarming tendancy to "make stuff up" rather than try to understand the avaliable evidence.

You're driven by an ideology of trying to project your beliefs onto evolution to create a story which fits with your worldview. As opposed to the rest of us simply trying to explain to you what the evidence says.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
The full horror of Nazism was played out against the Jews but the Nazis acted with amoral brutality almost wherever they set foot, which was over most of Europe. The Christian virtues of gentleness and mercy had no role in their polity. They considered themselves as the New Men, freed from the moral halters of superstitious Jew-instigated religion. This wasn’t something that happened 500 years ago but within the lifetimes of people still living today.

It's hard to read jayjay's post because its unsupported speculation strongly laced with ideology.
Is jayjay really trying to make the claim that because Hitler acted unchristian-like and suppressed churches that he is therefore an atheist?
Is that the crux of his whole atheist ideology slander against science, that it doesn't take into consideration divine intervention therefore science has a bias?

ElDiablo wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:
The full horror of Nazism was played out against the Jews but the Nazis acted with amoral brutality almost wherever they set foot, which was over most of Europe. The Christian virtues of gentleness and mercy had no role in their polity. They considered themselves as the New Men, freed from the moral halters of superstitious Jew-instigated religion. This wasn’t something that happened 500 years ago but within the lifetimes of people still living today.

It's hard to read jayjay's post because its unsupported speculation strongly laced with ideology.
Is jayjay really trying to make the claim that because Hitler acted unchristian-like and suppressed churches that he is therefore an atheist?
Is that the crux of his whole atheist ideology slander against science, that it doesn't take into consideration divine intervention therefore science has a bias?

The Nazis tried to create a form of Christianity called "positive Christianity" [Positives Christentum]. A form of Christianity which separates Jesus from his Jewsih bakground (rejecting the Old Testanment) and tries to cast him as an Aryan man fighting the Jews.
Yes, they tried to suppress other forms of Christianity which didn't comply with this view, but that doesn't mean they were atheists. Far from it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity

Alfred Rosenberg, editor of Völkischer Beobachter, wrote The Myth of the Twentieth Century, in which he argued that the Catholic and Protestant churches had distorted Christianity in such a way that the "heroic" and "Germanic" aspects of Jesus's life had been ignored. For Rosenberg, positive Christianity was a transitional ideology that would pave the way to build a new fully racialist faith. Instead of the cross, its symbol was the orb of the sun in the form of a sun cross and in principle it was the elevation of the Nordic race, a rejection of divine revelation, and the promotion of a German god. For Rosenberg the Aryan-Nordic race was divine, and god was in the blood and its culture was the kingdom of heaven, in contrast the Jewish race was evil and it was a satanic counter race against the divine Aryan-Nordic race. Adolf Hitler approved of the work, but distanced himself from Rosenberg's more radical ideas, wishing to retain the support of the conservative Christian electorate and social elite, but he emphasized the desirability of positive Christianity.

I've already mentioned this a couple of pages back. It is very difficult to argue the Nazis were atheists.

Animavore wrote: It is very difficult to argue the Nazis were atheists.

Not for JayJay though! He can ignore the fuck out of whatever you said, because it conflicts with the worldview he's constructed for himself.

He can ignore it all he wants, but the Nazis had all types of weird, mystical beliefs. They thought that the Aryans came from Atlantis from where they spread out into India and Persia and created Vedic Hinduism and Zorastrianism. They were supposedly 'pure' and 'untainted' by the blood of sub-human, inferior races. This is all religious language. What the fuck does 'purity' even mean to an atheist?
Sure they tried to use some "racial science" to back up their beliefs, but let's face it, "racial science" is as shaky as "creation science" in that it puts its conclusions before the inquiry and ignores anything that contradicts it. The certainly didn't use any actual science and their science was not corrupted by atheism. Quite the opposite.

Animavore wrote:...What the fuck does 'purity' even mean to an atheist?
...

Inbreeding?

We can talk about pure water as being water which is 100% H2O, but to talk about 'pure blood' in the sense that a person is supposedly 100% white and of European origin, or whatever race you choose, makes no sense to anyone who understands evolution.
'Blood' in this context is used in a completely metaphysical way. Sometimes we talk about people having 'blue' or 'royal' blood if they are decendants of a Royal family, as if 'regality' were a property of the blood, and this blood somehow separates them from those with 'common' blood. Of course the blood is more or less the same and is most likely going to be one of the six main blood groups. You're not going to find any physical difference.
Same with the idea of white purity. It's as if they believed that 'whiteness' was something that had holy properties which could be desecrated by outside influence. The whole thing smacks of magical thinking. It's no different to the belief that we can carry sins of our fathers, or a curse of Adam, within our blood, as if these things have a life of their own that haunts our haemoglobin.

Animavore wrote:

ElDiablo wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:
The full horror of Nazism was played out against the Jews but the Nazis acted with amoral brutality almost wherever they set foot, which was over most of Europe. The Christian virtues of gentleness and mercy had no role in their polity. They considered themselves as the New Men, freed from the moral halters of superstitious Jew-instigated religion. This wasn’t something that happened 500 years ago but within the lifetimes of people still living today.

It's hard to read jayjay's post because its unsupported speculation strongly laced with ideology.
Is jayjay really trying to make the claim that because Hitler acted unchristian-like and suppressed churches that he is therefore an atheist?
Is that the crux of his whole atheist ideology slander against science, that it doesn't take into consideration divine intervention therefore science has a bias?

The Nazis tried to create a form of Christianity called "positive Christianity" [Positives Christentum]. A form of Christianity which separates Jesus from his Jewsih bakground (rejecting the Old Testanment) and tries to cast him as an Aryan man fighting the Jews.
Yes, they tried to suppress other forms of Christianity which didn't comply with this view, but that doesn't mean they were atheists. Far from it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity

Alfred Rosenberg, editor of Völkischer Beobachter, wrote The Myth of the Twentieth Century, in which he argued that the Catholic and Protestant churches had distorted Christianity in such a way that the "heroic" and "Germanic" aspects of Jesus's life had been ignored. For Rosenberg, positive Christianity was a transitional ideology that would pave the way to build a new fully racialist faith. Instead of the cross, its symbol was the orb of the sun in the form of a sun cross and in principle it was the elevation of the Nordic race, a rejection of divine revelation, and the promotion of a German god. For Rosenberg the Aryan-Nordic race was divine, and god was in the blood and its culture was the kingdom of heaven, in contrast the Jewish race was evil and it was a satanic counter race against the divine Aryan-Nordic race. Adolf Hitler approved of the work, but distanced himself from Rosenberg's more radical ideas, wishing to retain the support of the conservative Christian electorate and social elite, but he emphasized the desirability of positive Christianity.

I've already mentioned this a couple of pages back. It is very difficult to argue the Nazis were atheists.

Thanks.

So much shit, so little time, as I'm currently in the middle of some heavy lifting at work. But I'll take a look at some of this before I go to bed ...

Jayjay4547 wrote:“odour of discoursive duplicity and criminality that makes numerous organoselenium compounds seem florally fragrant by comparison.” It’s fair to call that frustrated spluttering.

Bollocks. It's invective. Usually deployed to indicate displeasure, not frustration. Do learn the elementary concepts here.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Strange that you seem proud of it.

Why shouldn't I be proud of being able to hand-craft invective of this sort? After all, it takes rather more effort than "fuck you", which is what you'd receive at certain other forums I can think of.

Jayjay4547 wrote:That must be learned. Posters at Richard Dawkins.Net and now here have mutually groomed each other into treating spluttering as admirable.

Keep telling yourself these fantasies, JayJay, because you're the only one who thinks they're anything other than fantasies. Once again, your bullshit about "atheist ideology" has been subjected to so many discoursive carpet bombings, and demonstrated so many times to be bullshit and lies, that the only answer you have left to try and distract from said exposure of your bullshit and lies, is to make up fantasies about post style, then use said fantasies to indulge in some amateur armchair Freudian analysis. It's so transparently obvious what you're doing here, that the regulars can see it coming from several light years away. And like the rest of your diaphanous fabrications, it doesn't work on those of us who paid attention in class.

Jayjay4547 wrote:But like I said, if any outsiders do happen to come along, you won’t look so good to them.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Please, this is so amusing, JayJay, the idea that my pointing out your manifest bullshit and lies somehow makes me look bad. But then most people will come here and look at the substance being offered, JayJay, and won't worry too much about style. Substance that your posts manifestly lack.

Jayjay4547 wrote:You can change and the quality of argument here would improve if you did.

Matthew 7:5, anyone? I'm not the one peddling repeatedly destroyed bullshit and lies as fact, JayJay, and if you were really concerned about the state of discourse here, you'd address that gigantic deficiency in your own discoursive offerings, instead of bleating about the manner in which that deficiency is subject to the spotlight. But then I've noticed this about creationists, the manner in which they engage in entirely synthetic affectations of prurient offence, whenever someone decides to give their lies and bullshit the treatment said lies and bullshit deserve, trying to claim that the style chosen for this somehow negates the substance. Except that, oh wait, it doesn't. The substance remains valid regardless of the chosen mode of expression thereof. I could post my post in fucking Klingon, and it would still be superior to yours in this respect.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:There’s always a possibility that some members of the English intellectual elite might come here and whatever they think of my mangled sentences they won’t be impressed by your claim of almost papal authority for science.

Ah, more caricature. Quelle fucking surprise.

The mere fact that you describe allowing data to shape ideas as "Papal authority" speaks volumes about your own presuppositions here, JayJay. But that's the whole point - discarding ideas when the data says it's time for them to go, is the very antithesis of the sort of assertionist authority you're caricaturing science as with the above fatuous drivel. But I've long since ceased to be surprised at the manner in which supernaturalists resort to caricature of this sort.

Once again, what part of "the data shapes ideas in science, not unsupported assertions peddled as purportedly constituting fact", do you not understand?

It’s true that data is used to support ideas in science as in History but historians appreciate that alternative narratives can be constructed by highlighting different data

Well the problem here is that you're once again comparing apples to kiwi fruit. This is because, wait for it, photons, rocks, molecules, etc., are not sentient. As a corollary, they tend not to peddle lies. On the other hand, the output of humans, these being sentient entities, can frequently be duplicitous, your apologetics being a case in point, and one of the factors historians have to take into account, is that the humans they're studying as responsible for various historical events, might have been, shall we say, economical with the truth when it comes to reporting the thoughts driving their actions. This is why, JayJay, historians seek independent corroboration where possible, before advancing a hypothesis about the mindset of the various players, a lesson they've learned from scientists.

Jayjay4547 wrote:and that motivations at the social level guide that choice.

Except that, oh wait, you've been told repeatedly that the motivation of scientists is to find out what the data is telling them. So you can drop the attempt to sneak your "atheist ideology" bullshit into the arena via the back door you're manifestly launching here.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Those motivations can derive from ideologies, for example atheism.

Bullshit. Once again, JayJay, and I'll post this in FUCKING HUGE LETTERS so you can't claim you haven't been adequately schooled on this ...

NOT TREATING UNSUPPORTED ASSERTIONS AS FACT IS ***NOT*** A FUCKING "IDEOLOGY", IT'S THE VERY ANTITHESIS THEREOF.

You've been told this so often, JayJay, that your above sentence is merely another instance of rampant and egregious discoursive duplicity on your part. Now fucking drop this bullshit and manifest lie once and for all.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:Those guys aren’t in your pocket Cali.

They're not in yours either. Moreover, they'll almost certainly point and laugh at your above caricature if they happen to know how science actually works, as opposed to the caricature thereof you repeatedly peddle here.

That notion of “pointing and laughing” is used often here, it brings up an image of a jeering crowd which is your crowd; you-all act like a jeering crowd.

Oh, haven't you heard what Carl Sagan had to say on this matter? You know, a world famous scientist with over six hundred peer reviewed papers to his name, and who was therefore eminently qualfied to utter this statement? Here's what he said on the subject of dealing with bullshit:

"The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.[/quote]

You have three guesses which of the above four choices is considered the most apposite in relation to your posts.

Jayjay4547 wrote:But the danger you face is that an outsider will not join the jeering, but be put off.

Not if he's read Carl Sagan he won't, he'll understand exactly where I'm coming from, especially when he sees how many times you've peddled your "atheist ideology" lies and bullshit, after you've been thoroughly schooled on the matter. It's the fact that you have been schooled on the facts here over and over again, JayJay, that makes your continued peddling of this fabrication of yours suppuratingly dishonest. No matter how much you resort to yet more apologetic fabrications to try and polish this discoursive turd of yours, it ain't gonna shine.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:The bias that I claim so see in the established human origin narrative is no more radical than they have been educated to accept in the respected discipline of History.

Pull the other one, JayJay, it's got fucking bells on. You're erecting your caricatures for one purpose and one purpose only, as I described above, namely, to try and erect a fake "symmetry" between evidence-based science and assertion-laden doctrine, for the purpose of dismissing any evidence that happens not to genuflect before your ideological presuppositions. It's a supernaturalist tactic that's been deployed so often here, JayJay, and not just by you, that it's transparently obvious to the point of having no refractive index. Your entire "atheist ideology" bullshit is erected for this specific purpose, just as it's erected for the same purpose by every other creationist who peddles it. No one who paid attention in science class is fooled by this discoursive elision.

Nope, I’m arguing that the understanding and presentation of evolution has been influenced and damaged by atheist ideology.

Bullshit and lies once again, JayJay, and every time you peddle this bullshit and lies, I will call you out on this bullshit and lies. Because yoru "atheist ideology" fabrication IS a manifest fabrication, and yo've been told repeatedly WHY it's a manifest fabrication. Once again, JayJay, sit down and take your schooling as I repeat the FACTS applicable here:

FACT NO. 1: Evolutionary biologists have arrived at their current view of the biosphere because THE DATA TELLS THEM THAT THIS VIEW IS IN ACCORD THEREWITH.

FACT NO. 2: Atheism, in its rigorous formulation, consists of a refusal to accept uncritically unsupported supernaturalist assertions. That is IT. In short, it consists of "YOU assert that your magic man exists, YOU support your assertions". Asking someone else to support their assertions is NOT an "ideology", it's the proper conduct of discourse.

FACT NO. 3: Since genuine ideologies are all based upon unsupported assertions peddled as purportedly constituting fact, and atheism as constituted above presents no assertions of its own, but instead consists of a suspicion of the assertions of others, your "atheist ideology" fabrication is precisely that: a fabrication.

If you repeat your "atheist ideology" bullshit and lies after this piece of schooling, JayJay, then it won't be my posting style that will attract attention, it will be your manifest, egregious and rampant discoursive duplicity. It's so fucking rich seeing you posturing as being in a position to tell me to clean up my discoursive act here, JayJay, whilst engaging in a level of abuse of discourse that would make Yuri Andropov blanch. I'll give you three guesses what I think of your posturing here, as well as the lies and bullshit you keep peddling repeatedly whilst engaging in said posturing. Matthew 7:5 once again springs to mind here.

Jayjay4547 wrote:That influence

Is a figment of your imagination. See above.

Jayjay4547 wrote:has been greatest in the human origin narrative, where that presentation is a fuck up, built by air-brushing out fossil evidence of the australopiths, specifically, their eye teeth.

Bullshit and lies again, JayJay. The only one doing the airbrushing out of evidence here is you, and this has been demonstrated repeatedly.

Jayjay4547 wrote: Considered together with the rest of their physiology, their predators, alternative prey and the distinctive abilities of their descendants.

Oh you mean the way that the authors of that paper did, despite your attempt to peddle the manifest lie that they didn't? In a paper that includes far more data than you've ever presented?

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:Though the natural history bias I’m claiming is particularly interesting.

Only a creationist could possibly describe paying attention to the real world evidence as "natural history bias". Congratulations on exposing your own manifest ideological presuppositions once more, JayJay.

To even propose a bias is to be ipso facto wrong?

Oh look, it's that other favourite creationist tactic, the putting of words into the mouth of an opponent, that said opponent never uttered.

What counts here, JayJay, is whether the FACTS point to any bias. When the facts DON'T point to any bias, it's perfectly legitimate to dismiss assertions to the contrary. Learn this sometime.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Only in the mind of someone blinded by the assumption of the rightness of “science”

Yawn, yawn, fucking yawn. Your sad attempt to emulate my discoursive style, when it suits your apologetic convenience in the hope of scoring some cheap points, is not only sad, but in the light of your above whingeing about that style when it also happens to be apologetically convenient, duplicitous.

I don't bother with "assumptions", JayJay, I leave those to mythology fetishists. Plus, scientists have provided evidence to support their hypotheses by the supertanker load, whilst you have merely provided fabrications accompanied by manifest cherry-picking. Guess who I'm going to pay more attention to, given a choice here?

Right, that should do before I hop into bed. Only I've an early start tomorrow, and a lot of paperwork to wade through, so I suspect many here will forgive my truncating my post at this point. The above should be enough, in any case, to destroy the specious fulcrum upon which your entire apologetics rests, and many will therefore consider this post a sufficiently executed one.

Oh, and here's another Carl Sagan quote for you to learn JayJay:

Carl Sagan wrote:In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

Indeed, Richard Dawkins has a nice little anecdote that illustrates this difference eloquently, courtesy of page 29 of my electronic copy of Unweaving The Rainbow, viz (emphases mine):

Konrad Lorenz, father of ethology, characteristically exaggerated when he said he looked forward to disproving at least one pet hypothesis daily, before breakfast. But it is true that scientists, more than, say, lawyers, doctors or politicians, gain prestige among their peers by publicly admitting their mistakes. One of the formative experiences of my Oxford undergraduate years occurred when a visiting lecturer from America presented evidence that conclusively disproved the pet theory of a deeply respected elder statesman of our zoology department, the theory that we had all been brought up on. At the end of the lecture, the old man rose, strode to the front of the hall, shook the American warmly by the hand and declared, in ringing emotional tones, 'My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years.' We clapped our hands red. Is any other profession so generous towards its admitted mistakes?

This is something you will never see happen in the world of supernaturalist apologetics.

Sendraks wrote:

I will respond to a few points though, just to further demonstrate the levels of ignorance on JayJay's part.

Well let’s see how you go then.

Sendraks wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:You don’t explain why the variety of predation threats the australopiths faced should be irrelevant.

Because density matters more than variety, when we're discussing the density of the predators most like to predate on australopiths to which your stick hypothesis applies.

I don’t like to call it a hypothesis, it’s an inference drawn from the morphology of the australopiths- including their eyeteeth but also their bipedalism arched feet and hands adapted to throw and club, plus the abilities of their sympatric predators, and alternative alternative prey and the skills of their descendants. The inference is that the australopiths defended themselves with objects they carried around continuously. It’s a staringly obvious inference that was actually drawn decades ago, but instantly diverted into the “hunting hypothesis” Now it has been airbrushed out though a focus on social behaviour of modern apes.

There is a strange attractor present when the human origin narrative is drawn and I call it atheist ideology. That ideology can be mapped by looking at the particular bias it has placed on the narrative.

As to your reply it’s unacceptably crude to to claim that variety of predator is irrelevant because “density matters more than variety” Both matter. For example to defend against a leopard at a roosting place at night, an australopith would need good night vision and good co-ordination of defenders. To defend against a pack of hunting dogs in the day they would need also endurance against being harried into exhaustion.

Sendraks wrote:
Unless you're going to give us all a good laugh by claiming a 1.4m high australopith is going to successfully deter a Lion with a stick, anymore than a juvenille impala would deter one?

I don’t know really, but two or three australopiths armed with sticks and stones might well have if they were good enough at it. And all African mammals are good at what they are adapted to do and presumably were so then. An adult primate of 30kg can be assumed to be a lot more dangerous than a juvenile impala if only because generally speaking, primates have an inclination to fight whereas impala are inclined to flee.

Sendraks wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:So here Myers doesn’t claim that the savannah has lower predator density than the forest which is what you claimed, just fewer leopards. The data suggests that the savanna has higher mammal predator biomass than the forest. (32.4 to 95.7 kg/km^2 in savannah, 30kg/km^2 in forest)

A few points here.
1) We are talking about Leopard predation of chimps here, which appears to be our best existing analogue to demonstrate the relationship between australopiths and leopards. So leopard density is key.

Leopard density is significant sure. But suppose it is low in the savanna, leopards still create a burden on savanna baboons in Botswana. Predation by leopards and lions is the primary cause of mortality among juvenile and adult baboons in the Okavango (Busse 1980; Cheney et al. 2004). Predators are known or suspected to be responsible for up to 96% of adult female deaths

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1560071/pdf/rspb20053378.pdf

it is also important whether a primate troop is specifically targeted by a particular habitual predator, as seems to have been the case for a while with Boesch’s chimps in the Tai forest. Judging by the Indian man eaters, such an animal might be 100 times more able to harvest biomass off the troop, besides dramatically inhibiting the troop’s foraging.

The presence of non-habituated predators –( possibly lions) can also restrict foraging. The simplest adequate factoring of predation stress on australopiths should include highly skilled habituated predator, (most likely leopard), large predators to whom they might have reacted by climbing trees (sabretooth s?) - and who could restrict foraging to areas with climbable trees- and smaller predators to whom they had to “often” prove their unsuitability as prey, and to whom they might have become vulnerable in times of stress.

Sendraks wrote:
2) The Ngorongoro Crater park is a singular environment and can not be consider an example of a.n.other savannah environment. I'll leave you to work out what that might be.

No Sendraks, I’ll leave you to work that out with Myers, who gave that figure as one limit of the range of predator biomass on the savanna, in his attempt to get some handle on possible predator biomass in the forest. I also used that value as a limiting one.

You claimed that when hominoids left the forest they entered a “low predator environment” That is complete balderdash as you really should have known. The predator biomass is at least as great in the savanna (as stands to reason from the mammal-edible savanna grass, that is the primary producer). The variety of savannah predators is higher and finally the visibility of prey on the savanna is higher, where sight, sound and smell carries further. I’ve raised these with you before, so far you have ignored it, instead you obdurately continued with the balderdash.

And the whole point of your “low predator environment” balderdash is to take the australopiths out of the trophic pyramid, out of their context embedded in necessities imposed by the African biomes. Well you aren’t alone in that.

Sendraks wrote:
3) The density of predators in the crater is in correlation to the density of prey. And that prey in the crater is predominantly not chimpanzeees.

So what. Three million years ago the crater was already there and doubtless the australopiths traipsed through it.

Sendraks wrote:
and finally.
4) Australopiths could climb trees. Almost certainly better than homo sapiens can.

That’s scarcely the issue, which is, could australopiths climb better than leopards? Because if they couldn’t (and they definitely couldn’t) , then a treed australopith would have been harvested by leopards like apples from a tree. Because australopiths didn’t have fangs to bite with. And they couldn’t climb while holding a stick or a stone or even fight effectively in a tree. And primates as a group don’t allow themselves to be harvested like apples, we are k strategists, our flesh is precious to us and expensive to access.

Jayjay4547 wrote:I don’t like to call it a hypothesis,

I don't give two shits what you like to call it, I'm calling it what it is.

Jayjay4547 wrote:IIt’s a staringly obvious inference that was actually drawn decades ago,

If this were true and there were evidence to back it up, we'd not be having this discussion right now.

Jayjay4547 wrote:There is a strange attractor present when the human origin narrative is drawn and I call it atheist ideology.

This is meaningless wibble.

Jayjay4547 wrote:As to your reply it’s unacceptably crude to to claim that variety of predator is irrelevant because “density matters more than variety” Both matter.

Yes, both matter, but density matters more. Which is what I said. If you're going to quote me, at least demonstrate a modicum of understanding in what I have said.

Jayjay4547 wrote:For example to defend against a leopard at a roosting place at night, an australopith would need good night vision and good co-ordination of defenders. To defend against a pack of hunting dogs in the day they would need also endurance against being harried into exhaustion.

In the case of the Leopard, the australopith could simply choose to be where a Leopard was least likely to be and rely on group numbers to ensure that the majority survived the night.
In the case of the african hunting dog, you got any evidence that they hunt chimps or have ever hunted australopiths?

Jayjay4547 wrote:I don’t know really,

In science country, if you don't know, you leave it at that and go look for evidence.

Jayjay4547 wrote:An adult primate of 30kg can be assumed to be a lot more dangerous than a juvenile impala if only because generally speaking, primates have an inclination to fight whereas impala are inclined to flee.

Speculation. Do you have any evidence to support the aggressive tendencies of Australopiths? Are they closer to common chimps in aggression or bonobos?

Jayjay4547 wrote:Leopard density is significant sure.

That’ll do.

Jayjay4547 wrote: But suppose it is low in the savanna,

We know leopard density is lower on the savannah, no supposing about it.

Jayjay4547 wrote: leopards still create a burden on savanna baboons in Botswana.

I imagine they do. I imagine the burden would be a lot higher if the leopard density matched that found in the jungle.

Jayjay4547 wrote: it is also important whether a primate troop is specifically targeted by a particular habitual predator

Such predators are exceptions and when undertaking a study of animal behaviour and survival strategies, you look at the norms not the exceptions.

Jayjay4547 wrote: No Sendraks, I’ll leave you to work that out with Myers, who gave that figure as one limit of the range of predator biomass on the savanna, in his attempt to get some handle on possible predator biomass in the forest. I also used that value as a limiting one.

Basically you don’t know why the crater is a singular environment. That’s hilarious. I would’ve thought anyone, even someone with little or no knowledge of the natural world, would be able to figure that one out.

Jayjay4547 wrote: You claimed that when hominoids left the forest they entered a “low predator environment” That is complete balderdash as you really should have known.

They did enter a low predator environment. The density of leopard’s is lower. If we’re using the leopard/chimp relationship as our nearest comparator, then moving into an environment where your principle predator is of a lower density is a perfectly valid survival strategy.

Jayjay4547 wrote: The predator biomass is at least as great in the savanna (as stands to reason from the mammal-edible savanna grass, that is the primary producer). The variety of savannah predators is higher and finally the visibility of prey on the savanna is higher, where sight, sound and smell carries further. I’ve raised these with you before, so far you have ignored it, instead you obdurately continued with the balderdash.

I’m not ignoring it as I’ve already explained the survival benefits to australopiths of living on the savannah.
1) they were at least partially bipedal, meaning they could stand up to afford themselves a wider view of the landscape which makes it easier to spot predators. This is something that is not an advantage in the jungle.
2) While not adapted to an aboreal lifestyle, their remains show them to be able climbers and therefore have that option for evading predation by larger felids or canines that were less able tree climbers.
3) The biomass of predators =/= density of predators likely to predate on chimps. The high biomass of predators in the crater is due to the high biomass of prey. The other area of savannah you referenced from the paper had a predator biomass of a whole 2kg greater than the forest. However, that additional 2kg does mean an extra 2kg of predator per km to eat chimpanzees or australopiths.
4) Predator diversity is correlated to prey diversity and the biomass data does not take account the size of the predators involved. It would be foolish to assume that all the predators in the savannah biomass figure would be hunting chimps or australopiths for food.

Jayjay4547 wrote: And the whole point of your “low predator environment” balderdash is to take the australopiths out of the trophic pyramid, out of their context embedded in necessities imposed by the African biomes. Well you aren’t alone in that.

No, in fact my proposals squarely place the australopiths in the tropic pyramid. They’re not an apex predator and as you should know from the pyramid, predator density < prey density. Just because an animal is potentially prey, doesn’t necessarily mean it is a favoured prey species for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with the ability to defend itself.

Jayjay4547 wrote:So what. Three million years ago the crater was already there and doubtless the australopiths traipsed through it.

Which would mean that three millions years ago the population of the crater was predominantly not australopiths.,

Jayjay4547 wrote:That’s scarcely the issue, which is, could australopiths climb better than leopards?

They could certainly climb better than Lions or hyenas, which would be significant advantage in an environment with a lower density of leopards. It wouldn’t help much in the jungle, for all the reasons you post, but in an environment with less leopards it would be a significant survival benefit.
And we are talking about a creature which moved out into the savannah.

Addressing this temporarily ...

Sendraks wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:Nope, I’m arguing that the understanding and presentation of evolution has been influenced and damaged by atheist ideology.

Got any evidence for this claim above?

You expect him to provide something other than the usual supernaturalist blind assertions? Good luck with that, only thus far, the evidence points to this being akin to trying to nail radon gas to the ceiling.

Sendraks wrote:Because so far the extent of your "evidence" for this, appears to be anyone who disagrees with your hypothesis.

Well this is the frequently observed modus operandi of everyone with a fantasy to peddle as purportedly constituting fact, or for that matter a conspiracy theory to sell - the disingenuous and entirely false portrayal of anyone who refuses to genuflect before said fantasy or conspiracy theory, as purportedly being motivated by malice arising from "ideology". It's the routine first resort by pedlars of evidence-free assertions, upon being faced with even the mildest of requests to deliver something other than the usual made up shit. The whole "you refuse to accept my fantasy as fact out of malice" trope, is at bottom nothing more than a gigantic whinge, not to mention a rampant ad hominem, the latter being a second reason why this trope is suppuratingly dishonest, though of course the resurrection thereof, and the peddling thereof as purportedly constituting fact, is rampantly mendacious in the light of the vast body of evidence rendering said trope completely and utterly false.

Sendraks wrote:Despite the fact that your hypothesis appears to be born out of a considerable degree of ignorance about the natural world

Given the manner in which creationist ideology - the REAL ideology at work here - has corrupted, perverted and polluted the South African education system for decades under the Apartheid regime, an unpleasant fact Agrippina alerted me to some time back, this is hardly surprising. It's a bit difficult to develop a proper understanding of the biosphere, if those responsible for teaching you about it are subjecting you to the mushroom theory of personnel management, as part of an ideological agenda imposed from on high by a ruling regime seeking to "legitimise" some fairly nasty policies. If JayJay is old enough for his education to have suffered from this blight, then he's going to have a hard time of it here, upon discovering that the certainties he was spoon-fed back then are actually bullshit and lies. Though I note once again, in a tangential diversion, how creationism and racism have a nasty habit of going hand in hand around the world.

But even if we leave this malaise to one side for a moment, the mere fact that scientists have experimental data in quantity pointing to the falsehood of creationist assertions, should make any honest individual sit up and take notice. If scientists from places as diverse as Sweden, Mexico, Japan and India are all coming to the same conclusions over this, despite having emerged from radically different social and cultural backgrounds - in contrast to the way in which supernaturalists only agree with each other if they come from the same social and cultural backgrounds, and frequently not even then - this should be a huge pointer to the fact that those diverse scientists have all alighted upon something substantive, if they're achieving a global consensus where religion and politics have signally failed to do so (itself a pretty substantial rebuttal to the specious "atheist ideology" fabrication).

The trouble is, having no fallback other than the duplicitous apologetic practices inculcated by that corrupted educational background, if indeed this is the case, JayJay is responding true to type in a way that would doubtless have pleased the über-Afrikaners pushing this drivel, but in doing so, has pointed to a nasty aspect of genuine ideological indoctrination. Namely, that said indoctrination almost always forces one to lie to oneself, let alone others, and this pernicious aspect thereof, is one of the reasons scientists exert so much effort asking themselves if their conclusions are genuinely as robust as they think, in a manner that falsifies at a stroke the duplicitous "atheist ideology" fabrication JayJay continues to peddle.
Quite simply, the manner in which honest admission of error, far from being a vice as it is in religion and politics, is a virtue in science, on its own demolishes this fabrication he keeps resurrecting, let alone the other numerous streams of evidence that have been presented here. The trouble, of course, with the genuine ideological stromtroopers for doctrine, once they've been wound up and let loose on the tracks, is that they fall back on tropes such as this, as a defence against the serious cognitive dissonance issues that arise when reality says "fuck your doctrine and the mangy horse it rode in on".

Indeed, when discussing doctrine centred world views as a class, I've noticed that they all exhibit the same aetiological features, features arising from the treatment of unsupported assertions not merely as fact, but as purportedly constituting prescriptive "axioms", allegedly dictating how reality behaves, regardless of whether or not reality agrees with this. The mere fact that I can dissect that aetiology, and determine quickly how said aetiology inevitably results, in the hands of adherents, of adopting the position "if reality and doctrine differ, reality is wrong and doctrine is right" (and boy, are we seeing this in spades here!), should on its own be a pointer to the falsehood of JayJay's mendacious ideological fabrication. It's a central part of that aetiology, of course, that genuine doctrinal adherents engage in reality-inversion on a grand scale, projecting their own errors and methodological failings onto their opponents, whilst singularly failing to understand how this process is precisely a product thereof, and again, we're not lacking in examples here. The manner in which those peddling an actual ideology, are quick to accuse others of a symmetric yet rival agenda, is a product not merely of a specific ideology, but of the whole process of ideology itself, in which "sacred" assertions purportedly constituing "axioms" are to be defended against even the most causal of scrutiny at all cost, and falsifying data dismissed through assertions that said data is "ideologically" tainted.

But anyone from a doctrine-centred background, who hasn't had their natural curiosity about the world completely erased by doctrinal puppet masters, must eventually face this burning question, namely, why does reality not agree with the doctrine I've been taught? The first step to shedding the shackles of doctrine, and discovering the wonderfully liberating process of looking at data without ideological blinkers, is to ask that basic question, and at the moment, JayJay simply isn't asking that question, because he's still operating in "defend my doctrine's assertions at all costs" mode. With, it has to be said, a fair amount of "defend my own weird made up shit at all costs" added for good measure.

But if all of the discoursive duplicity we're seeing in his posts is traceable to the origins I've mentioned above, then at some point, the force of doctrine so complacently considered to be irresistible, will be found not to be so when it hits the genuinely immovable mountain of data. Then, he's going to experience the very unpleasant feelings that arise from having been lied to by his teachers, and the fallout from that will not be pretty.

Sendraks wrote:an alarming tendancy to "make stuff up" rather than try to understand the avaliable evidence.

Once again, this is a direct product of doctrine centred world views, in which apologetics is considered to be not merely a substitute for data, but purportedly a superior substitute. It's why adherents of doctrine are so fond of apologetics, because all too frequentlly, from an early age, they're taught the duplicitous principle I've just expounded, and schooled in the application thereof.

Sendraks wrote:You're driven by an ideology of trying to project your beliefs onto evolution to create a story which fits with your worldview. As opposed to the rest of us simply trying to explain to you what the evidence says.

And, true to the aetiology, he's accusing us of the very same agenda he's pursuing, as I've covered above. But another part of the aetiology comes into play here, namely, the fact that adherents of real ideologies have a habit of being incapable of viewing the world, except through the distorting prisms of the ideological method itself, that method encouraging the adherent to regard all discourse as a purported "contest" between rival ideologies, even where no ideology exists. As a corollary, the idea of discourse not based upon ideological presuppositions becomes totally alien to said adherents. It's another reason why his "atheist ideology" trope is so perniciously duplicitous, because it arises from a dialectical method not only involving unsupported assertions treated as "axioms", but also involving the treatment of any scepticism about the "axiomatic" nature of those assertions as a heresy to be punished.

Sendraks wrote:JayJay keeps rolling out the phrase "voodoo doll" in response to anything he doesn't understand, so there is little point in arguing with him. This isn't a discussion about zoology or hominid evolution, as JayJay is ignorant of the necessary knowledge to participate fully and only wants to peddle his ideology. Because he doesn't understand the difference between a "symbiotic relationship" and "tool use" he calls it a "voodoo doll" because it doesn't fit with his whacky ideology. Same for group size. That alone trumps his argument hands down and therefore it is a "voodoo dool."

Sorry I still have to reply to posts when I have the time. This point has been occupying my mind though.

What you don’t understand is that habitual use of something that isn’t the self-e.g. a weapon in the case of the pompom crab and a stick and stone in the case of Australopithecus – sets up a relationship that over time and through natural selection, is likely to change the body to make that relationship more effective in relations with the environment. If the something-that-isn’t-the-self happens to be another species then the changes are reciprocal and if its also beneficial then the relationship is called symbiosis. So symbiosis results from particular habit. It’s empty to claim that the pompom crab’s habit is “symbiotic” therefore it’s not the same as australopith weapon carrying-and-use. That’s why I said you were shaking the word “symbiosis” in my face like a voodoo doll.

The only thing stopping us from calling the hominin-stone system symbiotic is that the stones didn’t breed differentially. Or did they? Weapons radiated into the broader class of “tools”? Tools co-evolve with Homo? Why am I sitting here with a keyboard and a screen? That issue has been worked over in SF one way or another for many years. But anyway our intense and intimate interest in weapons and in tools and our facility to use hand weapons at speed with precision and decision is inherited from ancestors who faced that necessity if they were to forage on the savanna in the face of skilled sympatric predators and skilled alternative prey.

Calilasseia wrote:
Given the manner in which creationist ideology - the REAL ideology at work here - has corrupted, perverted and polluted the South African education system for decades under the Apartheid regime, an unpleasant fact Agrippina alerted me to some time back, this is hardly surprising. It's a bit difficult to develop a proper understanding of the biosphere, if those responsible for teaching you about it are subjecting you to the mushroom theory of personnel management, as part of an ideological agenda imposed from on high by a ruling regime seeking to "legitimise" some fairly nasty policies. If JayJay is old enough for his education to have suffered from this blight, then he's going to have a hard time of it here, upon discovering that the certainties he was spoon-fed back then are actually bullshit and lies. Though I note once again, in a tangential diversion, how creationism and racism have a nasty habit of going hand in hand around the world.

I’ve told you a bit about my background a few times before but you ignored it-oddly seeing that you remembered a snippet Agrippa told you about my country. You purport to know all about me but forget or never take in what doesn’t support your story line. It’s true that part of my school education was under apartheid; a few years after the nationalist (apartheid) government came into power, they were triumphalist and indeed, old-earth creationist. I was the only English speaking child in my class and the only evolutionist. My “bible” was the Wells & Huxley “Science of Life” At the age of 11 I was fully aware of the political associations of the Evo-Creo. I didn’t pick a fight about it though, until after a school visit to the museum in Pretoria (Robert Broom, discoverer of Mrs Ples was the director then I think.) Then we had a hang of a screaming match when I found I could face down the entire class- or at least keep myself.

Since then I gradually came to appreciate that the presentation and understanding of evolution has been influenced and damaged by an atheist ideology. I first saw that in a phase when I was myself an atheist. So I have become increasingly estranged from the Evo side, to where I see posters like you pretty much like all those angry bovine crowd-minded little faces in the school dormitory. With bells on.


Edit: I see Broom died in 1951, before the school visit.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:
Given the manner in which creationist ideology - the REAL ideology at work here - has corrupted, perverted and polluted the South African education system for decades under the Apartheid regime, an unpleasant fact Agrippina alerted me to some time back, this is hardly surprising. It's a bit difficult to develop a proper understanding of the biosphere, if those responsible for teaching you about it are subjecting you to the mushroom theory of personnel management, as part of an ideological agenda imposed from on high by a ruling regime seeking to "legitimise" some fairly nasty policies. If JayJay is old enough for his education to have suffered from this blight, then he's going to have a hard time of it here, upon discovering that the certainties he was spoon-fed back then are actually bullshit and lies. Though I note once again, in a tangential diversion, how creationism and racism have a nasty habit of going hand in hand around the world.

I’ve told you a bit about my background a few times before but you ignored it-oddly seeing that you remembered a snippet Agrippa told you about my country. You purport to know all about me but forget or never take in what doesn’t support your story line. It’s true that part of my school education was under apartheid; a few years after the nationalist (apartheid) government came into power, they were triumphalist and indeed, old-earth creationist. I was the only English speaking child in my class and the only evolutionist. My “bible” was the Wells & Huxley “Science of Life” At the age of 11 I was fully aware of the political associations of the Evo-Creo. I didn’t pick a fight about it though, until after a school visit to the museum in Pretoria (Robert Broom, discoverer of Mrs Ples was the director then I think.) Then we had a hang of a screaming match when I found I could face down the entire class- or at least keep myself.

Since then I gradually came to appreciate that the presentation and understanding of evolution has been influenced and damaged by an atheist ideology. I first saw that in a phase when I was myself an atheist. So I have become increasingly estranged from the Evo side, to where I see posters like you pretty much like all those angry bovine crowd-minded little faces in the school dormitory. With bells on.
Edit: I see Broom died in 1951, before the school visit.

Science including evolutionary biology, poses no [direct] threat to religious beliefs. This is because science itself is non-realist. In other words, science does not have to be truth or reality to work. Religious beliefs however are 'realist" in that they posit a world driven by the supernatural, that is a deity or deities. [in before the Bhuddists, re-incarnation etc as supernatural phenomena]. So for the whole religious thing to work, deities or supernatural phenomena HAVE TO exist, or the whole thing falls down.
A theistic evolutionist for example, can posit that god does not interact with the mundane, but becomes the creator of universe and life. The mechanisms of evolution take care of the "day to day" stuff for the last 4 billion years without necessitating his intervention.
But despite science being perfectly capable of producing good models of phenomena, and making excellent predictions, even in the absence of any necessary appeal to realism, the religions will still insist on a reality of low probability, ie that a deity is in overall control.
The same methodological naturalist tricks that bring us good models of biological evolution can also be used on questions like the origins of life and the solar system, thus rendering the creator/god role to the status of non-interactive observer at best.
Finally, the methodologies used by religion and science are so different, and the products of such endevour so different, then one really begins to wonder why religion is not abandoned as a source of useful knowledge. This area, on the question of epistomological rigour, is where the conflict between faith and reason happens. rather than just "making shit up", science demands evidence, reason and mechanisms that are credible or at least consistent. Religious criticisms of the sciencey way of doing this is just confined to mostly irrelevant nit-picking and a failure to use the same level of skepticism about theological/religious information, knowledge or methods.

Jayjay4547 wrote:[quote="Sendraks";p="2045479"One tool for mapping the ideology of western ex-Christian atheists is to look at the origin narrative they build and that’s what I’ve been doing.

You do realise that a sizeable number of Western atheists, especially in Europe, are not ex-christians?

Jayjay4547 wrote: today’s atheist ideology is if anything more extreme in its reaching for hegemony as witnessed on this forum.

You still haven't explained what this is, much less established that it exists.
All you're doing with statements like these is demonstrating you cannot refute your opponents position and therefore resort to ad-hominems, unfounded ones at that.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
I count it as quite an achievement to have reduced you to this frustrated spluttering.

You really love this pathetic pseudo-psychology shit don't you?

Jayjay4547 wrote:There’s always a possibility that some members of the English intellectual elite might come here and whatever they think of my mangled sentences they won’t be impressed by your claim of almost papal authority for science.

Where has he done this.
Oh wait this is yet more thinly veiled ad-hominem trash.

Jayjay4547 wrote:The bias that I claim so see in the established human origin narrative is no more radical than they have been educated to accept in the respected discipline of History.

1. It's history not History.
2. There is no bias in how the origin of humanity is discussed in history, other than a bias towards the facts.

Jayjay4547 wrote: Though the natural history bias I’m claiming is particularly interesting. I’m claiming that when Treves and Palmquist said “When considering hominin anti-predator behavior, many scholars looked first to material culture, such as fire or weaponry” they were representing as scientific progress a swerve away from an already biased approach to treating human ancestors as embedded within and "created" by the biome expressed through the trophic pyramid. The ideological background driving that swerve was partly reaction within the Evo/Creo polarity, let’s call it a dialectic. Atheist scientists aren’t looking good here Cali, this is a vulnerability in an unexpected quarter. You need to lift your game.

You need to actually start presenting evidence instead of piling on the assertionist arsewater.
And 'atheist scientists' is just as meaningful a term as bearded scientists.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Anyway, what I mainly wanted to discuss was your long paste purporting to show that Hitler was Christian.

No purporting took place.
It's an established fact as evident from the facts presented by Cali and myself.

Jayjay4547 wrote:that was all quote mining

Just because a quote contradicts what you believe, doesn't make it quotemining Jayjay.
Quotemining refers to quoting part of a text out of the context of the larger text or conversations it originated from.
Not what other people were thinking or doing at the time.

Jayjay4547 wrote:let’s put it in the context of the very bones of 20th century history.

In light of the assertionist bullshit about history you presented earlier in this post, I highly doubt you're qualified to that.

Jayjay4547 wrote:In 1917 Russia took herself out of the Great War in a Bolshevik revolution.

Nope. Already you start with a incorrect statement.
The Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, after a general revolution. And they didn't seize power to get out of the Great War as your statement implies.

Jayjay4547 wrote:The new government was internationalist,

It was anything but. It greatly feared the response of the international community to their revolution.

Jayjay4547 wrote:avowedly anti-Christian and pro-science.

More bollocks, it was anti-religion, not specifically anti-Christian and it sought to replace religion with it's own cult, the cult of Bolshevism and later Stalin.
More-over it wasn't pro-science, if anything it was anti-intellectual.
It only sought to educate people to extent that they could be used to serve the nation and it produced several pseudo-scientific theories.

Jayjay4547 wrote: It sought to extend communism throughout the world.

How is this, or any of the previous pseudo-historic crap relevant to whether Hitler was an Christian or not?
Hitler was neither a Boslhevik nor a Russian.

Jayjay4547 wrote:In 1918 Germany surrendered after a revolution with a communist heart

Seriously, where did you get your historical education? I advise you to get your money back.
The Germans surrendered because they could not longer maintain the war, both financially and morally.

Jayjay4547 wrote:but the communists were beaten by right-wing capitalist reaction, ending with the compromise of the weak but democratic Weimar republic.

Again, what's this got to do with Hitler being a Christian? None of this makes Cali's quotes, quotemines.

Jayjay4547 wrote:In 1933 the Nazis came to power in Germany as an explicitly anti-communist party.

And anti-Jews, anti-capitalist etc.

Jayjay4547 wrote:They made a concordat with the Catholic political party in which, in exchange for withdrawing from politics, the Catholics would be protected and funded by the Reich, as they still are.

You don't find that odd? That a supposedly anti-Christian nation would sign such an alliance with the biggest Christian origanisation in the world?

Jayjay4547 wrote:In 1937 the Pope issued Mit Brennender Sorge, an encyclical smuggled into Germany and to be read to all Germans. He complained about a breach of contract by the Nazis and warned of the evil of the Fuhrer principle, of paying ultimate allegiance to a man and a State rather than to God.

Doesn't change that the Church refuses to outright oppose Hitler.
And it certainly doesn't change that Hitler and the Nazi's were Christians.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Something important had happened to produce that encyclical. In spite of the brutal anti-Christian actions where communists had taken control in Russia, Mexico and Spain, involving the deaths of thousands of Catholic clergy, and in spite of the trial war in Spain between the Nazis and Communists, there had been a falling out between Nazis and Catholics in Germany. That is documented in Richard J Evans’ The Third Reich in Power. In spite of the Nazis having every strategic interest in an anti-communist alliance with the Catholics, Hitler’s government undermined the Catholics at every turn; trapping clergy using prostitutes and closing down schools and seminaries. At the same time the Protestants were undermined by building up a toady Lutheran faction from which the Confessing church broke away. The disaffection between Nazis and organised Christianity is symbolised by the facts that Stauffenberg who tried to blow Hitler up, was a Catholic and Dietrich Bonhoeffer the theologian who was hanged on piano wire for his role in that, was a Lutheran. Hitler reportedly had the plotters' pants pulled down, supposedly to show what sort of men they were, but really telling us something about Hitler.

That he was opposed to the orginized churches. Not that he was not a Christian, unless you want to appeal to the No True Christian fallacy.

Jayjay4547 wrote:There were no shortage of things Hitler said in public speeches, to align Nazism to the Anti-Communist Christian West.

Indeed, proving that he was Christian.

Jayjay4547 wrote:But the Fuhrer was no church-goer nor was his party of thugs.

And? Most Christian today in my country, hardly, if ever attend church.

Jayjay4547 wrote:They were totalitarian.

They were Christian.

Jayjay4547 wrote:They explicitly freed their minds from the moral halters of the Lutheran and Catholic churches of their day, to wreak cruel havoc wherever their power spread.

Bollocks. They explicitly freed themselves from the interference of other religious authorities and interpeted Christianity for themselves, just as the Protestants had done before them.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

theropod wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:
...continued peddling of this fiction after this post will be regarded by everyone here as suppuratingly dishonest.

Will be? Ha, I've abandoned all hope of a course correction or intellectual honesty.

RS

Explain to me the lack of intellectual honesty you have found in my posts.

Your refusal to adress many reponses to your posts.
Your refusal to acknowledge facts that contradict your assertionits fantasies.
Just two examples.